Moving moms one way and piglets another way

Boy do we have our work cut out for us today.  We started out with such a simple plan, move the 4 moms that are done with their piglets to the back to be re-bred.  The first mom we tried to move made a complete fool out of us.  She walked out of her pen and went the opposite way that we wanted her to go.  We followed her in circles until she broke back into her pen.  We gave up on her for the moment. 

Next we went to Freezer Moms pen where there are two moms.  Freezer moved quite easily but her buddy made Frank (Breadman Baking) and I chase her all over the pen until we gave up and decided to move Rosie.  Rosie moved easily.  Dave went back and got Freezer Moms buddy quite easily, of course he did have me and Frank blocking her from going in 2 other directions.  Once we got her out of the pen she went to the back easily.

The first one we attempted to move, Hoggiemister, is now out walking the property so that with any luck she will be ready to move later today.

Second job - seperate the uncastrated male from the females.  This in itself is going to be a very large job.  Then we want to move all the girls to one pen and all the boys to another pen.  This is going to be no easy feet.  Dave and Frank are currenly discussing the logistics of this.  I will let you know the outcome.

Rain, rain go away

Rain is the absolute worst thing around here.  Snow is a pain.  Freezing temps mean wearing more clothes and coming in more often to warm up.  Rain means flooding.  Pens flood, huts flood.  While Dan refers to the rain as flushing the toilet out here it is a royal pain in the butt.

Dan, Dave and Frank (Breadman Baking) are outside right now while it is pouring moving a hut and re-strawing for the pigs in the pen.  With the ground still frozen the water just has no place to go.  Areas that have never flooded before flood during these times. 

There are no set hours to farming.  When there is a problem, no matter what the weather or what the time you have to get outside and rectify it.

Dan and Dave are going to drive me CRAZY!

Yes, I know it's a short trip and that is the problem.  I don't need any assistance on my way to insanity!

So, most of you know that Dave moved out to the farm in October.  Well it has taken until today for him to go to his apartment to clean everything out because someone is moving in on Monday.  Dave is a bit of a procrastinator.  Anyway, he left at 5 am and was supposed to go and come back.  At 9 he calls me and tells me there is way more there then remembered and it would take him all day.  I told him to call Dan.

At 10 Dave calls me again and tells me his truck got booted.  Dan is already mad that Dave isn't coming back today and now it is costing me $462 plus he isn't here to get stuff done.  Ugh!

I get home and Dan is immediately complaining about how many bowls are in pens and he doesn't know what is going on around here.  I told him to leave me a lone and take up his gripes with Dave directly.  What do they think I am, their babysitter?

Why is it so hard to make money selling a great product?

I have talked to a few of my customers and they don't understand why it is sooooo hard for us to make money selling a great product with a good sales person. I ask you???? I feel and my feedback says that my prices are fare. I have never had a complaint about my products. Quite the contrary, you all seem to love them and come back time and time again.

The farming industry is set up so that the huge containment barns make all the money and the little farmer, like me, struggles to put out a superior product. It costs me more to feed my animals because they are outside running off calories and there for taking in more calories. Well, that is what make the meat "naturally" lean without drugs.

Sometimes it is frustrating feeling like you are doing something good but getting nothing in return. I which I would come up with some kind of fundraiser so that we had a cushion for times like this (winter).

Sorry for the rant and thanks for reading!

Baby Ear is outside my window

As I mentioned in a previous entry, we have freed Baby Ear from being in a pen.  He is now truly free range with his hut right outside my office window.  As I was checking e-mails and Facebook I look out my window and there he is out walking around. 

I see that Dave has left the garage door open so I am afraid of what he might find in there.  He may decide to take hay at will.  I guess as long as there is no feed left out we should be safe.

Snowy Day Prevents Evictions

We currently have 2 piglets in the basement.  1 is smaller then the rest of the four litters in her pen so and had an upper respiratory infection.  The other appears to have 2 dislocated legs, 1 in back and 1 in the front.  He is having a hard time getting around and when they make their huge piglet piles he was getting more injured by others lying on him.

These 2 little monsters are a huge mess!!!!  One day the bigger 1 (the male) tore up a down pillow and the little girl (and my basement floor) covered in feathers.  2 days later he tore a big hole in a pillow and Dave didn't notice it until there were feathers all over the inside of the washing machine.

These two stink and make a ton of noise and we have all decided it is time for them to move out.  Dave set up a nice clean little pen for them and got everything ready for them to move out this morning.  Low and behold we have 3 new inches of snow on the ground.  Hopefully we will have them out before the end of this weekend.

Dave makes a great save

About 4 1/2 months back Dan and Dave were loading hogs to go to the butcher.  Dave really liked one of the girls Dan loaded and told him so Dan took her off the trailer.  She had her first set of piglets last week.  She had 9 and still has 9.  She is extremely protective and will not even come out of the hut to eat until we have left her pen.  Now that is a great mom!

9 Pigs got moved (not easily)

We ended up moving 7 mothers to be. We may even have new piglets this morning.  A couple of them looked like they were about to burst.

Dave thought he would be able to move the moms on his own.  Not only would that have been impossible but we could have used 3 people.  There were 19 hogs in the pen so we had to pick out the ones we wanted.  Then we had to persuade them to wake up, leave their hut and then we had to guild them to the gate.  We couldn't leave the gate open or everyone we didn't want to leave would have.  We spent a good hour chasing them around the hut, back into the hut, out of the hut and finally to the gate.  2 of them refused to leave! 

Later we went back because we noticed that one of the boars in the pen was getting his butt kicked by another boar and he was limping.  We moved him and Baby Ear to a pen of all sows.  The boar was so happy the limp was almost gone. 

While trying to move Baby Ear into the new pen he turned and while I was trying to convince him to turn around he went straight through my legs.  Then ran back down the lane from where he came.  It took some time to coax him back to the new pen.  Baby Ear isn't happy at all so we are going to set him up a hut close to the house and let him roam free.

Moms to be get new pen

Today we will be moving 6 new mothers to be into a nice clean pen to get them ready to have their first litters.  These girls have been together for a long time so we are keeping our fingers crossed for how well they will do having their litters together. 

In the wild sows will "group farrow."  This way one or two mothers can stay with the piglets while the other mothers go out and forage for food.  This winter we have discovered that our gilts (first time mothers to be) seem to do better if they are alone.  With food being brought to them they do not have to go looking for feed and by them selves they seem to pay more attention to their piglets.  There also appears to be a lot less accidental deaths when they are alone. 

Just like with people, we have some really go mothers and some bad mothers.  We have hogs that love being mothers and others that want nothing to do with the piglets.  One advantage to having them seperated is that we can see exactly who is good and who isn't. 

So we will be moving our very pregnant girls this morning and getting them all settled in.  We will also be praying for them to all be wonderful mothers.

Rain makes for a quite day

Thank goodness it is raining/sleeting/snowing today.  Dave has the day off so I am happy the weather is keeping everyone in their huts.  One of my neighbors was kind enough to help me do feed today.  About 600 lbs of feed is distributed daily to basically all points of our 15 acre property.  I currently do not have a vehicle that can drive the property which is why I need help.  That along with lifting the heavy bags, climbing over the fences and trying to pour the bags into bowls with pigs shoving me all over the place.

Now Dan and Dave are on their way back to the farm.  Dave is about an hour ahead of Dan but the roads are a sheet of ice so getting back here is slow going.