Annpan wrote:I love to hear your piggie based tales
We've been out tagging weaners yesterday and today. We did four in the mud, slush and wind yesterday (the two from Dolores's litter, plus the two smallest boars from Doris). It was a very, very mucky job.
First, I had to chase and catch the piglet in calf deep mud. Then I havd to hold it one-handed, while using the other hand to notch the ears in the right number pattern.
Then I'd pass the notcher to the Other Half to dip in antiseptic, while she passed me the iodine spray to squirt on the ear notches.
While I was doing that, she'd insert the two halves of the ear tag into the tagging pliers, dip that into antiseptic and pass it to me in exchange for the iodine.
Then I'd clip the tag into the left ear. It takes a lot of force, in two stages. First, to pierce the ear cartilage. Second, to clip the halves together. This is all one-handed as I was still holding the piglet.
I'd swap the tagging pliers for the iodine and spray around the hole through which the tag passed.
Finally, I'd release the piglet, scrape off any dung that had fallen on my overalls or inside my boots, and then catch another piglet.
A further complication was that I had to catch the right pig. Boars get done first, then gilts (that's the pedigree system, not sexism!). I prefer to tag the birth-notified piglets first, while the pedigree ones are done last.
By the time we'd done four yesterday, we were well chilled and darkness had fallen so we left the other nine for today.
The piglets co-operated more today. As we've had about five inches of snow, they didn't come out of their hut so I was able to sit on the straw just inside the entrance and catch them easily.
On the downside, piglet squeals are much, much more intense inside a hut!
Still, they're all done now and their birth-notifications have gone through. I have two gilts selected for consideration for registering in the handbook, but I'll let the buyer decide which one he wants when he comes over tomorrow. (I can register her online while he's here and then transfer ownership to him, also online. It makes life a lot easier.)
We have 29 pigs at the moment, but will drop back to 21 by the end of the weekend and still have three weaner boars to sell. (Nine weeks old, £45 each, Berkshires, Aberdeenshire.)
Halfpint and Sleepy, Doris's two smallest boars, are being spoiled at the moment. They're growing well, but we decided they'd do better without having to compete for feed.
They've come into a spare pen in the byre, where they contentedly burrow into a pile of straw under a heat lamp (necessary as there's only two of them in a stone building). The lamp is fairly high up and is just enough to keep them warm.
They're loving having their own bed and breakfast!
Is that enough of a piggy tale?
I hope that heat lamp is keeping them all toastie... the temperature here is dropping fast, I guess it is there too.