Wooly piglets?

On Sunday we had our annual sheep shearing and wool festival event. As usual we had a really nice group of spinners, weavers and felters - all happy to show their skills and help our visitors develop theirs.  The sun shined, the visitors came and everyone enjoyed themselves but there was one complaint.  The spinners normally have the complete run of the covered  area of the farm to spread out in - to set up their wheels, display their finished products and allow the visitors to mill about.  But this year, because of the four litters of pigs born within the week, they had to share their space with Pippa and her six piglets. However, they all agreed she was a very well behaved mum and her piglets were completely adorable.

Our thanks to Lavenham and Diss Spinning Guilds and the individuals that took part and our special thanks to Jen and Zoe for taking on the role of felters, in the absence of Helen, our regular felting guru.

What a day!

Yesterday showed all the signs of being a normal, relaxed day. Yes - all the animals needed feeding; Yes - the absence of rain meant the farm was looking more like the Serrengetti than pasture but the sun was shining, a reasonable number of visitors were walking the farm or enjoying coffee and cake and there were no signs of any goats about to kid. But then, mid afternoon, everything changed and the peace of a tranquil afternoon was gone.  One of the visitors came into the shop and announced that she had just seen a piglet being born.  This was strange (and highly unlikely).  None of our pigs were pregnant - except perhaps Wilma and her piglets wouldn't/couldn't be due for another couple of months.  I called for Neil (livestock manager, farmer and general man-for-all-crises).  He headed out to the field - expecting to see something that could - at a long distance, with the sun in your eyes - look a bit like a piglet.

However, what he saw was shocking, completely unexpected and de-railed his plans for the rest of the day/week.

Out on the field not just one, but two pigs were farrowing.  One, was a Middle White pig, called Polly.  She went on to have 11 piglets.  The other, was Wilma, the Kune Kune we had been trying to breed with Sam (also a KK) and she eventually, had 7.

So it was all hands on deck.  We had 4 volunteers in that day - Josh, Georgina, Katherine and Katie.  They assisted with the births, fed the rest of the pigs - to keep them out of the way  of the farrowing mothers, cleared and cleaned the farrowing stables, and finally set out the stables so they were equipped for pig and piglets.

While Neil was crawling around on all fours, making sure the mums did not roll over on to their young and that the piglets latched on to the teat he had time to reflect on what must have happened (apart from the obvious!).

At the beginning of the year we had 3 Middle White piglets - two sows and a boar.  We knew we could not provide a home for a boar (as we normally only keep one or two sows from each breed and would not want to keep their brother for breeding).  As we hadn't found a buyer, he was destined for the butchers.  However, he clearly planned to live it up a little before that.  Despite his young age, he obviously mastered the art of jumping the electric fence and he used this skill to visiting the surrounding sows.  More unusually, he obviously worked out that he needed to jump back again into his own pen to ensure no one knew what he was up to.  So if he was out and about, whenever he could, it was likely that he had visited the other sows in the area.

So once the farrowing was done, Neil then checked the other sows that had been out on the field in February.  And, sure enough, two others are also pregnant and expecting any day now.

We are a small farm.  I don't think we have ever had more than 15 piglets at any one time.  And now we have 18 and probably, by the end of the week, will have 30 to 40!

The first two litters have now been transported to the farrowing stable (in a wheelbarrow).  The other two pigs are now under close surveillance so that we can get them into proper accommodation before they start having their litters. 30 May 2011