It Feels Like It's On Us: Loss in the Barnyard

We've been a little radio silent on the momma pigs and the new little piglets, because it's been a stressful time. Flora farrowed outside, in a beautiful nest of hay (after a galivant around the farm, don't forget) on a warmish winter day, a couple days before a storm. We built a sort of temporary strawbale shelter around her, to block precipitation and wind. During this time we lost one; this is no surprise, it happens. Losing 1 or 2 wouldn't be a huge shock.

When the storm rolled in we moved all the piglets to a shed, for mom to follow.

Then we lost another piglet. And then a couple more. All to her laying on them. She is a very careful momma, we see how tentative she is. She's also the largest sow we've ever had.

By castration and ear notching time we thought we were through the trauma of loss - a heavy week, with a lot of processing. The day after castration we lost the sixth piglet, of her liter of 14. I could have been anthropomorphizing, but I'd check on Flora and she looked sad.

What could we have done differently? Would it have changed anything? Maybe we shouldn't have sheltered the piglets, left her outside in the space she chose specifically for this purpose. We've never co-farrowed before and Fauna being up in her space could be a factor. She chose the little shed, which she moves around in fine, but perhaps it's just a little too small. Many questions floating around in our heads.

It feels like it's on us.

Raising animals always comes with loss, but it never gets easier. Raising breeding animals is a whole other level. We witness miracles and feel devastation. We're witness the intense innate instincts these creatures have, the bonds and communication. We have a decade of experience under our belts with pigs, but we're still learning all the time.

It's a blow, emotionally and financially. It was a hard week processing that, while looking out at the home orchard which has sustained significant rabbit damage this winter. 

While things seem to have leveled out, one piglet is too skinny and needs extra attention and has been brought inside. Fauna looks like she's starting to dry up (too early at 4 weeks) and we suspect her piglets may be competing with Flora's for her milk. Fauna (the jumping pig) is not the attentive mother Flora is. Last night we started bottle feeding Flora's little nugget and as soon as he puts weight back on he'll head back out with his crew. He seems like he'll be just fine, he has vigor. 

Chickens in the kitchen. Pigs in the basement. Things are pretty normal here at the farm.

Sir Renfred Moves on to New Pastures

Sir Renfred Leaves the Farm

It was a bitter sweet day yesterday as Sir Renfred moved to his new home. You can see below that he is eager to get to know his new lady friends (as evidenced by the mouth foam). We are grateful that he has moved to a fantastic new home, with large pastures to roam. We know Farmer Drew, Full Boar Farm, will take great care of him.

Sir Renfred gets a first peak at his new ladies.

That doesn't keep us from getting a little emotional about the change! Sir Renfred means "mighty, but peaceful" and indeed he always lived up to his name. He was our first boar and has been an important part of our pastured pig operation. Below, Farmer John says goodbye. The night before he left we hung out and gave the good ole boy a beer, for old times sake. Good, good pig.

John says farewell.

So what's the story? Why the change? 

We have decided to take a break from farrowing (breeding pigs). We had been discussing this off an on for a little bit. When we, kind of, begrudgingly, made our final decision that was about the time Farmer Drew contact us looking to see if we had a boar for sale. Very serendipitous.

Taking a break from farrowing is like a two year process. It's a little laughable. Now, we have fewer pigs and fewer groups of pigs, which eases the work. The sows, Elsa and Suzy, will farrow in January. Post-weaning in March we will look for good homes for them. All of the weaner piglets (which already have good homes set), except about 3, will move off to other farms. With a group of 3 for us to raise over the summer it will be the smallest number of pigs we have had on our farm. When that trio is harvested in late Fall we shall enjoy a winter without pigs - our "break."

Summer 2017 we have one (or more) large projects going on, which we would like to put our focus towards. Our Deep Winter Greenhouse will be built and next winter will be our first winter growing. It will be nice to have more time and energy to dedicate to this, as pigs do take considerable time to care for (which we love, don't get me wrong). This also gives us great opportunity to rejuvenate the pastures, which really took a beating in the muddy, muddy, mucky never-ending rain this year.

So, while sad, it's all good. Hard decisions need to happen on the farm. It's definitely more difficult with animals that have been around a while. Scroll on, for a little Sir Renny slideshow.

Sir Renfred Slide Show!

 Here he is the day he moved in. He moved all the way from Ohio. Such a little guy!

Renny has brought us much joy.

His first wallow.

Always gentle and sweet.

That boy snoozed hard. Gotta love that nose...and those ears!

He surely produced some beautiful bacon bits and delicious pork chops.

He is a wonderful Dad. Loved the kids to pieces.

He even let them try and nurse him.

What a lover.

Muck Day, Mud Day

What weather we are having! I thought I would dislike the melting snow, but it is actually kind of nice - the chickens can explore more and the drifted mountains in the pig pens are shrinking away from the top of the fence. Despite the 40 mph winds yesterday, it felt nice to work outside - the smell in the air was refreshing.

Chickens in the compost bin. Very efficient ladies adding nitrogen for us!

CSA customer Pat asked a couple days ago if we were ready for the mud. Likely the most dreaded season of the year, mud season is always an interesting part of spring. Two key tools for managing mud - rubber boots and straw.

Standing in a puddle. By the end of the day most puddles had soaked in.

My barnyard chore Friday was to muck out the barn (see the panorama below). With wet mud season ahead, a cleaning of the barn removed dirty straw and gives the pigs clean, dry straw to enjoy. The straw we remove is spread in the winter paddocks over muddy areas to help with the spring mess.

Removing straw in the barn with my pig "helpers." 

One month old piglets exploring the straw stacks.

 It was so gloriously nice outside that the piglets were very active!

Cutie patootie.

A view of part of the barnyard, below. Mucked out straw spread out. Adding organic matter to the beaten winter paddocks. Mud management for our porcine friends.

Barnyard panorama.

All in all the mud didn't end up being as bad yesterday as we thought it would be. The wind helped with the drying and puddles were soaking in. Perhaps this springs mud season will be more spread out!

A couple more piglet photos, for good measure. The piglets are fully weaned from the milk replacer and on feed. Here they are all lined up at the trough; however, some of them are sleeping and some of them are eating.

Piglets, eating and sleeping at their trough.

Little Salt kept coming over to see what I was up to. Our sweet orphan piglets are so friendly, since they have gotten so much extra time with us. Gotta love those ears. And that nose...and the eyelashes...

 Stay tuned! The season is gearing up, CSA sign up continues, supplies are rolling in and seed starting begins next week!

A Little Help From Our Friends (and Photo Update)

While I find myself very behind in writing on the blog, everything is in tip-top shape and moving ahead as planned in the field, pasture and orchard. Plants are growing by leaps and bounds. The field is filling with varied hues of greens, with touches of golds and purples. The pasture is alive with squawking chickens and young piglets on the move. As June rears it's head today we are on the verge of CSA and a lovely season with our farm members, what we have been planning for and patiently looking forward to for months!

Tomatoes planted and staked individually.

We are grateful for our weekend helpers!

The weekend was a flurry of people and tasks on the farm. Thank you Steve and Franny for coming down and helping with cutting up the tree, planting tomatoes, mulching and greenhouse progress! Of course it was wonderful to balance the farm work by spending time with great friends. Thank you Nate and Megan for stopping by and bringing morels for dinner!

One bed of peppers with mulch.

We continue to make progress on the greenhouse as time and help allows, and look forward to making use of it this season for curing onions and winter squash. Thank you Larry for coming out a bit on both Saturday and Sunday to help with framing! Farm dog Hazel looks like she is trying to take some credit for helping as well.

The greenhouse framing for the walls.

The beekeepers stopped by to check on their replacement queen in one of the hives. They stop by about every week to 10 days to maintain the hives.

On Sunday we had more visitors coming to check out the farm and piglets, a couple local farm fans, as well as Dustan and Sara, from Sara Beth Photography (Twin Cities) who came down to photograph piglets for a project she is working on.

From the Field

CSA begins in a couple weeks, slated for start on June 17th! We push forward with more succession plantings, weeding, trellising and other task work to get ready for our first deliveries.

Lettuce heads sizing up nicely.

 Lettuce, strawberries, tender early greens and radishes are stars at the beginning of the CSA season.

Red Russian kale - tender and sweet!

 Spinach is a member favorite!

The spinach is coming along so nice!

From the Pasture

It's a little nerve-wracking having avian flu confirmed in Brown County, but our chickens are happy and healthy as can be! They as loud and silly and productive as ever.

Two chickens in the nesting box.

The pullets are now 17 weeks of age and someone laid an egg yesterday! Typically by 18 weeks pullets can start laying at anytime.

Our Buff Orpington and Silver Laced Wyandotte pullets
(young chickens under one year of age.) 

Eggs in browns and blues.

Saving the cutest for last - the piglets have arrived!! May 22-23rd the ladies farrowed and we now have 20 piglets running around blessing us with their cuteness. We are constantly impressed by the instincts of sows and what amazing mothers they are.

Piglets at 9 days - active, alert and going everywhere with mom.

Piglets are active and alert right from day one. They are sticking close to mom and learning along side of them, digging their noses in the dirt.

Herd in Flux

Our herd, otherwise known as a "drift," of pigs has gone through quite a few changes since January. In the end it is all positive, but there have been a couple bumps in the road - just enough to keep things interesting.

Suzy is a snuggler.

This all began with us physically trying to create change. A failed attempt at AI (artificial insemination) produced a bit of frustration, but hey, we wouldn't know until we tried, right? Expensive lesson learned. Enough about that.

With the ladies needing to be bred, and not wanting to rush a search for a boar, we shipped Vera, Suzy and Elsa off for a little romantic getaway with Buddy. They were away for nine days and it was so quiet! Dafney and PBJ soaked up the attention in their absence.

Elsa snoozing and Vera yawning - these two are really buddies.

When the girls came back it was clear that they had bonded and there was now a slight division between the two groups. Vera has always been the alpha female, but now she was picking on the other two a bit. Nothing horrible, they just weren't getting along the same the way they were before. So, we opened the other half of the barn and things settled down. The pigs then began sleeping in different pigs piles every single time they slept, alternating sides of the barn.

Suzy, PBJ and Dafney snoozing.

January passes into February with a hopefully successful breeding and an introduction of a new herd member on the horizon! The first task in selecting a boar was deciding on a breed and the Glouchestershire Old Spot (GOS) traits looked promising for what we are aiming for with our herd.

(Warning: Hog breed tangent, skip ahead to avoid the nerdiness, or read on!) 

Vera is a North American Guinea Hog/Ossabaw Island cross. Elsa and Suzy have those same genetics, with some GOS genetics, as well as a bit of Duroc and Hampshire. So basically they are lovely heritage mutts. You can see more Duroc in Suzy and a lot of Ossabaw in Elsa.

Two years ago we started with a Guinea Hog/Ossabaw cross and we really loved their temperament, size and foraging qualities. These breeds bring qualities of winter hardiness, efficiency of turning forage into meat, delicious fat, docility and the smaller size we are looking for. The Guinea Hog is a threatened species and the Ossabaw a critical species. They have a final weight of 150-200 lbs. Also, their darker skin removes the issue of sunburn, but we need to make sure they have a good wallow in the summer so they don't overheat.

We chose to introduce the GOS, to the Guinea Hog/Ossabaw cross, to produce a pig that would grow a little faster and larger, while maintaining a docile temperament and excellent foraging qualities. With a finishing weight of 275-300, GOS are excellent grazers and foragers. They are well known for their docility, intelligence and large liter size. They are also referred to as the "orchard pig" and are the royal pigs for the British Royal Family.

Side note: For further nerdery, check out the Mangalitsa, which is what the ladies were bred to - it's like a hairy dog-pig.

(End tangent...)

Sir Renfred, in his first few days with us.

Enter Sir Renfred - a pure GOS boar (intact male) who is now five months old. We specifically wanted a young boar, so we could socialize him ourselves. While the ladies are bred now, towards the end of the year Sir Renfred will begin his sire-ly duties. We chose a British name, for fun, and settled on Renfred for the meaning "mighty, but peaceful" as we surely hope, with a top weight of 600 lbs, that this sweet little guy will possess those qualities! Although, Abraham, meaning "father of many" was a close contender.

This was our first time introducing a new member to the drift (herd), which meant pig quarantine, a common practice. Shortly we will be introducing everyone to each other. For now, the ladies gaze longingly in his direction. The next step will be to meet across a fence, then finally everyone will get to hang out! In this time he is gaining a bit of size (just over 100 lbs now), it will be nice to have him a little larger come meet-and-greet time.

Dafney was a sweetheart from day one.

The next fluctuation was the hardest and it came in the form of harvest day. We both feel that it will be difficult each and every time. We care for these creatures, they are smart, amazing parts of our daily lives; we form bonds with them and are grateful to experience each of their unique personalities. The thing that was different about this time was raising them up from piglets and having to pick and choose which gilt (unbred female) to breed or eat. I had picked out Dafney as a keeper from day one, but in the end she was not the right fit for breeding.

"You gotta love the animals you are going to kill. If you don't there is a disconnect." - Stefan Kobowiak

So I bawled a little, and I teared up a little writing this, but that is good - I am, we are, passionate about healthy, humanely raised animals, we care. We are fortunate to work with George's City Meats for excellent service and an understanding of our practices, and we are fortunate to have great pork-loving customers who appreciate the way we raise our animals. In the end, we are grateful for the delicious, healthy meat that feeds our family - we know how it was raised, what it was fed and that it did not harm the animal, nor the ecosystem.

Suzy, with her belly beginning to round.

On a final note, Vera, Suzy and Elsa are successfully bred. No, we didn't give them pregnancy tests, basically you determine this by watching for their next heat cycle. They will cycle every 18-23 days, 21 being typical. In addition to the physiological signs they also get whiny, and Vera gets real attached to John. There were no signs, as the last predicted cycle. Now the ladies are beginning to look just a little more round in the belly and their bellies feel just a little bit firmer. We certainly are looking forward to gaggles of piglets joining the farm come May!

Vera. Love those ears.