Piglets!

Miss Pigsy gave birth to 11 piglets on Wednesday 16th at 11pm. We missed the birth but it seemed to be an easy labour for her and she did wonderfully well. 1 lil piglet was stillborn.

During the day on Thursday we had a few mishaps. Miss Pigsy, being so big and not used to little piglets running around and under her, accidently squished one. She then squished another 4 but we managed to save one, so from the 11 we were down to 6. Unfortunately i had to make the heartbreaking decision to take the remaining  piglets away from her. There were a few factors that made the decision easier. Miss Pigsy's milk was near non-exsistant. She was moving around a lot and wouldn't lay down for the piglets to feed, it was a very, very hot day, the man of the house wasn't home, the vet is 2 hours away. I did not make the decision lightly, i couldn't bear to lose anymore piglets so i took them and began the process of hand rearing. I trawlled the internet and found a lot of helpful information, i used info that has been repeated multiple times on all different websites. I felt reasonably confident i could help the piglets grow. I'd reared calves for many years so i had a basic understanding of what was right and wrong when it came to animals. They feed well from a bottle and the pink, squishy little piglets made it through that night with my help.

On the Saturday i persisted with them to get them to feed from a shallow dish as i'd read and been told by a few piggy people it's a better option. I was lucky the man of the house was home as i was very sleep deprived from the previous 2 nights and couldn't get the piglet to do what i wanted. Hubby said i was trying too hard lol. He left them to their own devices and sure enough, they got hungry and feed from the dish with no help. They then feed every 3 hours instead of hourly. We had them in a big cage with lots of hay and there they slept all night with their continued 3 hourly feeds.
Fast forward to today, they've been having weetbix mixed with their milk and it's making them fuller for longer. They sleep for 8 hours overnight. They're growing with no set backs whatsoever. I made the right decision on that Thursday and noone can tell me otherwise.

Miss Pigsy hasn't had any side effects from not having the piglets. She's eating, wallowing and looking ok although she does have a sad look about her as she knows she had piglets but doesn't know why they're not there now. The little milk she did have dried up quickly and thankfully she didn't suffer from mastitis.

So, there you have it. We survived our very 1st piglet birth. Would i do it all again, not in a hurry!

Until next time
~x~