Our most recent batch of piglets are 6 weeks old today. Sally only had 6 this time around and 5 of them were males! Since we are raising most of these piglets for meat, castrating the males is a common practice.
I have seen many castrations done with our previous litters at our local high school via the ag department. It is a relatively simple operation and the ag teacher has even let some of his animal science high school students take a try at it. Several of them have performed the procedure with no problems.
It is one thing to watch, but a whole ‘nother thing to do it yourself! We have recognized for some time the benefit it would be to have the knowledge to perform this operation "in house". If we are going to continue in the hog operation business for the long haul, it will not always be practical to have to rely on someone else. We are all about learning, here at our homestead, and the best way of learning is by doing. Yesterday, the ag teachers came over to Pure Water Hollow to help us out with the castrations. (They perform various services like this to the community all the time, usually bringing students with them.) What makes this a red letter day for our homestead, is that I "cut" a piglet for the first time. Since he is still living today, I want to say that I have performed my first successful pig castration!
Of the 5 male piglets, we decided to keep one in tact to replace Rufus as our daddy boar. (Rufus has just gotten too big, and the piglet production has greatly decreased, so we are going to go with new, younger pigs for future breeding.) So that left 4 piglets to cut. At 6 weeks old, they are getting a bit large, but they are still small enough to castrate easily. (The big pig operations usually do this before they are two weeks old, sometimes even at just one day old! I think that I prefer to wait until they are closer to being weaned, between 3 and 6 weeks old.)
Simon and Matthew caught the piglets for us, and Matthew and I took turns holding the piglets up by the hind legs while the castrations were being performed. We watched and listened as Mr. K, the ag teacher, did the first three. They were fighting us and squealing more than previous litters. I think it was because we have not spent as much time with these piglets petting them and playing with them, so they were not as comfortable with people as some of the other litters have been. The piglets were drawing their testicles up close to their stomach, which made it more dificult. Mr. K said another reason it is easier to do this when they are younger is that those muscles are not as strong so they can’t pull them in as much.
After observing the first three, it was my turn to try. The hardest part was finding the testicle, since this one was drawing his in, too. You have to press your thumb and finger in his groin area pretty hard and feel around and get behind the testicle. I wasn’t pressing hard enough for fear of hurting him. (I don’t know what I was thinking. This was a castration!) Mr. K found it, got his finger behind it, and this was the place to make the incision. The scalple easily sliced through the outer skin and the first testicle was exposed. Next, I sliced right into the testicle which makes it expand and "pop" out. Then you can grab hold of it and gently pull it out until the cords and tissues attached to it are exposed. These get scraped with the scalple until they break and the testicle is loose. If you make a clean cut here, they can bleed too much and end up dying. Using the same initial incision, I tried to push the other testicle up to the slit. Again, Mr. K had to press on the piglet to manuever the testicle in position. With it in place, I cut into this one and repeated the procedure just like the first. I then washed the incision with a betadine solution, and gave it a shot of 3cc of an antibiotic Mr. K brought. I thought I had depressed the syringe plunger all the way, but Mr. K saw that there was still some medicine in it. The plunger had stopped, and I’m not sure why I could not press it in anymore. Mr. K got the rest of the medicine to go in, and I guess I could have done it if I hadn’t been scared of breaking it.
The 4 patients just laid in the stall for a while at first. Later that night, they were up and walking around, and today they seemed to be as normal as before their operation! We let them out of their stall and they ran arround in circles and wrestled with each other and played! They seem to be as good as new, and they can now enjoy their next 4 1/2 months of life, eating to their heart’s content and growing to be over 200 pounds of pork flesh. I guess that sounds sort of cold, but it is their purpose in life. We will give them as happy and healthy of a life as possible and then we will thank them, and the Lord, for providing meat for our family. We plan on butchering them the first or second week in December, when they are 6 months old.
There really is not much to cutting a piglet, and it is no big deal to many folks. For us, however, it was a significant step toward becoming more self-sufficient, which is a goal of ours here at Pure Water Hollow. I am thankful to God (and to my ag teachers) for the experience.
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