The Harrowing Farrowing

Before we begin, here is some pig vocabulary (on the off-chance that you would like to have a more detailed conversation about hogs, or... to help the following post make more sense)

barrow: a castrated male pig

sow: an adult female

boar: an uncastrated male for breeding

shoat: a weaned pig

feeder: a weaned pig that will be fed to butchering weight

hog: grown pig at butcher weight

gilt: a female that hasn't had babies or just one litter, or a pig that is older than 2 and never bred.

swine: more than one hog

drift: a herd of swine

piggy: pregnant (<--this one made me laugh. I didn't know it!)

farrow: a sow giving birth

And now on to the rest of our post. As a disclaimer, this blog post describes our experience with animal births. It isn't necessarily gory, but I am trying to be honest with the details, so if that is something that makes you, dear reader, uncomfortable, this might not be the post for you, but please feel free to peruse our other stories.

The past couple of weeks has been all about the babies. Piglets, to be exact.

As mentioned in our podcast episode, the latest step to our homesteading pig program has been to acquire a boar and begin breeding our own pigs. For just a quick recap, our boar is Inigo Montoya, an Idaho Pasture Pig (IPP)/Kune-Kune mix, and our sows are American Guinea Hog.

We really liked the quality and flavor of the meat of the AGH--think super marbled, juicy meat, and while they're smaller than the feeder pigs at full size, they're over 200 lbs, so not a runty breed either (if there is such a thing). They are sweet and gentle in temperament and a good foraging and grazing pig, They're a slow-growing pig and so to get the best fat-meat ratio, the optimal time frame for butchering is around 18 months (although we have discovered that the younger pigs are most convenient for butchering because we can do it on our own and have a manageable amount of meat to put into the freezer), and to shorten that window, we got the slightly faster growing boar breed to get a faster growing (but still smaller) pig.

We got Inigo when he was around 6 months old. He was still sexually immature so he ran with the rest of the sows freely. It made the transition on to our farm much easier for him as he had a lot of company of the porcine kind to make his new family. Apparently he was eager to grow into his job too because we soon discovered that all three of our female pigs were pregnant. This was a little surprising because of our females, one was very young--only six months herself and presumably not sexually mature, one was our first time breeder from the year previous, and the third was nicknamed the "Auntie," meaning she was the litter mate of our proven mother, but had not been bred (and actually, refused to be bred) when we had our previous boar,

[Sidebar: I read somewhere that for AGH variety pigs, it's important that females be bred around 10 months and before they are 2 years old. It is an optimal age for them to have their first pregnancies, and it is very difficult for them to become pregnant and farrow if they are older than this. In our observations, being bred seems to slow the rate of growth in the healthy way. The sow that has had babies is a good size pig, but not enormous, probably because a lot of her metabolic energy was put towards a pregnancy and nursing, whereas the unbred female was much larger and had also developed a bit of a surly temperament. Same understanding went to boars. Apparently, it was important not to put an inexperienced boar in with a more experienced sow because if she rejects him, he can lose confidence and not be able to perform with other females. Talk about performance anxiety! I have no idea if this is true. All of our male animals seem to be very enthusiastic about their work.]

Fun fact: the gestation period for a pig is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days, which is quite a short time for such a large animal. By the time the physical changes of pregnancy are visible, it's probably only a month and a half until it's farrowing time. Every day we noticed the line of teats coning out and become enlarged and taut. It was especially visible on Bubbles (or Little Mama) because she was so much smaller than the other mothers, but even Peaches (or as my husband calls her, Big Mama) and Plum (Auntie) were soon lumbering wearily around with their stomachs touching the ground.

[Sidebar: my husband often uses different names for the animals. The kids come up with a lot of the names, but then they're always changing them as they think of something better...so he gives up keeping track and calls them whatever comes to mind first and those names stick with me.]

As farrowing approaches there are some signs that tell you babies are imminent.

The continuous expansion of the stomach and the enlarging of teats is one. Softening of the vulva and discharge as well as building a nest (literal nesting) and keeping herself separated during restive moments of the day. Labor begins with tail twitches followed by laying down and pulling the back legs toward the head with abdominal contractions and fast paced, rhythmic breathing.

And at the end of May, the family and I peeked in to look at the pigs. It was late. We had gotten to the animal chores later than usual because homestead life is chaotic and changing daily, and we noticed that Little Mama was alone in the overhang area of the pig run, deep inside a nest made from hay and next to her was a little wet, wriggling piglet. The umbilical cord was still attached and it was wandering blindly next to its mother trying to find a teat. It is common for a gilt's first time litter to be small (when Big Mama farrowed last year, she had three piglets--one was a stillborn and the two surviving ones were Little Mama and the barrow we have today), so we ushered the children away to give her a little privacy and quiet and put the kids to bed.

My husband and I came out to check on her about an hour later to discover that she was panting and still having contractions and had not birthed any more piglets, which is concerning because once the first piglet is born, the successive ones should be born in under 45 minutes. We knew she had more to birth because no placenta had been birthed, and she hadn't moved from her spot to have eaten it already. She had been too young to be bred in the first place, and also Inigo, though similarly sized, is slightly larger than an AGH and so we knew we were going to have to intervene or we would lose her.

So gloved up with headlamps shining in the dark, YouTube video in hand, we manually removed the stuck baby. And here is how the process goes (in case anyone is curious or ever in the position to have to do this themselves):

1. Form your hand into the a cone shape, with fingers pressed together (like you're making a hand puppet) and liberally apply lubricant (thank goodness I had very recently purchased a big bottle for all of Cookie's issues a few days prior).

2. Gently push fingers into the vagina and feel for the piglet. When Little Mama bore down, I could feel a snout, and teeth and how tightly it was wedged between her hip bones.

3. Hook fingers behind the head if it is cranially presenting. If you feel back legs, hook them around both legs with the thumb as an anchor in the center, and then pull firmly but gently. It's good if you can time it with contractions.

4. When the piglet is removed, pull mucus blockages away from nose and mouth.

If you have to intervene with one piglet, it is highly likely that the remaining piglets will also have to be removed manually. The first piglet was so stuck. I tried and tried but couldn't get a grip on that slippery tiny head or put enough force around it to make it budge. I took a step back, frustrated and urging her under my breath to push. Keep pushing, don't give up, and felt myself bearing down with her contractions, as if my own efforts would aid her. We were two hours in now and Little Mama was exhausted. My husband made the comment that we might lose her, and he would need to find his butchering knives to get the other babies out before they died as well. As a final effort, my husband stepped in, which was considerably harder on the mama because my husband's hands are much larger than mine. He got a grip around the baby's head and pulled but it was stuck fast like it had been with me.

"I'm just going to have to pull as hard as I can. This one will probably be dead, but it has to come out. I hope I don't hurt the mom," he told me. And then my husband of the strong hands, pulled as hard as he could, a distressed mama pig straining along with him, and out popped a small, limp body. Everyone seemed to exhale together, and we peered down at this piglet, which was indeed larger than the one that had been born earlier.

"I think it's dead. Or at least paralyzed. I'm afraid I might have broken its neck with how hard I had to pull," my husband said. But glory to God, in the next moment, that limp little thing coughed and sputtered and stood! It snorted and snuffled and made its way to find a teat next to its sibling that was already nursing away.

The relief was short lived because shortly after, Little Mama was again having strong contractions. We gave her 20-30 minutes to try and labor naturally, but again, she appeared to be in distress and the exhaustion was evident. I went in again and felt another little snout. This one came out quickly with my help and then there were three. I am not a squeamish person, and by the time we saw contractions again, I felt more confident to help her birth the next one. When I put my hand in to feel for the baby however, there was nothing there. And then Little Mama had a contraction, and a felt a baby drop from somewhere inside of her into my hand. (At this point, we were no longer waiting the 20 minute period because Little Mama was so tired and barely pushing with her contractions.)

[Sidebar: A pig's uterus is bi-horned, with babies in their amniotic sacs all along both of the horns. Imagine looking at a ram's face head on, with the two horns curling outwards on both sides. Contractions push the outer piglets towards the center to enter the birthing canal. Litters can be anywhere from a few piglets to 10-12 and even 14-16!]

This time however, the piglet was presenting with back legs first. I tried to hook my fingers around its legs and pull like the video had said and felt it ease out but the head got stuck, legs protruding outside and the rest of it still inside the birthing canal. My husband took his turn and pulled hard to get it out, and again, we thought this one was dead. It had probably suffocated. Perhaps its ribs had gotten crushed because they are so little and delicate like birds' bones, and its little tongue was flopping out of its mouth completely lifeless. But again, when we cleared the mucus from its nose and mouth there was a cough and a wiggle, and up it went on wobbily legs to explore around its mother.

After the fourth piglet, Little Mama showed no more signs of contractions. The little ones were nursing or curled up along their mother for warmth. It was at this point that Inigo decided he was going to come into the pen. He nuzzled Little Mama in what I have interpreted as an affectionate/worried/relieved way and sniffed his offspring with much interest. It was touching in a way until he extended his penis and then proceeded to spray something on them. It kind of distressed Little Mama because she was in the process of delivering the placenta--which Inigo was very excited about and nearly trampled the babies to grab it and dash out of the pen to devour it. What a boar.

Little Mama with her babie

We were concerned that perhaps all of our intervention had injured Little Mama because she had yet to stand up since farrowing. She seemed to have accepted the little pigs, although she had as yet to see them or smell them up close (pigs don't really have necks that they can turn to look behind them. In order for her to see her babies, she was going to have to stand up), so we were very happy to see that when my husband poured out some grain to keep the other swine distracted to give the babies some peace, she got up gracefully and lumbered over to have a snack and a drink of water for herself.

Big Mama gave birth a week after. We had waited and waited, expecting any day now (because the other two females were belly-dragging-on-the-ground ENORMOUS) that we were going to see babies, but they never came. And then one afternoon as I was walking up the hill finishing up animal chores, I saw four little piglets running around, playing in the grass. No, five? six? No, eight piglets! Big Mama had made a nest for herself away from everyone at the far end of her run under the shade of several young oak trees that had grown together. She was up and eating like normal while her babies were resting in the shade. They were all dry and plump so we figured she must have farrowed sometime that morning after they had been fed.

It was interesting to see the two litters mixing together. Little piglets grow fast. They are literally a different size from morning to evening, but thankfully there was little bullying between the older pigs and the younger pigs, and both mothers were willing to let any babies nurse on them. One mother would flop down and all eight piglets would rush over for a snack. And then the other mother would lay down and the troupe of babies would rush over to the other for seconds.

And there was only one. Auntie seemed like she didn't want to farrow. One day she would look enormous, and I would think, today is the day. But then in the evening it was as if she had deflated and she looked as normal as a large pig could be. Even her teats didn't look *that* full compared to the other mothers, and I was starting to have the sneaking suspicion that she had had a sympathetic pregnancy.

[Sidebar: what is a sympathetic pregnancy? (I will admit that I didn't think this was a real thing) A friend explained to me that she had had 5 doe goats that were pregnant, but only one of them kidded. She waited and waited for the other mothers to kid because they were large and their teats were even leaking colostrum, but no kids were making their debut. And then she got an ultrasound machine and examined her goats to discover there was nothing there! No babies! These does had manifested the somatic symptoms of pregnancy without ever being bred, as if to keep the one mother company... A crazy phenomenon, but apparently possible for other animals as well.]

But then one evening, the family was out doing evening chores. We emptied a box of fruit in their pen and the adults came out to have dinner. They were quickly followed by eight little pigs, scampering out and being mischievous, and then a tiny, tiny little piglet came running out, still trailing an umbilical cord, wanting to join the crowd. Auntie had had her babies! The kids went to go look for her nest but we couldn't find it anywhere. And then my six year old discovered seven (!) more velvety little babies curled up on the perimeter of the fence line.

This was our first red flag. While even Big Mama had left her litter to go have a snack, she would quickly return to check on them, calling for them with little rhythmic grunts (Little Mama also). Also, piglets are often up and running within a few hours. They take naps but it is not unusual to seem them scurry from nest to mother many times a day. Auntie ate. Then took a drink. Then lay down in the wallow. All the while, the one adventurous piglet was wandering around in circles squealing for its mother. It was lost and being pushed around by bigger piglets. (The other piglets weren't being mean. They were just playing and the littlest one was getting jostled in the middle because it wasn't fast or agile enough to join in or get out of the way). Auntie did not seem to care or notice that her baby was in distress. I kept coaxing it to go towards its mother or go back to the nest with its other siblings but it would wander back again calling for its mother, who was still decidedly ignoring it.

That day we gave her a pass because maybe she was exhausted from the labor and unable to show interest in her babies, so we checked in the morning. The other piglets were still down at the nest, dry and velvety soft, but alone with Auntie eating her breakfast and enjoying her wallow. It was 100F that particular day, and when my husband went to check on the animals in the early afternoon, the piglets were still separate from their mother, but now the sun had shifted so they were without shade and in danger of overheating. He moved them up the hill to where the other pigs were, and naturally, as the pigs were being handled and lifted, they squealed loudly and fiercely, which caused the other mothers to come running with concern. (A word of warning to anyone moving piglets near a sow. Although they are large, heavy animals, a concerned mother can be lightning fast and dangerous. They can knock you down and take a hearty bite out of you. A pig can kill you if it feels you are a threat to its young. Move carefully and quickly if you have to move them at all.) Auntie however, didn't even shift from her wallow. He placed them with the other piglets and the two mothers laid down to let everyone nurse.

Here are the problems that presented themselves. This last litter of piglets was now a full two weeks smaller than the first litter. Including the newest eight, there were now 16 babies, all ravenously hungry all the time and as pigs are (and perhaps babies in general) none willing to wait their turn. The two mothers were willing to feed all the babies, but the biggest piglets simply knocked the newborn babies away from the teat, and they were not plumping up. Two days in, they were tiny and their rib bones were still visible, and their skin was wrinkling around them still. They were cold and frail because they weren't eating, and their mother didn't seem to care. Her babies recognized her though, and they huddled around her even though she acted like she didn't see them. They nuzzled her and grunted sweetly but she lay down on her stomach and refused to expose her teats. But they stayed close to her trying to stay warm, and we left them for a time to see if she would finally lay down to let them eat.

My daughter came running in a few hours later because a baby had died. There were five piglets of that last litter. One had been crushed under its mother and two were gone. (I presume they were eaten soon after they had died...because pigs.) Of the remaining babies, one was limp and wheezing and having seizures with its tongue sticking out of its mouth and eyes flickering open and shut. We rushed the babies out of the pen and into a crate in the house where we could hand feed them. They were so weak that they didn't even squeal. Auntie didn't look up. Didn't care that her babies were dead or gone. In fact, she sauntered over to Inigo and let him mount her--only two days after she had farrowed. I doubt that she was in heat so soon, but this was not something we were going to risk. If you cannot take care of your current babies, you cannot have more. If you do cannot take care of your babies, you cannot stay on our farm.

My oldest daughter wrapped the sickest baby up in a towel to warm it up as it was shivering uncontrollably. We had thawed out the bags of colostrum from when Butters the calf was born and the babies guzzled down the colostrum and milk with a fervor of animals that had been starving. It was amazing to literally see their bellies fill out and they become plump little babies in just a day. They had doubled in size just being able to eat their fill.

The following day was a culling day.

[Not-so-Sidebar: The concept of culling might seem a little cold-hearted. Big-time Homesteaders/Farmers like Gregy Judy and Joel Salatin and Justin Rhodes talk about it all the time and its importance in maintaining a healthy, safe sustainable environment on your farm. The animals on our homestead all provide a purpose. We don't have pets, and all the animals are expected to do their job. The cows provide milk or meat; the chickens give eggs and meat; the dogs are our guards; the cats are our pest control. The pigs are for meat. On top of those expectations, the breeding stock of the animals are required to be able to take care of their young. We are not going to bottle feed every baby for every litter. A mother that rejects her babies is going to be culled. We do not want the next generations of those animals to inherit those undesirable traits. When you acquire breeding stock, you want the best. The best-tasting, the best-performing, and the best-nurturing.

In one of his YouTube videos, Justin Rhodes was introducing his first bred sow, and his requirements for her was that she keep one baby alive. It is common that babies die. In fact, I have read that it is common for 60% of babies to die. Sometimes they are stillborn, sometimes they are weak or sick, or there is a tragic accident, and that is part of the umbrella of farm life that we have labeled as "farm tragedies," but indifference and neglect is not an acceptable behavior. Auntie still had babies alive, but if we had left them in with her and the other pigs, they would all probably soon be dead.

Culling means to be removed from the herd. This can be in the form of selling or butchering. For us, we decided to butcher Auntie. In the long run (or maybe not-so-long-run because pigs grow and multiply so fast) we couldn't sustain that many pigs and were intending on butchering one of the grown pigs soon, and her neglect of her babies made the selection "easy." We had to butcher quickly because we could not risk her being pregnant with another litter. So the evening prior and all butchering day, I pulled out lard and meat for processing to clear space in the freezer.]

Because we have had several pig butcherings under our belt, my husband and I had everything butchered and cut into primals and on ice in two hours before the heat of the day set it. The surviving piglets (two more died within the span of a day--they were just two weak to bounce back even being kept apart) were put into our chicken brooder filled with soft wood-shavings and as much milk and food as they would like to eat. They are chubby and wiggly and they climb impatiently over each other to eat their meals. They grunt and dig and bury themselves into the shavings only to pop out and tumble their siblings over. Our hope is to get them strong enough to rejoin the rest of the pigs within two months when they are "weaned" and castrated (will cover that in a separate post).

The other piglets are big and healthy. The other mothers continue to take care of their babies although they seem less patient with them now, I am glad to have this part of the pig homesteading behind us for a few months at least. It is also not disappointing that both mothers had small litters. It makes the growth of the herd less overwhelming, and we have a chance to sit back and let the pigs enjoy their life as a pig is want to do.