This time around we moved Beryl into the farrowing shed a few days ahead of the expected date but as it turned out she didn’t want to wait that long. More likely my calendar calculations could have been better I guess
Either way I didn’t check on her overnight into Friday because I expected another days wait but as it turned out she had a large litter and she lost most of them. When I checked her first thing in the morning she just had 2 live piglets and one of those wasn’t looking too good
The weakest piglet was immediately placed in a box of straw with a hot water bottle to raise the body temperature. The heat lamp hadn’t been on overnight so we needed to do something while that could warm things up
Luckily the warmth made all the difference and within an hour or so I was able to put the piglet back under the heat lamp with the stronger one. A nervous few hours later it was clear that both piglets were doing okay so I could breathe a small sigh of relief.
As with previous litters, we’ve found that Beryl is a really good mother and also (happily for me) very clean while she’s confined in the shed with little ones.
This saves on the workload when cleaning out the shed because we can let her out of the farrowing area to do her toilet, eat her breakfast and stretch her legs.
Sadly not all pigs are like this and some seem to take great delight in peeing on their beds, often quite soon after the straw has been replaced!