The seasons are changing, and so are things on the farm!

Wow! Those 8 weeks flew by so fast! All of the piglets have sold, and the last one will go to her new home next weekend. Let me just say, piglets are so dang cute and fun to watch! That being said, after lots of thoughts and prayers, we have decided to get out of the pig business for at least a year, maybe 2. Don’t get me wrong, we have absolutely LOVED raising pigs and piglets, but they are SUPER expensive to feed! We were spending more to feed the pigs over the last year than we spent on our own groceries!

About 5 weeks ago, our sows were still down at the farrowing pen with their piglets when they went into heat again. The boars smelled them, leading them to somehow CLIMB over their hogpanel fence so they could go visit the ladies. We came home to them out and fighting each other trying to get close to the girls. After some quick thinking, redneck rigging, and lots of enticing, we were able to get the boys into the pen by the girls. As we were trying to reinforce the gates and add a fence between the boars & the sows’ pens, they started to fight again! This time, Red threw Bacon into the fence right between me and Shannon, almost laying the fence on its side. Talk about an adrenaline rush! Try having a 400+ pound pig flying at you! After several hours, we got the pens how we needed and got everyone settled, praise Jesus. Then, the next evening after work, we planned to lure each boar, one at a time, into an enclosure on wheels that Shannon had previously made, and then roll them back up to their pen. First up was Red. He made it pretty easy, following the scent of the watermelon I was enticing him with into the enclosure. We got him moved up the hill and into his pen with no troubles at all. Next was Bacon’s turn. As we were luring Bacon to come into the enclosure, I looked up, and who do I see? Red is free and coming back down the hill to find his ladies! We avert the plan, get Red back into the pen with Bacon, then discover that Bacon went OVER the hog panel AGAIN to get out! At this point, we called it a night and decided to just keep them down by the girls for a few weeks until it was time to rehome a boar and a sow. The next evening, we noticed Red was starting to swell at his penile pouch. The next day, it was doubled in size, and then even bigger the next day. After talking with our vet and showing him pictures, it was decided that he must have herniated himself when he climbed over the hog panel. We had two options: 1. Bring him to the vet and have surgery, costing $800 or more, or 2. Send him to freezer camp. We had planned on breeding Red again because of his beautiful structure, so we were so sad to have to send him to freezer camp.

We were then down to 2 sows, a boar, and 6 piglets. The piglets sold super fast, and we had several farmers reaching out to buy a boar & sow breeding pair. First, we decided to trade a guy in South Louisiana a boar and sow for a ram and ewe, but when it was about a week away from trading time, he backed out. It wasn’t but a few days before I had another guy lined up to make a trade, and then he backed out a week later due to not having anywhere to put them. Then, low and behold, one of the farms that had purchased two of the piglets mentioned they had sheep and were interested in making a trade. If all goes well, Sunday afternoon, we will be trading our pigs for sheep! Sammy is so excited, and so is my bank account, haha!

In addition to adding sheep (a ram & two pregnant ewes) to the farm, we are also picking up two dairy bull calves this weekend! A friend of ours sent us a message the other day, saying she was moving and couldn’t take her calves with her, and asked if we could home them. Of course we agreed! We had been wanting to get a steer to grow out and butcher, and this was the perfect opportunity! As of tomorrow, we will be welcoming Big Mac and Meatloaf to our farm! Pics to come!