Yes. That would be Tahiti. Her belly is really starting to drop now. This is called bellying down in Hog Breeders Speak. Can you see the line of her udder forming? 
In my experience she probably has a week or so to go but things are progressing nicely. She lay down for me yesterday and I definitely felt two piglets kick my hand.
They have been wormed which I always do a couple of weeks ahead but I am not really sure of the date. Every pig is different so we will keep a close eye on her and Molly.
The chicks are getting bigger now so they have been given all of the Turkey House floor to cruise about in – Red Rangers are such nice birds to raise for the freezer. Much more vigorous that those white ones. They are already drinking milk twice a day. The Turkey house was designed as a brood -house for chicks and built by Fede our favourite woofer from last year and it works extremely well.
Yesterday John scraped the yards for me with the bucket of the tractor. This is a job best done by someone who is really familiar with the tractor. Scraping old concrete at speed with the bucket of the tractor and scooping the sludge up at the same time needs some skill. This rain turned the yards into a horror of muck.
Now we are all clean and this will lessen the flies for a while. The flies are the bane of our existence here.
I know I was going to do reviews on Snndays but I am still in the planning stages. I have a feeling this part of the Farm Blog improvements may not start until Winter. However joining the Blog to the Instagram community is working very well. Instagram is a bit like the icing on the cake. The cake is the blog – a good solid cake too thanks to you. So we have words and the good pictures on the blog and one or two pictures a day – the moment I grab them – on the Instagram. Instagram is the perfect place for images otherwise lost and breaking news. And with two pregnant pigs that breaking news could be soon!
There is another interesting off shoot of joining Instagram – I am carrying my phone more often so I can capture the images and for safety reasons this is a good idea.
To make the marriage official I have changed the name of the Instagram account to cecilia_thekitchensgarden. Later today I will update the Join Me page to include this.
If you are not an Instagram person though do not worry – you still have the whole CAKE every morning at sunrise, here on the Kitchens Garden Farmy Blog.
I hope you have a lovely day.
celi
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
40 responses to “Bellying Down”
I am really enjoying your IG posts! Glad to hear you are carrying your phone. It is definitely a safety issue!
Yes. I am hopeless about losing it too so this all day communication is a good thing.. c
I almost cry when I see the large [and interesting] area your chickens have for roaming. Their life may be short but it is a joyful one . . . when I think of the photos of the shoulder-to-shoulder existence of commercially grown barn chooks . . . if they have thoughts, what could such be . . . !! 🙂 Did not know chickens drank milk – another lesson learnt!!
When they are little they love to run about. The milk is very high in protein and good for fattening them.. c
As I am coming in late: a number of those in the Lounge have commented about your suggestion to join you on Instagram which I am certain is great, but – I also am one who simply has to decline with thanks – as I have said before it is completely beyond my comprehension how people can find daily time for all these social media activities bar a few minutes each day on going ‘visiting’ – I must be very slow with paidwork, studies, volunteering, committee and panel and other necessary local activities and an active social life and all else which takes up ‘my’ life !!! House and garden included 🙂 !!
I know what you mean! Way to go setting boundaries! Every time I turn around, they have another way for me to spend a bazillion hours a day online. If there’s someone out there who can work a real job, volunteer/take care of a family, sleep, and do all the social media, I’d like to meet them!
It is just an offer Eha, not a requirement. c
I love how the scope and presence of the Farmy is expanding. For myself, I’m going to stick with my nice solid slice of cake every day, rather than Instagram’s whipped cream. I try to limit the number of social media things I get involved in, and I like words, so blogging is my medium of choice rather than IG’s pictures. But I can see how brilliant it would be for recording fleeting moments and images, and how much it will be enjoyed by everyone who uses IG. I hope Miss Tahiti chooses a reasonable time to present her babies, rather than in the middle of the few short hours you seem to sleep!
Yes, fingers crossed and also fingers crossed that she farrows easily.. c
Off to join your Instagram account.
Wonderful – see you over there too! c
same as me Nadia…cannot miss a good thing
It is fun. c
I hope the pigs will mange births on separate days (or even weeks) – I can’t wait to see the piglets 🙂
This is my hope too – sometimes I am just not sure who will farrow first! It will be obvious towards the end.. c
I hope they all get on well too 🙂
It is very interesting to see how your blog is evolving. I have been thinking I should dip my toes into Instagram but am a little reluctant to go there. It encourages me to read how much you enjoy doing it. Your pig is a fine one~can’t wait to see the piglets!
Yes! It is easy and current – the blog and instagram seem to want to interweave . c
I’m resisting IG, but will stick to reading your blog 🙂
Re flies: have you ever tried the fly predators? I learned about them from an old horseman I really respect, and he swears by them. Might be worth a try, if only in a couple of your really bad areas.
I don’t know fly predators- I can spray the cows when they come in but nothing put off those nasty horse flies.. I hate those things.. c
You can make a fly trap that works quite well for the horse fly types. Make a cone out of window screening leaving hole at the point. Put it wide side down on some sort of legs or base in the sun, hang a ball painted black under it and put a large (preferably plastic) jar over the tip of the cone on top. The flies go for the dark object, realize it has no blood to slurp, fly up into the cone and die inside the jar. They are apparently too stupid to figure out how to fly down and out of the cone. I used tomato or peony rings with the legs pointing up and wired almost to a point. You can wrap the screening around the legs. The fly predators are actually small wasps that burrow inside fly larva and kill them, You can get them from Arbico Organics. It all helps!
It works! (UGH – August, wet, and flies)
beautiful photos – I look forward to finding you on Instagram
Hi Anne, thank you – have a lovely day.. c
I am warming up to Instagram , I like playing with the photos.
They do have some good editing tools. c
I guess I will have to figure out instagram- not sure I have the right phone for it! Looking forward to seeing little piglets soon! Cheers!
I had to delete my twitter account, as I got hacked. Maybe I should look into Instragram instead.
Linda
You are my first blog read of the day, every day. Thank you for doing all that work. I love coming here to see what’s new. Now, onto my to do list. Have a wonderfilled Sunday.
Fabulous photos of those chicks. Were they taken on your phone?
No, I cannot get my I phone to talk to my laptop without getting leads out – this is why I put my phone pics on instagram and my camera pictures on wordpress. it is easier that way. The chicks are very photogenic.. c
Whatever it takes to have you work with a phone in your pocket is welcomed by me. Never would have guessed that social media would have been the cause, though. 🙂
Life is funny.. c