And so we’re preparing for farrowing again…

It seems like no time since the last farrowing but after some thought I realise that was actually back in August 2018. I probably should have been more aware of that because we still have 4 meat pigs from that litter and they’re doing really well

Happy families in the woods
Happy families in the woods

Preparations for the farrowing shed were going well earlier this week and included some minor repairs to the piglet corner protection which takes a bit of a beating each year. After putting down some fresh straw with the food and water troughs nicely organised, the quality control team assessed the results and gave it a 5 star rating!

Inspection team hard at work
Inspection team hard at work

Moving Sissy in from the woods was thankfully relatively straightforward, apart from a minor detour when she decided to explore the next door field rather than head back to the farrowing shed. This caused a brief moment of panic because I know that our Tamworths love to explore new places and we didn’t have the time for that sort of excursion today.

Luckily my glamorous assistant was on hand with a pig board to steer her back in the right direction and normal service was resumed very quickly…

No exploring allowed today
No exploring allowed today

With impeccable manners as always, she (the pig not my assistant) simply trotted alongside me all the way back to the outbuildings. She wasn’t even particularly interested in the feed bucket that I was carrying and almost seemed to remember the route all the way to the farrowing shed.

Almost back to the shed
Almost back to the shed

So now we’re all set and the waiting begins. My calculations can be fairly accurate since I know exactly when the artificial insemination happened and using an estimate of 114 days, I’m hoping for a Sunday farrowing. As I recall Sissy seems to favour farrowing during the late afternoon/evening based on past litters so maybe there won’t be any sleepless nights!

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