Hello friend!
Is it “going outside without gloves on” weather where you are? It is by us!! Oh my, does this feel great!
And perfect time…we are super busy this week getting ready for new baby piglets coming in less than a week.
Kind of crept up on me…I had it in my head “the first week of March” and now all of a sudden NEXT WEEK is the “first week of March!!”
😲
There are several things on our to-do list…
First, we need a separate pen for Mr. Boris (Daddy Pig.)
Last September, he was not overly kind to the new moms and babies. Let’s not do that again! The extra pen we had for him then has other pigs in now…so he’ll need something new.
My engineer, welding, all-in-all, fantastic husband is building gates to reinforce a pen in one of the barns so it will be a comfy spot for him for the next 6-8 weeks (until he goes back in with the moms again.)
I don’t know for sure, but I think Boris is about 600 lbs. Plus, he’s super muscular…so his pen will need lots of steel!
Next, I need to clean all the winter bedding (poop and straw) out of the barn.
This has been my job for the last couple days…it’s definitely not glamorous, but it’s a wonderful feeling to know that the new babies will have a clean, warm place to be born! 🥰
While I was cleaning out this barn, I had to lock out the pigs who normally would be in here. At one point, I realized it was a little too quiet outside (you know that quiet when you haven’t seen your toddler in 3 minutes? 🤨) and so I looked out the door to see where they had gone and saw this:
There was some straw kicked out of the barn, and where there is straw and warm sunshine, you’ll find a sleeping pig all burrowed in! 😄
And yes that’s a rooster on one. I have no idea why on earth that pig is allowing himself to be a perch. Maybe he’s getting a backrub??
And lastly, we need to switcheroo the barns.
Right now, the large barn has the moms and dad. This barn has worked well for them all winter (they are larger animals, with built-in fat to stay warm), however, it is pretty drafty, which does not make a very nice place for tiny baby pigs (with not much fat on their little bodies yet).
The small barn is much more suited for farrowing and the individual “maternity” pens fit well in there for the actual births. The grower pigs started their first hours of life in here and are currently still living there. They are much much larger now, much more capable of creating their own warmth (plus it’s nice and warm outside now!) so they will move into the big barn.
The tricky part will be getting the two groups switched without accidently mixing them…………….. 🤔
I’m not terribly concerned YET….last fall we put in a series of posts through the sheep pen in the middle in preparation for this day, so I have hopes that it will go smoothly. 🤞
The first picture is what the barn looked like at the end of yesterday after I let the pigs back in for the night…almost done cleaning out! The second picture is what everything will look like again, hopefully at the end of today.
Crockpot recipe
With this week being so busy for me, it’s been a great time to get out the crockpot. What’s better than a 15 minutes of a prep and it’s ready to eat 8 hours later kind of meal??
This recipe is a good one for fall if you have an abundance of freshly picked apples from trees or onions from your garden, but it works well at any time of the year, really. I’d recommend it!
Plus it smells so so so good sitting on your counter all day, melding the flavors into a scrumptious evening meal. 😋😋
That’s all for today….stay tuned for the baby piglet email that will be coming very soon!! 🤗😍🤩😊
From all of us here at Piggery Run Farm, with 2 feet or 4 feet,
we wish you a happy warm week ahead! 😘
Naomi and the gang
PS: Do you know someone who would like to see where their food comes from and how it’s raised? (And to see the baby pigs?!) We’d love to have them join our virtual farm tribe! Send them the link to this page and sign up below!
