Pregnant Pigs?
How do you know when your pig is pregnant? Well, for a start she will not come into heat again. The signs of heat for the big Hereford Pigs are very obvious but for the Kunekune? Well I cannot tell when Tima is IN heat let alone if she misses one. 
But Tima is definitely showing more belly. And she is sleeping a lot more too. She gets out of bed last and in the afternoons Tane is grazing and Tima is sleeping. Though the moment she sees me angling towards her gate she is up and galloping over. So to get a shot from the side so we can look at her droopy belly I have to creep up on her.
Poppy, on the other hand, has not shown any signs of heat since her March 11 breeding. Though as you know her Standing Heat signs were pretty lame but she has just passed her second heat date without trying to rip the gates off so IF she is pregnant she is six weeks along. A pig is pregnant for 114 days. Three months, three weeks and three days. (so convenient) And usually a pig will deliver pretty much exactly on time.
I am not going to count to a due date quite yet though as I am afraid of jinxing it. I will wait until I see actual changes in her udder. So far though I feel that I am seeing more of the white of her belly. But then – I could be imagining what I want to see. 
With Poppy I need to get her and her brood through while it is still warm. With Tima the ‘when’ does not really matter. Don’t tell anyone but if Tima does not farrow until it is cold again I will just walk her down into the basement. I can make her a special heated pen down there. Tima is a civilised New Zealand pig. Poppy on the other hand is a wild Heritage pig – not a house pig – she HAS to be in the barn. Just imagine Poppy in the basement! Merciful heaven.
Sheila though is an educated pig. I think she would camp out on the couch without too much trouble. I imagine she would scorn the basement option though. 
Good morning. Last evening I milked Lady A without any help. She gave two gallons of frothy milk without any trouble at all. She raised her foot a couple of times and with my elbow, I just set it back down again. When she was done I let her baby back into the milking shed and both were happy. I think we are over the worst of it. Though I don’t want to jinx that either by speaking too soon!
Today I will plant the wild plums – the last of my spring trees. Yesterday I swapped three tiny wild plum trees for a length of Hops vine. ( The plot thickens!)
On another alcoholic note not one of my Vidal Blanc grape vines has come back this year. No signs of budding at all. I don’t know what to make of that.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farm,
celi
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I bet Poppy can imagine herself in the basement 😉
Good Morning. Really love visiting here every morning
I had a plum tree die over winter, was doing great last year had it’s first crop of plums but never budded out this year. Our winters are mild so that is not the problem.
Oh No, no more Ladybird wine … that’s sad. Holding thumbs for the Piggy Pregnancy parties. Laura
Celia, if you have any willows growing in your area, make willow water and pour it around the base of your unresponsive grape vines or any trees needing a boost (or perennials particularly needing to come back). It’s a root growing hormone and has brought back the dead around here. Take the last 6 or 8″ at the end of willow branches (where the hormone is strongest), cut up into 1″ sections, put in a bucket with rain water or non-chlorinated water, let it sit covered for a couple of days, and strain the branches (compost them) or just leave them in the water longer. Pour the water on the roots. Bango, 3 days of that and most things, if there is any life left in them at all, will recover. Be patient though, it might take a week or so to give them enough growing time to produce leaves again. I had 3 elder berry bushes planted as bare root in clay soil which were dead sticks, ready to toss. But I watered them with willow water for a few days and at the base near the soil out popped little green leaves. They are now healthy bushes 2 years later! Good luck. Diann Dirks, Permaculture Designer, Auburn, Ga.
Thank you Diann – I also use willow water to strike cuttings.. it is excellent stuff.. c
Wow! How cool is that? Thanks for this! Wikipedia says: “Salicylic acid (from Latin salix, willow tree, from the bark of which the substance used to be obtained) is a monohydroxybenzoic acid, a type of phenolic acid and a beta hydroxy acid. It has the formula C7H6O3. This colorless crystalline organic acid is widely used in organic synthesis and functions as a plant hormone.”
Tima’ll be wanting cable TV and an internet connection down there in basement — her own blog, too, I reckon. Good morning to you all! xx
We are all crossing fingers and toes in anticipation of pregnant Poppy and Tima!
I can just about remember the joy of the afternoon nap when I was pregnant so I can understand what enjoyment Tima gets from her afternoon kip…..
Sorry that you vines have not appeared so far , maybe you will have a sober year.( only joking…)
Sheila also loves her sleeps
Such gorgeous sunshine in all those pictures! Perfect for a cat snooze. And a sleepy pregnant pig.
May your wishes for baby pigs be fulfilled. Perhaps your vines are just having a sleep in, and will come to life when it gets warm. I’m off to buy some yeast now, to experiment with the machine. There were no recipes with it, so I’ve been searching the net for something workable.
Have a good day
love,
ViV
Watch out, or Tima will be demanding a birthing pool and Tane by her side for the event… What a sly pair they’ve been if it’s true. Much more civilised and discreet than Miss Poppy, who rattles gates rather than bedheads, thank goodness…
I have a friend in WV whose wine grapes JUST popped a leaf bud two days ago. Give yours time. It was long winter.
I love all the animals on your farmy, but for some reason the kitties pose the best.
The thing is there is no green inside the stems, it is brittle and dead, I am hoping maybe there will be some shoots from above the graft.. c
Thank you Miss C, I feel well informed now on what to look for as to pig heat although I know no pigs in which I can watch for signs, it is useful information 😉 Hops?? do I detect the possibility of some IPA and ales and dark stouts in your future…
So exciting about the ‘pregnant girls’! You will continue to look at them and wonder if they are pregnant for probably another month! Sometimes it is difficult to know for sure until very close to the due day!!! xo
I LOVE a good dark stout, so did my grandmother she recommended a glass of stout before dinner for nursing mothers.. and elderly grandmothers who did not have much of an appetite.. c
In hospital, after my first baby, the ward sister told all us new mums to get our husbands to bring in Guiness for us. She also had us sunbathing topless to toughen our nipples! Thank the lord that it was June!
Christine
My father was in hospital (in Dublin, the home of Guinness.) for most of the year in 1958, He refused all food. The sister asked if he would drink Guinness. Yes he would, so he was prescibed a bottle of stout and a small carton of cream mixed, every day. It really brought him back to life!
Wow! Glad to know the Sisters weren’t all ultra-conservative.
I knew their was something medicinal about dark beer! Yum! 🍺
Robin🐥
Oh, how exciting about Tima, if it is so! I love your plan for accomodations – you are always thinking ahead! Daisy deer came up top for a visit last night and I was able to feel her babies moving in her belly. This is just amazing to me… that she allows my hands pressing on her. Daisy is doing as she has in her other two pregnancies – she returns from running wild at the river with the other deer all winter. She wants attention – we brush her an pick ticks and fleas off of her. She adores the attention. In another month we’ll be awaiting the births of more fawns… and I’m just sure it’s twins again. Daisy is already big as a barrel!!
Lovely to be so close to such elegant creatures, but I hope you are protected against Lyme disease. We here in the city are warned about it as it is prevalent in our forest preserves. And very serious.
Lyme disease is a concern here too. Already this season I have pulled six ticks out of my hair. I don’t venture into the woods much this time of year so I must be getting them here on our property up top (canyon down below is where the woods are). I noticed one area near our burn pit where you can actually hear the ticks falling!! I think they are found at elm trees many times – and I’m not sure what the attraction is. There isn’t really a way to keep them off, is there? I’m pretty much a natural girl so I don’t use repellants. I haven’t found an essential oil that repels them either. What to do?
Put on some Discovery Channel. If she cries when she sees the little baby alligator can’t find her big alligator mom, the pig is pregnant. If she’s like, “meh, what’s that alligator on about,” definitely not pregnant.
All the green almost makes my eyes hurt, in a good way. A pig with a mouthful of grass. Good to get that documentation for the non believers. Such exciting maybe gonna happen news…no jinxing here. So glad Lady A has calmed a bit and can now be nudged into position with an elbow. We had a huge thunderstorm very early this morning, huge cracks of thunder and barrels of rain. How was the butter? delicious, I’m sure! Have a good day, C.
We might have to rename the Farmy as The nursery! Any more of this and you will have me all broody! 😆
You are going to be sooooo busy looking after all the little ones this year! Boo will be on overtime 🙂
My doctor said I should drink a glass of either Guinness or Mackison stout every day when I was pregnant!
Don’t give up on the grapes yet – it was a bad winter and things are taking a long time to come back. I have several plants/trees I thought were dead (and yes if you broke the twigs they did look dead) but starting to see some little green leaves appear. It is still cold here for April – after all I am in the SOUTH of VA! Cold wind too.
Oh I must feel ‘wicked’ on this ANZAC Day morn as I am really laughing about the stout for pregnant mums-to-be – here Down Under prohibition these days is extremely strong . . . fair enough, am not arguing – much has been found out since I had two in three years! But in spite of my medical background we truly did not know and I must have had wine with dinner every night and remember the day my older one was due: was madly dancing the night away in one of our supper clubs for a family member’s birthday . . . so remember both my parents and in-laws laughing that it would be lovely were I to go into labour then and there . . . the hospital but 100 meters down the hill and they thought I would not feel a thing!! And both my folk and my husband’s were quite ‘square’ folk 🙂 ! And the kids, thank God, turned out 110%
Sheila would expect to take her meals at the dinner table, no doubt.
Hello Miss C – this is totally off today’s topic, but . . . Remember when you were wondering what happens to the stuff from hotels? I just read something on Yahoo News (which I generally take with a very large grain of salt, because who knows who writes their stuff or whether it’s fact-checked, but I digress). The article is about an American fellah who wondered about hotel soap – and has apparently done something about it. He started a non-profit that is working hard to be part of the solution. His web-site is cleantheworld.org – I’ve not looked at the site yet, but perhaps some of the Fellowship might like to follow up. I’ll try to have a look tomorrow.
In the meantime – fingers crossed, touching my little wooden head – hopeful for Tima and Poppy.
Chris S in Canada
Love Puss n Boots. Hope all the budding piggies come to pass.
That cat!
My wild grape vines haven’t done anything yet, I’m not too far north of you. They all look quite dead and dry, as well. It was a nasty winter. Here’s hoping both Poppy and Tima are expecting, I really want to see a kunekune piglet, and with such handsome parents, they’ll be gorgeous. Glad Lady A is behaving better during milking, she just needed to get the idea firmly in her cow brain.
I’m back home and trying to catch up on all the news. Hoping for the best.