Post by Mitra on Jun 10, 2009 15:18:44 GMT -5
DH Max AI'd Sophie on February 11th with semen from Swine Genetics International. We decided to AI her to another kind of red pig, a Duroc. Exactly 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days later, she had her first babies last Friday, June 5th.
In February, there's still lots of snow in Maine and this limits the amount of exercise any of the animals can get. In Sophie's case, she spent the winter mostly sleeping in her shed. She would get up to walk to her food dish or go down her other path to her toilet area. By March, she had developed cracks in her front hooves which I learned were caused by feeding her raw eggs and exacerbated by the fact that she weighs close to 700 pounds. Even though she was pregnant we knew we had to change her diet, feed her less, and make sure she could get some exercise so she could lose weight before the births.
She did slim down a bit before her belly and teats started screaming to the world about her pregnancy. Once the snow had all melted and we opened a new area up for her, she started doing a lot more exploring and rooting. This was all good exercise which we knew would be helpful for the hard work of birthing babies. Her hooves started to heal too and then she was really rockin'.
We decided we were not going to use a farrowing crate or build anything special to "aid" us with the birthing process. We were going "au naturelle". About a week before her due date, we put a bale of straw in her shed for her so she could start building a nest.
Here she is, four days before she had the babies, going to her shed to see what DH Max was doing in there. Can you tell she just came out of her wallow?
According to the Merck Vet Manual, a pig's gestation is 112-115 days and based on that I calculated that her due date was June 2nd- June 5th.
Max loves this pig! And it's mutual
On Friday, when I got home from the Farmers' Market, I went immediately to check on Sophie. She was not in her wallow which immediately made me suspicious. I went into her pen and peaked my head into her shed. She was laying on her side breathing heavily. There was a ring of sweat around her snout. I almost started to cry. She was in labor! I spoke to her and stroked her bangs. I could see the contractions. I had other animals to tend to (100 broiler chicks) and left to go take care of a few things. DH was out on errands. When he got home about 45 minutes later, I said, "Sophie's in labor! We need to go check her." When we looked in the shed, there were already five babies
!!!!!! They were already dry and they were nursing!!!!!
Check out the Dumbo baby on the left.
I ran to get my DD Roshan who was tending to her ducklings. Sophie is actually her pig. We both ran back to the pen and before we even got there Roshan was blubbering tears of joy. I lost it when I saw the babies again. They were perfect. Max stroked Sophie's forehead and talked to her sweetly. He also dribbled water into her mouth with a tin cup. She was still laboring so we knew there more coming.
Suddenly we saw a little piglet nose coming out and then whoosh the rest of the baby just flew out. Max wiped the baby off and helped it to find a teat. He did that with the next three that came out.
I had learned from Jessika that piglets are in utero like two strings of Christmas lights. One string comes out, followed by the placenta and then the other string comes out followed by the placenta. After the eighth one, the placenta came out and her breathing started to return to normal. We knew she was done. All the piglets were nursing so we left Sophie and her babies alone and went back to the house.
We checked on them several times before going to bed around 10 p.m. and all was fine.
Sadly, by morning all was not fine. Two of the babies had been fatally injured from being stepped on and squished. I was at the kitchen window waiting to see Max coming back to the house with a good report. When he got closer, I saw that he was carrying something and it was a tiny little red body. The baby was still warm. Max broke down. It was so sad. He said that another one was probably not going to make it but was still alive. Sophie was trying so hard not to hurt them but at 700lbs it's hard to be quick and agile. The other little one died shortly there after. We buried them.
I spoke to Jessika who said that whatever number of piglets we had after 48 hours, would be the number of piglets we would have and that we were to expect to lose 25% of the litter. That is exactly what we lost. After 48 hours, they are so lively that it's no wonder they live. Mama has but to flinch and they get the heck out of the way. Three others have injuries that are now healing. We are treating their wounds with Vitamin E per Joann's advice.
What a roller coaster! Sophie is such a good Mama. She is attentive and very focused on her babies. The only time she acted like she might want to kill one of us is when Max tried to take the most injured one out so we could tend to its wounds. That squealing made her roar and snap at Max, who quickly gave her back her baby. For a couple of days she wouldn't get up to eat or drink, preferring to lay as still as possible and let the babies nurse. I knew she needed to eat and drink so I brought her buckets of clabber and water and tipped it so she could stick her snout in. She sucked the bucket dry each time. She is SOME pig
In February, there's still lots of snow in Maine and this limits the amount of exercise any of the animals can get. In Sophie's case, she spent the winter mostly sleeping in her shed. She would get up to walk to her food dish or go down her other path to her toilet area. By March, she had developed cracks in her front hooves which I learned were caused by feeding her raw eggs and exacerbated by the fact that she weighs close to 700 pounds. Even though she was pregnant we knew we had to change her diet, feed her less, and make sure she could get some exercise so she could lose weight before the births.
She did slim down a bit before her belly and teats started screaming to the world about her pregnancy. Once the snow had all melted and we opened a new area up for her, she started doing a lot more exploring and rooting. This was all good exercise which we knew would be helpful for the hard work of birthing babies. Her hooves started to heal too and then she was really rockin'.
We decided we were not going to use a farrowing crate or build anything special to "aid" us with the birthing process. We were going "au naturelle". About a week before her due date, we put a bale of straw in her shed for her so she could start building a nest.
Here she is, four days before she had the babies, going to her shed to see what DH Max was doing in there. Can you tell she just came out of her wallow?
According to the Merck Vet Manual, a pig's gestation is 112-115 days and based on that I calculated that her due date was June 2nd- June 5th.
Max loves this pig! And it's mutual
On Friday, when I got home from the Farmers' Market, I went immediately to check on Sophie. She was not in her wallow which immediately made me suspicious. I went into her pen and peaked my head into her shed. She was laying on her side breathing heavily. There was a ring of sweat around her snout. I almost started to cry. She was in labor! I spoke to her and stroked her bangs. I could see the contractions. I had other animals to tend to (100 broiler chicks) and left to go take care of a few things. DH was out on errands. When he got home about 45 minutes later, I said, "Sophie's in labor! We need to go check her." When we looked in the shed, there were already five babies
!!!!!! They were already dry and they were nursing!!!!! Check out the Dumbo baby on the left.
I ran to get my DD Roshan who was tending to her ducklings. Sophie is actually her pig. We both ran back to the pen and before we even got there Roshan was blubbering tears of joy. I lost it when I saw the babies again. They were perfect. Max stroked Sophie's forehead and talked to her sweetly. He also dribbled water into her mouth with a tin cup. She was still laboring so we knew there more coming.
Suddenly we saw a little piglet nose coming out and then whoosh the rest of the baby just flew out. Max wiped the baby off and helped it to find a teat. He did that with the next three that came out.
I had learned from Jessika that piglets are in utero like two strings of Christmas lights. One string comes out, followed by the placenta and then the other string comes out followed by the placenta. After the eighth one, the placenta came out and her breathing started to return to normal. We knew she was done. All the piglets were nursing so we left Sophie and her babies alone and went back to the house.
We checked on them several times before going to bed around 10 p.m. and all was fine.
Sadly, by morning all was not fine. Two of the babies had been fatally injured from being stepped on and squished. I was at the kitchen window waiting to see Max coming back to the house with a good report. When he got closer, I saw that he was carrying something and it was a tiny little red body. The baby was still warm. Max broke down. It was so sad. He said that another one was probably not going to make it but was still alive. Sophie was trying so hard not to hurt them but at 700lbs it's hard to be quick and agile. The other little one died shortly there after. We buried them.
I spoke to Jessika who said that whatever number of piglets we had after 48 hours, would be the number of piglets we would have and that we were to expect to lose 25% of the litter. That is exactly what we lost. After 48 hours, they are so lively that it's no wonder they live. Mama has but to flinch and they get the heck out of the way. Three others have injuries that are now healing. We are treating their wounds with Vitamin E per Joann's advice.
What a roller coaster! Sophie is such a good Mama. She is attentive and very focused on her babies. The only time she acted like she might want to kill one of us is when Max tried to take the most injured one out so we could tend to its wounds. That squealing made her roar and snap at Max, who quickly gave her back her baby. For a couple of days she wouldn't get up to eat or drink, preferring to lay as still as possible and let the babies nurse. I knew she needed to eat and drink so I brought her buckets of clabber and water and tipped it so she could stick her snout in. She sucked the bucket dry each time. She is SOME pig
