NINE PIGLETS AND A BULL CALF

All born yesterday. Poppy’s labour lasted all night and was not without its problems but she has nine lovely live and very active piglets and they are feeding almost non stop. The piglets are still on lock down so the only image of them I have is from the monitor.

But here is Lady Astor with her baby.  Born yesterday at lunchtime.  I saw her looking uncomfortable – moved all the other cows out of the field she was in, she lay down as I walked away and within about 30 minutes we had a little bull calf.

It was a beautiful comparitively warm day so they hung out in the field, baby got up soon after birth and was drinking shortly after that, while I dealt with the milking set up. I had everything ready just not all put together.

Then I walked the baby all the way to the barn  with Mama close behind.

It all went quite well considering my deep sleep deprivation. Adrenalin goes a long way.

Later I milked Lady – her udder is so big and swollen and engorged, it was no fun for her. But it was getting impossible for the calf to latch on and very painful for the cow.

Here is that rather gruesome sci fi image of Poppy and her crowd of babies.

I milked again this morning at five am in a massive dark thunder and lightening storm. The weather was very, very loud and the rain was coming down in sheets.

To alert the sows to my arrival  (the sows and their babies, and Lady and her calf  are in the barn where the milking room is),  I put the soft milking music on, the phone tucked into my pocket, so they could hear me coming and going and moving about. With the milking music and the rain and the pump chugging away and  Lady mooing to her calf:  the sows joined in with their feeding chorus, grunting for their piglets to come out for a drink, and the piglets began to squeal and it became very noisy in the barn at one point.

It is 7.58 now.  I am cleaned up and back up to the house. The workers are outside doing chores. I am having my second coffee. The ground is waterlogged. We had way too much rain last night and more coming this evening. It is going to be a soggy  day.  I am thinking of loading everyone up into the truck and off we go to get feed and supplies.  Best use of a rainy day.

Merciful heavens yesterday was crazy. It all happened at once but we have all forty feet on the ground. And soon we will have milk!

Have a lovely day.

celi

Weather says more rain.