Weaning without Whining

Of course it rained torrentially yesterday so Nick and I worked in the barn repairing and cleaning.

At one point Molly plonked herself right in front of me to watch what I was doing so I had a really good view of her teats and belly and immediately decided to wean her from her big voracious piglets. Nick and I moved things about a bit, I locked all the piglets into one side then opened her gate and without a word she followed me out into the driveway, across the grass ,  through another field and into the salad bar paddock that had a great big clean wallow, newly filled from all the rain.

She headed straight for the wallow and with a great sigh of relief had herself a really nice long bath without interruptions from children demanding food.

The piglets are eating well and no-one made any protests. 

There are plenty of buyers for them, so now they proceed to get a bit bigger and even stronger and almost all of them will be sold within a month.

From this:

To this:

In 27 days. Good mama. She raised all eleven beautifully – and even taught them to eat solid food so we could wean them a little early.

The sad news is that the smallest and weakest of the Rescue piglets has died last night.  She put up a good fight though poor wee girl.  But there are three very strong and rambunctious piglets surviving and one wobbly one. But the wobbly one can stand and drink with the others, lapping from the bowl and is getting stronger by the day. Though she may never be 100%. She is still undergoing piggy physio frequently throughout the day. The general consensus is that they both sustained spinal damage. I am hoping the wobbly one has only spinal bruising. No-one has had piglets who cannot walk before, for other breeders every piglet with this problem has died within hours from shock.

The littlist, who recovered from her hunched sick demeanor, terrible scours and started to walk well just the other day, is now trotting about and looks like a small tank. Her skin is all cleaned up and she is a most amusing little pig.

We should make T-shirts for these little girls. They are an incredibly determined bunch of wee pigs.  Shall we do a T shirt?  We have not had a T shirt for ages.

They are all well established on raw cows milk, are nibbling on grain and hay and their digestive systems are much cleaner and happier.

The relief is that now that they are all drinking from the bowl and I do not need to bottle feed the weakest one anymore,  I can go to one midnight top-up and get a good nights sleep.  Another few days and I can take that back to ten pm.

I will bring them out of the nursery and introduce them to you tomorrow.

More rain today evidently. The mud  here is beyond epic. I am fairly sure that Lady Astor’s mastitis (that is clearing) was caused by a speck of dried mud getting  into her teat canal.  To get to the barn they are slogging though a mire and there is no way around it without building a new gate – something I may have to do.  Sometimes I have to hose their legs down before milking.

OK – work time for me!

Have a lovely day

Love celi