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Saturday, September 18, 2010

Big litter

A blue butt (that's a breed name) sow of mine had a big litter today.  Here's the picture: 

Click on the picture for a bigger version
How many piglets do you see? 

The best part is that there are 4 more piglets off camera, on the other side of the sow.  Lots of color variations.  that's part of the fun!

5 comments:

  1. Did she farrow in a farrowing crate?

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  2. I count 14 so that makes a total of 18?? Wow!!

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  3. I've only got 2 farrowing crates at this point, and they're both full. This sow had her piglets out in the pasture, and I moved her and the piglets into the pig shelter on one side of the pasture.

    If she were in a farrowing crate I'd expect most of those piglets to survive. in the shelter, I'm expecting normal mortality due to the usual reasons: Sow stepping on the piglets, sow crushing the piglets by laying on them, and so on.

    It looks great; all the piglets on the sow, no farrowing crate, everyone happy. And for the first day or two, it is great. And then its no so great, and by the time that they wean it kinda sucks.

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  5. WOW!! She's a keeper! How many teats does she have? :-) That one in the middle looks almost dog-brindle colored. Kewl color variations. My Berk gilt's first litter in July was 13 and I was entirely impressed with that :-D

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