Last night, our Tamworth sow, Orange, farrowed 5 gorgeous little piglets. In the midst of shifting southerly and westerly winds, we got a couple inches of rain on top of a snow pack up here on Camel's Hump Mountain of about 3 feet of snow. We had heard many farmers were having difficulty with farrowing this year due to the extreme weather.
With colder than normal temperatures, precipitation and dead of night upon us, I was grateful for the wonderful little piglet creep with heat lamp that Vanessa built in the last couple of days into Orange's farrowing house. The creep is an important part of the farrowing house. It provides a safe place for the piglets to take a break from mama and eventually they will get their own feed in there. Right now, it's a place they can go to get warm after leaving the 90+ degree womb!
Labor lasted about 5 hours and at the end of it, we have four boys and one girl. They took to mama's milk right away. Tamworths are a talkative breed and this is very noticeable in the farrowing house. There is often a lively conversation between mama and piglets which consists of her grunting and snorting and them responding with snorts and squeals. If they fight, mama raises her voice almost as if to say, "come on now, little ones!".
Here are some photos:
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| Piglets under lamp in creep |
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| Piglet Creep |
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| 3 of Orange's 5 Piglets |
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| Little Tamworth Piglets Cozy Up |
1 comment:
It's wonderful!
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