Fifteen Teats

The big digger has done his pass along the bank and left behind a huge ugly mess but he did not tear down the trees I have up there and evidently the path is still intact but I am not walking it anymore.

The smell is just awful and we have rain due so it will be a while before we can get in there to start the clean up.  But until then I am not going to think about it.

Molly is still not showing signs of imminent birth. I hope she does not wait too long because Poppy is also pregnant and I only have one farrowing pen. I put Poppy in with the boar a good six weeks after Poppy hoping to avoid a clash.

But we will see. I was cleaning in her run yesterday and she followed me back and forth. She loves the company.

When she lay down to show me her widening belly I realised that her teats do not line up. so I counted them and she has fifteen. How did I miss this before? Or had I forgotton?

Here is a close up so you can count too – yup fifteen. Usually the teats line up in pairs and we have an even number. So, Molly – no more than fifteen babies please.

Every other animal i have worked with has a uniform number of teats but it varies with pigs. Don’t you think that is odd?

She is getting awfully wide!

Now that the digger has scraped his way past I can relax again. I can deal with problems or extra work – I just like to see exactly what I have so I can make a plan of action.

I worked within sight of the digger man, in a very bright hoodie so he could not miss me moving about, after we had our very amiable wee chat. So he could see I was still there guarding my Fellowship Forest and making sure the pigs did not escape. They spent the whole time he was close running back and forth in high excitement.

I will take a picture of the mess for you today – it is pretty widespread.  I did not want to look closely yesterday.

I hope you have a lovely day.

celi