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Yesterday I was sitting behind my laptop working when Little Bit crashed through the door. She'd gone out to feed the animals and was now standing int he door yelling at me. "We have baby pigs!"
We have three hogs in the barn, two sows and one boar. The sows are young, right at a year and certainly old enough to breed but I'd never noticed she was carrying. Going out to the barn I found eight piglets. Only three were alive. They were obviously born the previous night which was one of the coldest we've had this year. Four of the dead I believe succumbed to hypothermia, the last was trampled.
So we now have three piglets. The mother seems to have no interest in them so we've brought them inside to keep them warm and try to feed them which is tough. Piglets will fight a bottle and it takes time to get them to accept it. Sometimes they will drink from a dish, even as young as 12 hours. So we're experimenting with the two trying to get them to feed. So far two of them have taken the bottle and the third is going between it and the dish so hopefully they'll make it. Though one of them has a couple of wounds where it was trampled as well.
So today I'm separating the other female from the boar in case she is carrying too, though she shows no signs at all. I'd just decided to sell the hogs and put an ad up for them. Now this! I only thought I was out of the pig business!
We have three hogs in the barn, two sows and one boar. The sows are young, right at a year and certainly old enough to breed but I'd never noticed she was carrying. Going out to the barn I found eight piglets. Only three were alive. They were obviously born the previous night which was one of the coldest we've had this year. Four of the dead I believe succumbed to hypothermia, the last was trampled.
So we now have three piglets. The mother seems to have no interest in them so we've brought them inside to keep them warm and try to feed them which is tough. Piglets will fight a bottle and it takes time to get them to accept it. Sometimes they will drink from a dish, even as young as 12 hours. So we're experimenting with the two trying to get them to feed. So far two of them have taken the bottle and the third is going between it and the dish so hopefully they'll make it. Though one of them has a couple of wounds where it was trampled as well.
So today I'm separating the other female from the boar in case she is carrying too, though she shows no signs at all. I'd just decided to sell the hogs and put an ad up for them. Now this! I only thought I was out of the pig business!
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