Spring piglets

I'm always happy to see pigs born at this time of year.  It's not great weather wise (although this years very, very mild winter is very nice) but it's great for the market.  Spring pigs, particulary those born in january and february, are usually in short supply, and are desired as show pigs and fair pigs.  

 So we've got quite the color pallete of piglets.  Pink and red and solid and spotted

 This group is showing its yorkshire heritage, but they are crossbred piglets.  We do have purebred sows, but we breed (and sell) hybrid pigs.  They are more thrifty with feed and are healthy and bouncing.  More pig for the customers dollar, I think .

 The litter above is only a day old, snoozing next to mom.  She'd really like them to nurse, but they're all sleeping now.  She'll wake them up shortly and remind them to eat.

 Each little pig hits the ground running.  within minutes of birth they're on their feet and suckling.  the next day t hey're a little wobbly, but oriented and determined.  The first order of business for a piglet is to figure out which nipple is theirs and protect it.

Now while you have your own nipple, it's perfectly ok to snack off of someone elses nipple if you can.  Another day-old litter.

Right now I'm carrying 120 piglets ranging in age from 1 day to 4 weeks.  I run this sort of schitzophrenic path when I have this many piglets -- "what am I going to do with all of them", and then I'll have a good sales weekend, and sell 60 pigs, and then I switch to "I'm out of piglets!  I need more".

Kinda like that stress.  Beats the heck out of staring at the back of a car in traffic.