Sad, Sad Day

The pig seemed like she was improving so much, but this afternoon she took a turn for the worse.  Every now and then, she seemed to have a small seizure episode, but this afternoon she was having them one after the other. She'd seize up for about 30 seconds, then she would be ok for a minute or two. Then it would start all over again.  She was exhausted and miserable, and I decided it was time to euthanize her.  She was miserable, and I didn't want to prolong the misery waiting to see if it would stop or if there was something I could do to treat her.

So, David humanely euthanized her and we buried her in the back yard.  I had gotten really attached to that little pig, so it was really hard to make that decision, but there's no doubt in my mind it was the right one.  I think she had more issues than I first realized.

One Sick Piggy

The piglet is not doing well.  She got scours (diarrhea) the day after I brought her home.  I first thought she was adjusting to the new diet, but it got worse.  I suspected it was a bacterial thing, started treating her with Spectogard Scour-Chek (spectinomycin), which is an oral antibiotic used to treat bacterial scours in pigs.  She seemed to be doing ok, but then crashed on Saturday.  I found her listless, laying on her side and not very responsive.  I gave her more fluids (I had to tube her) and started her on penicillin.  After several hours, she seemed to perk up. 


I spoke with one of my best friends, who is a vet, and she suspected septicemia, since I told her the pig's snout and ear tips were dark.  I started her on a second antibiotic (LA-200) and I'm hoping the antibiotics and supportive care will be enough to help her pull through this. 


So, every few hours, the pig gets either milk or electrolytes (alternating feedings), and three times a day she gets an antibiotic injected.  She seems more alert, but is still weak.  She's a fighter though, and as long as she's not in pain I'll give her every chance.  If she starts going downhill or I think she's just had enough, then we'll humanely euthanize her. 


I tell ya, it doesn't take long to get attached to a teeny piggy when you spend every minute holding her and trying to nurse her back to health.  In the evenings, she lays on my chest when I'm on the couch.  I don't know for sure if being close like that helps her, but I think it does and it makes me feel like I'm doing something, even if it is just snuggling her.


So, if you're so inclined, send some positive vibes our way.  :-)   

Sucker

That's me!  I'm a sucker for baby animals.  A few months ago, I met a farmer who raises pigs.  We chatted for a bit, and I told him if he ever had any runt piglets and didn't want to deal with them, I'd like to raise them.  I got an email from him yesterday asking if I wanted a runt pig, because he was weaning the litter and she was just too small to go on feed and off milk.  I thought about it, because timing isn't perfect with the house getting worked on and being busy with lambs and things.  But who can say no to a baby pig?

So I got her.  She's really cute, as most piglets are.  First thing I did was give her a bath in the kitchen sink. She was a little stinky.

She seemed to enjoy the warm bath water. And she really enjoyed being bundled in a towel to dry.

She had a hard time getting warm after her bath, so of course I wrapped her in a fresh towel and snuggled on the couch with her. What else is there to do but snuggle when your piglet is cold?  :)

This morning at her 4:30 AM feeding, she started to get the hang of the nipple on the bottle. Sometimes piglets do better with dishes of milk rather than bottles, but this girl got really mad when I tried to get her to drink from a dish.

The dogs really like her, although Elmer wasn't sure about things when she wanted to lay on top of him.  Buford loves her to death, and will lick and lick and lick her if you let him.

After she eats, I take her outside and put her on the ground and she potties.  I'm going to see if I can get her mostly potty trained, at least while she's in the house.  Then after she eats and does her business, she wants to snuggle and nap again.

Because the farmer raises quite a few litters, each pig gets his/her ears notched.  Other livestock animals get ear tags, but ear tags don't work very well with pigs. They are so curious that they can bite and rip each other's ear tags out.  So, notches are a good permanent way to identify individual pigs.  The notches are done when the pigs are only a day or so old, so they don't even remember it.

Here's the system used:

So her left ear looks like either a 2 or a 6. What do you think?  Or, I guess it could even be a 4.  Sort of hard to tell here.

Her right ear is her litter number. To me, it looks like litter # 17.

Most people put human babies in baby carries, but I prefer swine babies.  This way I can hold her and get stuff done.

Snug as a bug in a rug!

Our initial plan is to raise her for the freezer, and Kylee mentioned wanting to show a pig at the fair before. So, this gal will likely get shown this summer and then we'll see.  As much as I'd love to keep a pig permanently, I really don't think we have the space for one year-round.

Our First Pork

We picked our pig up from the butcher shop this weekend.  I was so excited when I got the phone call that it was ready that it was hard to not jump in the car right then and go get it.  David reminded me we'd waited 3 weeks, one more day wouldn't kill me.  I wasn't so sure about that, but turns out he was right. 

We got a ton of meat back.  We got 18 1lbs of bacon, 14 lbs of sausage (Sage, Sweet Italian, and Maple), 2 packs of spare ribs, 20 packs of scrapple, 2 Boston butts, 14 packs of chops (4 per pack), 1 whole ham, 2 small ham roasts and 6 center ham slices (from the other ham),  2 packs of hocks, 2 packs of feet/ankles, a pack of ears (for the dogs?), and 2 bags of fat for lard. 

The kids took turns posing with the ham because it was so big. 

We decided to grill up some chops for dinner, for our first taste. They were great!

And this morning we had tried the bacon and scrapple. 

The bacon was delicious.  We're already making rules on what meals are "bacon worthy."  We've decided if bacon gets added to anything, it'll be purchased bacon.  Our home grown bacon is for eating whole only!

Our breakfast:  eggs from our chickens and bacon and scrapple from our pig!    Have you ever had scrapple?  Scrapple is a combination of scraps of meat and seasonings and often corn meal is added. It looks like it might be the texture of sausage, but it is very soft. It's not my first choice for breakfast meats, but it's pretty good I guess.  I like mine sliced very thinly and cooked until crispy.  David likes his thicker and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  I think we have enough scrapple to last us a lifetime, since we don't eat a ton of it.  I guess we'll eat more of it now.

Our pig was 200 lbs hanging weight, which means she was probably between 250-300 lbs live weight.  I'm not sure exactly how many pounds of meat we got back...I'm guessing around 140-150 maybe?  The bill for her processing was $172.20.  There was a $15 kill fee, plus $.60/lb for fresh meat and another $.60/lb for the cured meat (bacon and ham).  I need to figure out how many bags of feed we bought for her, and then I can come up with a rough estimate of how much per pound the meat cost us.  I know it was definitely worth it. 

We still have the 2 smaller pigs, and one will be BBQed very soon.  Looks like we'll be selling the second one, which will help offset the cost of the big pig.  I really enjoyed raising the pigs. I'm not sure if we'll raise another pig next year or if we'll take a break for a year.  I'm leaning towards taking a break.  They're great to raise, but I'm looking forward to cutting back on my chores a bit!

Goodbye, Pig

Yesterday morning we loaded up the pig and took her to the processor's.  It was bittersweet, and even though I was sad to see her go, I am happy that she'll feed our family for a long time.  It's great to know that we got her as a tiny pig, and in just barely 6 short months we raised her to be such a big girl. 

Here I am with her on Tuesday evening, giving her some scratches and loving.  She loved when I brushed her with a scrub brush!

We don't have a livestock trailer, and the one we were going to borrow was in use, so we had to make our own!   We put a dog kennel on top of David's flatbed trailer, and secured it with ratchet straps.  It wasn't going anywhere!   To load her, we backed the trailer inside her pen and dropped the ramp of the trailer.  We covered the ramp (made of expanded steel) with a black moving blanket so it looked like solid ground, because she may not have wanted to walk up the ramp if she could see through it. 

I was a little nervous that she'd be difficult to load in the trailer, but she followed a bucket of feed right up the ramp like she had been doing it every day!  I'm glad it was so calm and easy, because I wanted to make sure the whole process was as stress free for her as possible. 

Here we are all loaded up and ready to go.  No, I didn't ride back there with her, but I would have liked to!

I gave her some treats (a cantaloupe and some corn) to keep her happy and busy.

And there she goes....



The ride to the butcher's was fairly easy. I'm sure we got some weird looks going down the road!  We had to wait a bit at the butcher's because someone else's was there blocking the unloading dock, and the pig started to get a little nervous, so I had to eventually go inside to ask him to move the truck.  We got her unloaded very easily, and the worker there was very patient as I walked her back to her pen, gave her a bit of feed, and said goodbye to her.  I'm sure to the workers this is so routine and boring, but I wanted to make sure she was calm.  This was the hardest part for me, because I couldn't control what was happening to her.  My first choice would have been for us to dispatch (a nice way to say kill) her at our house, then take her to the butcher for processing.  Unfortunately (for us), since the butcher we used is USDA inspected, they can only accept live animals.  We just made sure to choose a reputable butcher and trust that she would be treated as calmly and humanely as possible.  I spoke with the butcher when I made the appointment, and he was very nice and said 99% of the time it goes very smoothly.  Maybe next time we raise a pig we'll make sure it's at market weight in the winter, and try to process it ourselves. 

So all in all, raising her was a very good experience and I really did enjoy it.  Pigs are very smart and entertaining animals, and I'll definitely miss her around here.   I still have the 2 small boys, and they'll raised a little longer for a pig pickin'. 

We pick up the meat in about 3 weeks (it needs time for the hams and bacon to cure), and I'll write another post then!

Wordless (Almost) Wednesday

Big Pig's left side.
















Big Pig's right side.

Little Pigs

$5 Pig Waterer

If you've ever had pigs, you know how hard it can be to keep their water trough clean.  Heck, even if you've never had pigs I'm sure you know how much they love mud.  Pigs + water = mud!   I started out with a few shallow water pans for the pigs, and I'd have to fill them several times a day.  As soon as I'd fill them, the pigs would flop over on them.

I got tired of having to refill them all the time, so we made a pig waterer.   It cost us $5, since all it took was a barrel and a nipple.   We already had the barrel (it was our chicken cooling barrel when we raised meat chickens).  It was simple to make, we just cut a hole in the barrel and used Q-Bond (a heavy duty super-glue like material) to glue the nipple in place.  It has held up beautifully. 























Then we set the waterer outside of the pig pen and put the nipple through the fence. We elevated it so the nipple is almost a foot off the ground.  
















It took them a while to use it, so I left the old water pans in there for a few weeks.  They weren't figuring out how to use it, so when I was home all day one weekend I took their water pans out and used marshmallows to entice them to bite the nipple.

















After about 20 minutes and 10 marshmallows (stuck on the end of the nipple), they finally figured it out.  Actually, it was the littlest piglet who figured it out first.  Once he got it, the others copied him.  Now they always have fresh clean water, and I don't have to refill it multiple times a day!

I do still give them a mud hole though.  You can't have pigs in these hot summers without giving them a wallow!

Big Pig

Here is an updated picture of the big pig.  She probably weighs around 150ish pounds by now.  We're planning on having a whole-hog BBQ at the end of the month.  I'll be a little sad to see her go, but I think I'll be ready.  We'll keep the 2 smaller pigs to raise up for the freezer.  Hopefully they'll be ready come fall. 

Foraging

Now that winter is over and things are growing, I've been doing lots of foraging for food for the animals.  I spend a few minutes twice a day gathering plants from our property for feeding the rabbits.  Mostly I pull grass, clover, plantain, dandelion, lambs quarters, and paper mulberry leaves.  I give each rabbit a good bit of vegetation twice a day, and they love it. Well, most of them do.  Then I supplement with hay and rabbit pellets.  It's so neat learning which rabbits prefer which foods.

This rabbit below is my small buck (for sale, if you're looking for a nice bunny).  He gets a few greens, but he doesn't really care for them much.  He prefers his pellets, and sometimes he'll eat hay. 


















This is Radish, my American Chinchilla/Silver Fox buck.  He loves, loves, loves anything I pick for him.  His favorite is paper mulberry, but he also loves the other stuff too.   He doesn't care for hay as much.


















This is Parsnip, my female who has not yet been bred.  She enjoys her greens too, but she adores hay.  I can put a big handful in for her breakfast and it'll be gone by afternoon.  She likes pellets too of course.  They all love pellets. 

This is Turnip and her 12 babies.  They devour everything I put in front of them.  They LOVE greens and pellets.  They'll eat hay, but they save it for last.  I give them as many greens as I think they can eat, plus hay, plus pellets.  The other rabbits only get pellets as a supplement, and usually only once a day or every other day.  Turnip and her babies get lots of feed since she's lactating and they're growing. That's a lot of hungry mouths to feed!

If you've noticed, there are some veggie scraps in their cages too.  I've been getting food scraps from a local restaurant for the pigs, and the rabbits get treats out of that bucket too.  Usually it'll be carrots, but sometimes it's celery or romaine lettuce. 

I love feeding time because it's like an army of miniature bunnies chewing.  Cute!

Here's a video of them eating:

Here's a close-up of the food bowl.  It's got a lot of plantain in it, because the rabbits seem to really like it and it's a good food source for them.

The chickens forage too.  They spend the day in their yard, but I let them out in the evenings to forage. They used to be totally free-range until they started pooping all over the deck and destroying my garden!

And even though the pigs are in a pen, they still get foraged feed.  Several times a week I go to the local restaurant to pick up the scraps.  I have 2 buckets, and leave one with them. Then I just swap out the full bucket for the empty one.  Usually it's a lot of vegetables, but sometimes there will be french fries or other things.  The pigs didn't like fries until just recently.  I guess they've decided they're pretty tasty.  They are good, too.  Sometimes I order fries from there since I work right nextdoor!  They're actually real fries, which you don't find very often at restaurants. 

I was also offered the "seconds" veggies from a local veggie farm, so I'll be picking those up starting soon.  I also contacted a local bakery and a local donut shop for scraps.  I picked up a bag of donuts this morning that were going to get thrown out last night, but they saved them for me.  I know donuts aren't the healthiest thing to eat, but it'll fatten up pigs and it's a small part of their otherwise healthy diet.  In addition to the scraps, the pigs also get a hefty amount of goat milk and some pig feed.  Goat milk is their favorite, followed by romaine lettuce. 

The sheep and goats also forage for their food, in a more traditional way...grazing.  Since I have more sheep and goats than my acreage can support, I have to be careful that the sheep don't destroy the pasture.  I do this  by using a sacrifice lot (a small area of their pasture I fence them in to keep them off the main pasture), and I often have to supplement with hay and sometimes grain.  Right now, our grass is growing pretty well since we haven't hit drought season yet.  I've been moving the sheep around the pasture and yard to take advantage of the free feed.  They're not eating any grain, and very minimal hay (mainly for the goats), which is ideal. 

The electric netting fence is essential to the rotational grazing for me.  I got mine from Premier, and I'm very happy with it. 

And since they graze a large portion of the lawn, it's less grass we have to mow! (Those are the lambs in the picture above.)

Feeding the animals like this takes a lot more time and effort than just giving them feed out of a bag, but it's healtheir for them and also healtheir for our budget!  Not a single bit of our food goes to waste either. Between the pigs, chickens, goats, and rabbits, everything is eaten!  I'm not against using bagged feeds, because I still use bagged feed. I'd just rather feed free food if I can!  So many "weeds" are actually wonderful feeds for animals.  I mentioned paper mulberry earlier in the post.  We have a HUGE hedgerow of it one one side of our property, and we used to think it was a nuisance. It's an invasive weed, and it took us a while to figure out what it was. We read that it is native to Asia, and is used to make paper and also feed deer.  The animals love it, all of them.  It's so prolific that I could feed armfuls of it every day and it would still persist.  It's now fed to the animals and cut back to keep it in check, but I don't want to totally eradicate it.  Lemons into lemonade, and all that.  :-)

Oh, and I forgot.  Sometimes we forage for food on our property too!  Last night I picked a bowl full of sour cherries from the tree in the pasture, and made a cherry crisp that was so delicious!  I love free food!

A Few Videos

Here's a video of Big Pig sitting for her food. 


Here's a video of when we introduced the little pigs to Big Pig.  This was the second time they met, and now they've been together for over a week and a half and they all love each other. I caught the little pigs sleeping ON Big Pig the other evening when it was chilly. 



And this last video is a game we call "Spit Marshmallows at the Dogs".  My sister and I invented it one summer, when we were home and bored (we were teenagers).  It's a fun time for all involved!

Seeing Spots

The baby pigs are doing really well!  They're eating like pigs (that saying is so true) and there are no visible rib bones or spines anymore.  In fact, the little runt drinks better than his bigger brother!

The pigs stayed in the house for only a night before they just got too stinky to stay any longer.  They're out in the barn with a heat lamp and are having a great time.  They run all around exploring, then crash under the heat lamp until the next feeding time. 

Here's the little runt above.

And the bigger of the two likes to try to escape. He's pretty vocal, and he loves getting back rubs and scratches. The runt does not like to be touched on his back.  It's funny how different they are. 

I'm really hoping they grow fast, because I'd like to put them in with the big pig so she has buddies.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate too, because it's gotten cold all of the sudden. You'd think it was spring or something!  ;-)

The New Boys

 I sold the 2 goat kids last night and the pig is pretty lonely.  I'd been anticipating this, and have been looking for a second pig.  The guy I got my current pig from had a litter born recently (on Easter, April 8th), so I put the word out that I needed another one.  He said he had a little runt who wasn't doing well, and probably wouldn't survive (having to fight against much bigger and stronger siblings for food) so I could have him if I wanted him.   Of course I did!  I love a challenge.  I went over there today and he had 2 piglets in a box for me, since both of them were having a hard time competing with the bigger pigs.  One is truly a runt, and was born teeny. The other just probably didn't get to nurse as much as the others.  So I brought them home. 

















 First thing I did was bathe them.  They were pretty stinky.  The piglet below is the bigger of the two.

And below is the little runt (in the kitchen sink).

Then I handed the piglets off to the kids to wrap in towels and hold for a bit. 

They smell much better after their baths.  Then I tried feeding them with a bottle, but they weren't too interested.  They like drinking from a dish much better. 

After I while I wanted to go outside and put up my new electronet fence for the sheep, so I went to the closet and got a sheet to make into a sling. 

I tucked them inside and fastened the loose top with a safety pin.  They were snug as bugs in a rug! 

I snapped the photo of the sling so you can see how it looks. It just ties in the back and I slung it over my shoulder.  It let me carry them around and still get work done. 

I'll keep you posted on the boys' progress.  I may name them...not sure.  It's not exactly like I can call them all Pig Pig now.  And they're all spotted, so I can't call them by color.  :-)