piggie update #1

The piglets will be 2 weeks old tomorrow.



The three females are way bigger than the male, which is apparently normal.



I have tried using the internet to find out about all sorts of pig related husbandry, and scoured our books, for information on various issues we are having. in the end as Rick keeps telling me, don't worry about it nature will take it's course. The male piglet although a bit thin is just generally smaller, the females are generally bigger. The sow seems to have mastitis, however she's not under the weather and isn't bothered about me touching her udder, so I'm leaving well alone. As she only had a litter of four it doesn't seem be a problem. There's still no farrow rail, again not a problem so far, so we're not getting one.

The ear nibbling also sounds terrible and the blood looks terrible, but the ears heal well and our pigs arrived with bits missing from their ears so, I guess that's normal too.

Click play to watch piggies fighting



There isn't alot on the internet about pig rearing outside of countries like UK and USA, I'm guessing lots of people are doing it like us, they're just not writing about it. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm not loosing any sleep about whether I'm doing all the right things, the fact remains the pigs are healthy and happy and nothing died. We must be doing something right.

thieves in the night

I hadn't actually noticed until my neighbour pointed out that some of my plants were missing.
It took her about five minutes to explain where they had gone and why.



They had been taken in the night by someone (?) and placed in a circle with everybody else's pot plants in front of the font in the village




I have trawled around the internet looking for stuff about Saint Antonio, I won't bore you with it, all I'll say is it involves sardines and lots of them (cancelled here yesterday, due to bad weather!, not sure how traditional that is) and someone coming in the night and stealing all your plants, in my case 2 geraniums and lots of basil. Now whether they realised that it was basil is another matter but basil happens to be THE herb of choice for this particular saint.



All very funny and the cause of much hilarity among the locals at our expense

baby elephants

The piggies made their way out of their nest today.
They are so tiny and cute, I think they look like baby elephants!!

separation anxiety

Yesterday Rick made a new campo and house for the male......



he didn't like it, which is not surprising, it was thrown up rather quickly, he took one look at his new accomodation and broke out and went back in to his old house with his wife and kids!

We have to separate them as she could get pregnant again this week and will be better all round for her milk production, feeding, rest etc. and one less fat pig to roll on the piglets.

The new house is a bit more salubrious than yesterdays,



however he is not impressed and as we were leaving the farm in the pouring rain, pig 2, undeterred by the downpour was digging a hole.



Lets hope he's still in his campo tomorrow.

surprise, surprise

When we got the pigs we were told they were about 3-4 months old. We'd done some research and been told that females can't really get pregnant until at least six months.
When the pigs got moved down to the campo after having had them for about a month, making them 4-5 months old they were "at it" alot.
We then noticed that she was getting bigger and her teats were engorged, neighbours visited (mostly out of curiosity/nosiness), they all reckoned the female was pregnant. Ricks been busy clearing the fprest so that we've got more fence posts and this week was about to embark on creating a new campo and house to move the male into. We pitched up at the farm today, the female had given birth to 4 piggies......

Rick spent all afternoon creating some temporary housing and partition, only to discover as he was leaving that the male had broken out and gone back to the female and the piglets. It's not ideal, but as he keeps reminding me pigs have been doing this in the wild forever and she and her young will be OK.

Fingers crossed.....