It's been on of those few weeks where everything moves very fast. For starters, we had another litter of pigs a few days ago. 9 born, seven alive (as of now. The extremely unseasonable cool, wet weather we're having right now is not good for pasture farrowing). This litter was a bit of a bonus, as up until a few weeks ago, we had plans to cull this sow. She has a foot that just won't heal. She was very lame earlier in the year, but has not been lame recently. Her lameness may have contributed to her getting pregnant a month behind the other sows. So, she gets to stick around until at least next spring.
Going back a few weeks, we struggled with castrating the boars in the previous litters. Castrating the piglets while they are on pasture has been a concern of mine from day 1, and it continues to be a problem in practice. The pigs tend to do fine with pasture farrowing in the warmth of July and August, but they're not too keen on me grabbing their piglets from them. Once the first one starts squealing, they will try to attack me. This time, I actually got bit by a sow on my hand. It wasn't a love bite, either. She very forcibly crunched down on my metacarpal bone and bruised it. I was lucky to not have been injured more severely. There has to be a better way to do this, and we're brainstorming some ideas, including luring the piglets when they're a few weeks older and starting to eat solid food into the barn where we can close the door and protect ourselves from the rampaging sows. I'd love to not castrate, but I've now experienced boar taint in an uncastrated male we raised last year and it's simply not an option. Most people can't detect it, including Jen, but I am certainly someone who can.
On the positive side, we sold all our piglets for $150 each to a farm down the road. I probably could have sold them for a bit more to individuals, but I figure that each additional person I have to deal with costs me about $25 in labor. I've seen some ads in the area for folks advertising weaners for $275, and I think I might try to get $200 for the gilts on this latest litter, as it is a purebred pairing with low inbreeding. $25 makes a huge difference when you're dealing with hundreds of pigs instead of the tens we currently have.
Going back a few weeks, we struggled with castrating the boars in the previous litters. Castrating the piglets while they are on pasture has been a concern of mine from day 1, and it continues to be a problem in practice. The pigs tend to do fine with pasture farrowing in the warmth of July and August, but they're not too keen on me grabbing their piglets from them. Once the first one starts squealing, they will try to attack me. This time, I actually got bit by a sow on my hand. It wasn't a love bite, either. She very forcibly crunched down on my metacarpal bone and bruised it. I was lucky to not have been injured more severely. There has to be a better way to do this, and we're brainstorming some ideas, including luring the piglets when they're a few weeks older and starting to eat solid food into the barn where we can close the door and protect ourselves from the rampaging sows. I'd love to not castrate, but I've now experienced boar taint in an uncastrated male we raised last year and it's simply not an option. Most people can't detect it, including Jen, but I am certainly someone who can.
On the positive side, we sold all our piglets for $150 each to a farm down the road. I probably could have sold them for a bit more to individuals, but I figure that each additional person I have to deal with costs me about $25 in labor. I've seen some ads in the area for folks advertising weaners for $275, and I think I might try to get $200 for the gilts on this latest litter, as it is a purebred pairing with low inbreeding. $25 makes a huge difference when you're dealing with hundreds of pigs instead of the tens we currently have.
On the not so positive side, we have another sow with foot problems. This was the gilt I bought last year, who developed a cracked hoof soon after she came onto the farm, but who recovered quickly and has had two nice litters thus far. In the last week or so she's become lame and it's gotten worse. She's now walking on her front "knees," but doesn't really want to walk at all. One of her hooves is cracked, but I can't seem to find anything wrong with the other one, which is the one she seems to find more painful. Luckily, her piglets are older and it's not as critical that she had good mobility right now, but it's still very concerning to have so many foot problems. One thing we haven't done in the past, but are about to start, is vaccinating. Since we've had issues with low litter sizes and some mummified piglets, it definitely makes sense, and there are a host of pathogens that can contribute to those symptoms. Unfortunately, each dose is about $1 and the vaccines comes in a minimum size of 50 doses. With only three sows, a gilt and a boar, we'll only be able to use 10 doses before it expires--but it should be worth it if it has even a minor effect. I'm hoping the vaccination might be able to help some of the foot in joint problems our pigs have experienced.
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