2 more new mothers have piglets

Once again we are having babies, babies, babies.  Yesterday 1 first time mother had 10 piglets and another first time mother had 13 piglets.  Mothers and babies are all doing well.  We currently have 6 more first time mothers getting ready to have babies and 3 sows getting ready to have babies. 

Pigs can have babies all year round.  They come into heat every 21 days.  Their gestation period is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days.  First time mothers are the hardest to deal with and usually have the highest piglet death rate because they are learning how to tell their piglets to move and where to go when they are laying down.  A nervous first time mother is more likely to step on the babies.  We try to keep them calm and leave them alone as much as possible.  That is why the videos are so short.  We don't want to agitate them in any way.  For the first 48 hours we want them to concentrate only on their piglets.  They are given plenty of feed so as not to stress them out about food.