Welcome friends, neighbors, and new acquaintances! Welcome to our newest venture, a blog about life, culture, agriculture, literature, music, and a plethora of assorted miscellanies, whatever comes to mind. We have been keeping hogs for almost a year now, but our breeding herd, members of which will offer commentary from time to time, is just coming into its own. We are currently enjoying watching our first litter of pigs grow up. They are almost a month old now. The litter was on the small side – just five, of which four survived – but we are trying to give Rosie the benefit of the doubt for this first litter. With the cold, wet fall, she had some some very trying conditions to contend with. We will be keeping one of the piglets, a gilt Roy named Violet, for second generation breeding stock. She has been diligently watching Rosie and has started helping her to build the nest when we toss out new straw. She takes a small bunch into her month and runs alongside Rosie. She drops her bunch in the house and nudges it around, just like Mama.
- Mutt poking his head out
PIGS build NESTS? How do they get up into the trees?
Seriously though, I had no idea they did that.
Yep, they gather up the straw/hay/leaves/etc and make a huge nest. The sows and gilts do this just prior to farrowing, but it’s also a common behavior for the boars and barrows in the leanto in the cold months. The pile it up to hold in warmth. I wish I had a picture of one of Rose’s nests. We would spread the straw out on her deck and when we’d come back, it would be piled up in a corner, like one of the eagle’s aeries you see on Nature or in National Geographic. One big eagle.