Holy Guacamole! Well I wouldn't have believed it unless I'd seen it with my own eyes, but on the 28th of February, the day after my birthday Beryl had 14 piglets!
The current record stands at sixteen, so we weren't too far off!
The big problem with such big litters is that they don't often all survive and this has been the case with this litter sadly.
Although she had fourteen one was born dead, she squashed another one, she is rather clumsy, pigs are! Another I took away to hand rear died on the second day. It's a hard task sometimes pulling them back from the brink of death and I don't win every time.
We had another loss today, another wee one wasn't getting to the teats very well so I gave her extra feeds through a bottle, but I'm sad to say when I went to check this morning she was dead. Out of a litter of 14 only 5 were female and so far 4 that have died have been female. So apart from feeling sad I'm also annoyed as the females always sell better than the males! Oh well where there's livestock there's dead stock!
Bert is out boar, he's the daddy! He's also the daddy of some piglets from a friends Kune Kune and we took one of her litter to hand rear, her name is Dolly she is now * weeks old and thinks she's a dog! LOL She will be another breeding sow but obviously not to her father!
We had a few chicks hatch all over the place in the last few days and of course we just aren't set up for chicks, ah well what can you do about unplanned pregancies, at least I don't have a teenage daughter....but I do have a teenage son...GULP!
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