Chubby Piggies

The Seven little  piglets I rescued three nights ago are finally looking OK. I still go out to their little den in the Turkey House every 2 hours and lift them up to have a drink.  They were so weak and wobbly yesterday but by early this morning I could definitely feel weight gain and a bit more resistance and balance.

I am not going to say that they will come through yet, I will wait for the end of week one for that, but I will say so far so GOOD.  They have successfully changed from the colostrum formula to the regular baby formula with no sign of scours yet.  The wounded ones are healing fast which is good.  Keep your fingers firmly crossed though.

I had help yesterday for the day which enabled me to get my rhythm back and a decent dinner on the table. My house is clean again and the farm chores are up to date again, mostly. My next wwoofer comes on Monday evening.  He will hit the ground running!

The two hourly visits to the piglets will only  go for one more night then I think I can trust the piglets to feed themselves and  go to three or four hourly checks.   You remember that a Sow will lie down then call her piglets across to feed? Well that is what I am doing, I use the same sounds every time, waking them up, then get one drinking and the sound of that one drinking is like a catalyst and they all  gather about to fight for the teats. If my luck is in I can get all seven up and drinking at the same time so the visits do not take long at all but that does not happen too often yet.  A few of the piglets are very wobbly and cannot stay on the teat for long  so I hold them up.  I am hoping that they gain in strength today.

Above are the rescued piglets napping around Darlek between feeds.  They are all putting on little weight and a few are even starting to look a little chubby.

In the night I could hear Molly’s brood  of eleven drinking from my bedroom window as I prepared to go out and wake my rescue piglets up.  Molly’s lot are like an alarm clock all of their own – so loud. (If you do have instagram pop over to see the short video I put up of them drinking  – the noise they make is deafening- cecilia_thekitchensgarden.  I cannot get anything from my phone to the computer anymore so instagram is my way of showing you the phone images.)

Time to start my morning,  first up is the Rescue Piglets  and then on from there. Amanda my help will still be here this morning and will drive me to the big feed store to stock up on stuff. If I drive myself I would be asleep at the wheel within minutes. Our roads are dead straight – forty minutes on one straight road is perfect for napping!

The header image is of one of Molly’s babies heading outside.   So well fed and shiny. 

I hope you have a lovely day.

Love celi

PS I have looked to buy one of these PigSaver contraptions in case I have piglets to raise again but cannot find one anywhere. If you come across one in your internet wanderings let me know. This is indeed a pig-saver.  Though still in the early days.