Piglets!!!!

Our two Hereford Pigs gave birth this past week! Olivia had 2 healthy girls and 1 healthy boy on Sunday, Sept. 10.  Two days later, Tuesday, Sept 12, Runt gave birth to 3 girls and a boy! Unfortunately, Wednesday afternoon, we noticed one of Runt’s girls couldn’t get up onto her back legs. After letting Runt out of the farrowing pen, we were able to safely remove the injured piglet to examine her. I grabbed that baby and took off towards the house as quickly as I could, knowing that if it started squealing, I would have an angry 350+ pound momma charging after me. Fortunately, she didn’t even squeal when I grabbed her and took off to the house, so we knew she was pretty weak. One of her back legs was completely out of the hip socket, and there was so much bruising and what looked like internal bleeding, like maybe she had been stepped on. After a call to our vet, we decided the most humane thing to do would be to put her down. Talk about the hardest thing ever. We’ve experienced similar scenarios with chicks and have had our times of finding baby chicks, and even Landry’s firstborn already passed away, but this was so much harder. As with everything else, you take a moment to be sad, praise Jesus for the healthy babies, then dust your boots off and get back to work/farm chores. Shannon was able to build a pallet wall along the fence separating the mommas, so they felt more secure and stopped trying to fight each other, which will hopefully lower the chances of another piglet getting stepped on. So far, so good! In about 8 weeks, we will have piglets looking for new homes!