piglets

We don't have any piglets. Yet.

A breeding pair of blue butt pigs have had the run of a sizable area for a few months now. Parts of it are muddy, especially in the rain we had yesterday. It was waist high grass when they moved in there.

It is obvious that the two of them could not make a new generation inside the confines of our rolling pig pens. So last fall they were given their own half acre.

Three months, three weeks and three days is the gestation period of a pig. There are now structural changes happening to the sow that indicate she will give birth soon.

Today the two of them will be separated. Each probably weighs 400-500 pounds, and piglets are pretty small at birth, so the boar does not really need to be right there.

The boar will go on a ride to another farm to, as we say in farming, cover their sows. He has proven himself a piglet maker, and the easiest way to widen genetics on a farm is to have occasional visitors.

A couple of extra bales of straw will go into the pig shelter. She makes a nest...just like the chickens do, only this is large enough for her. She is settling in nicely.