Farm Photo of the Week-B.E.’s Piglets

Tuesday morning, Asa called me saying he needed help in the barn.  One of our sows, B.E., gave birth overnight in a pen with a bunch of her friends,, and we needed to move her and the piglets to a private stall.  Farmhand 4, Jesse (a worker gal), and I headed out to assist.  B.E. was there guarding her new additions; she let us gather her piglets and carry them to the barn so we could give them a more ideal space.

They are all settled in and doing great. 7 strong piglets.  Asa caught this photo the other night of most of them napping, while one is nursing.  If you zoom in, you will see the nursing piglet is sitting on its sibling’s head.  
This summer, we moved to have more sows give birth outside in a more natural way than the farrowing trailer allows.  We had success with all the litters, and we feel that, when weather allows, it’s an ideal way for mama and piglets alike.  Experienced sows like B.E. need little help and are very skilled at managing several tiny piglets as they move through the stall.  It’s been fun to watch how the sows keep the piglets in very small areas for the first few days and then allow them more ability to explore as they get bigger.  For much of the summer, we still had nursing piglets that could slip through the fences, hang out with any group of pigs, and still slip back to mom anytime they wanted a snack. 
With snow in the forecast this week, we'll move the next sows due to farrowing to the trailer so we can better regulate the climate the piglets enter as they come into the world.   The trailer has let us farrow more easily for the sows, piglets, and us, but with litters like B.E.’s and the others this summer, we will use the trailer far less in the warm months and have more true Dirt Pig babies.
I often get asked how B.E. got her name.  When new litters of pigs are born, the Farmhands often give naming rights to cousins or others visiting the farm at the time.  My nephews and nieces were visiting when Allspice gave birth, and my nephew thought one had especially big ears and wanted to call her “Big Ears”; the farmhands settled on B.E. I'll need the farmhands to remind me who named her sister, from the same little “John Zen”.  Both have been wonderful sows and are a big part of our farm's pig genetics.
I hope you have a wonderful Sunday,
Aila
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