All my sister wanted for her 22 birthday was a pig….A pregnant pig. In all her years of farming, she had never experienced pig birth or newborn piglets. She thought the best way would be to experience it hands on. She found someone online thinning out their herd. So my mom called and made arrangements to go see them. That’s when we met Big Black Betty, a Yorkshire Berkshire Cross Sow (female pig). The best part was that she was pregnant.
Pigs are pregnant for 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days. Sure enough that is when her litter of 6 piglets were born. Our friend, Christine and her son, Jonah, came right over. The first two came out within 20 minutes of each other but the third wasn't ready to make an appearance into this world. Pigs can be in labor for one hour before the next one comes out, but after almost 2 hours of no progress, Jaklyn and Christine had decided it was time to intervene.
Jaklyn cleaned up, lubed up, and worked her way inside the birth canal (which is very different than goats). With the help of Christine and her prior goat kidding experience she was determined to help this baby out. The third piglet was breach. He was trying to come out butt first. She found the two back legs and pulled when Betty contracted. Out came baby #3, healthy and alive! Over the next few hours, 3 more babies were born; unfortunately one of them was a stillborn. Betty had 4 males, and 1 female. It is entertaining to watch suckers (piglets between birth and weaning) grow.
Last Saturday was a first for me. I was on live radio along with Cynthia Langill and Kelly Green of the Second Amendment Sisters-MA Chapter and Jessica Soto from Turkey Chicks. I was promoting the 2014 Forever Outdoors Woman event. It was a pleasure to meet Daria Bruno of Lock, Stock and Daria on 920 WHJJ Radio.
