Yesterday was just plain crazy. I headed to church early in the morning to get a start on a pile of work because I know that the next couple of days will be focused on putting up red steel. I stayed in town until after lunch so I could get a couple big extension ladders for the shed work, and then we finally made it out to work on the shed around 3:30 PM. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but it was what happened. Before we got in too deep though I decided I should go check on the pigs just in case…
Of course they had farrowed while I was gone in the morning! And by they I mean both gilts had farrowed … in the same A-Frame hut. What ensued next was a little bit of craziness as I decided (after consultation with some experienced pig folk) that the little hut might not be the best place for two first time moms and the 18 babies between them. So, we had to separate the gilts and the pigs somehow (with an emphasis on somehow).
Let me condense a hour-and-a-half into just a few sentences. Basically the two gilts had no desire to leave the hut, even though I was taking pigs out and putting them in another hut. Finally after poking and prodding enough I got one and then both out, but one pig was especially angry with the whole situation and she tired to let me know every chance she got. After much gilt wrangling and quick fence construction I now have one gilt in each hut. One gilt has 10 pigs with her and the other has 8. Even after all of the confusion they seem to have settled down a bit and all the pigs were nursing when I checked late last night.
Now we are just going to see how these first time moms do.
