sumi
Rest in Peace 1980-2020
@NH Homesteader that pic of the sow and piglets on your thread reminded me of this. I don't want to hijack your thread, so I'm going to tell my story here…
That pig photo reminds me of the one and only time I had some piglets born on the farm. I bought and raised piglets for meat (I sold most of it) and now and then I bought a fully grown animal for slaughter if I was short on meat orders. That's how we bought Pandora, except Pandora was pregnant and too good a deal to pass up. I had NO idea when she was due though. So we waited and waited and waited…
One day I spoke to an older man who came round and asked him when he reckoned she's due. He gave me an odd look, which I later interpreted as sympathetic. Pandora was in labour, not clear to my untrained eye obviously! I went into the house and went and checked on her a bit later and found the piglet just born. And it was not "right". There was a big fluid filled sack on its head. (The vet later explained to me that it was fluid from the poor little one's brain that leaked and formed the sack under its skin) NOT a good start to my first ever farrowing…
I clambered over the fence into the pen and in the process ripped my jeans from unmentionable part across to the side seam below my hip… And didn't think of changing until much later.
Needless to say with the combined shock of finding a piglet and seeing looking like that, I flew into a panic and phoned BOTH the vets in the village, the first, who worked for the Government was in town and came over immediately. And stayed. Whether it was for the view, or the farrowing I don't know, but he stuck around until 5 piglets were out. I remember asking DH to go make us some coffee at some point and standing ankle deep in the mud with the vet, having coffee and chatting and watching the piglets arrive. Thankfully the rest of them were perfect. The second vet arrived some time later and put the first piglet to sleep and took it away for me. The first vet stayed until Pandora delivered the afterbirth before leaving and not charging us for the visit.
It being a cool evening I decided to run a cord out and put a heat lamp on mom and the new arrivals. After dark I went to check on them and counted SIX piglets? I thought I must've counted Pandora's leg by mistake, so I counted again, tails this time. I was right, there were 6 little tails… But she delivered the afterbirth?!? Very confused I phoned vet #1 and updated him. He told me pigs have two uteri(?). I didn't know that!?!?
The next morning one of my regular egg customers came round for his half dozen. He was a university professor, Scottish, very formal, very proper gentleman. Nice guy though. Anyway, he walked into the yard and my DS, I think he was 6yo at the time, ran out shouting "Andrew, Andrew, the piglets came out of Pandora's a r s e!!!!"
I'll probably never forget the look on that poor man's face.
That pig photo reminds me of the one and only time I had some piglets born on the farm. I bought and raised piglets for meat (I sold most of it) and now and then I bought a fully grown animal for slaughter if I was short on meat orders. That's how we bought Pandora, except Pandora was pregnant and too good a deal to pass up. I had NO idea when she was due though. So we waited and waited and waited…
One day I spoke to an older man who came round and asked him when he reckoned she's due. He gave me an odd look, which I later interpreted as sympathetic. Pandora was in labour, not clear to my untrained eye obviously! I went into the house and went and checked on her a bit later and found the piglet just born. And it was not "right". There was a big fluid filled sack on its head. (The vet later explained to me that it was fluid from the poor little one's brain that leaked and formed the sack under its skin) NOT a good start to my first ever farrowing…
I clambered over the fence into the pen and in the process ripped my jeans from unmentionable part across to the side seam below my hip… And didn't think of changing until much later.
Needless to say with the combined shock of finding a piglet and seeing looking like that, I flew into a panic and phoned BOTH the vets in the village, the first, who worked for the Government was in town and came over immediately. And stayed. Whether it was for the view, or the farrowing I don't know, but he stuck around until 5 piglets were out. I remember asking DH to go make us some coffee at some point and standing ankle deep in the mud with the vet, having coffee and chatting and watching the piglets arrive. Thankfully the rest of them were perfect. The second vet arrived some time later and put the first piglet to sleep and took it away for me. The first vet stayed until Pandora delivered the afterbirth before leaving and not charging us for the visit.
It being a cool evening I decided to run a cord out and put a heat lamp on mom and the new arrivals. After dark I went to check on them and counted SIX piglets? I thought I must've counted Pandora's leg by mistake, so I counted again, tails this time. I was right, there were 6 little tails… But she delivered the afterbirth?!? Very confused I phoned vet #1 and updated him. He told me pigs have two uteri(?). I didn't know that!?!?
The next morning one of my regular egg customers came round for his half dozen. He was a university professor, Scottish, very formal, very proper gentleman. Nice guy though. Anyway, he walked into the yard and my DS, I think he was 6yo at the time, ran out shouting "Andrew, Andrew, the piglets came out of Pandora's a r s e!!!!"
I'll probably never forget the look on that poor man's face.
