Are you having a bad day? Do you need a pick-me-up?
Well I have just what you need!
Yep, you guessed it.
Piglets.
If you gave me a herd of cattle or horses (or both), I would be happy. But pigs (and dogs, of course) are my soul mates. So without them I think life would be incomplete. Pigs are the most human-like of all domestic livestock. They like to talk a lot (grunting, barking and squealing being the primary speech patterns), they will eat or even just chew on whatever you put in reach of their mouth, and they like to fight. Sounds like a lot of people you know when they drink, right? They really are just my favorites.
I spent most of Sunday waiting for 1 of my gilts (1st time mama) to farrow (have babies). I know what you are thinking...why on Earth were you sitting around waiting for her to have babies? Well, I'm a bit of a worry wart...which may be because I live 24 miles from where my sows and gilts are currently staying and I knew once I left she was going to be on her own. And for the most part pigs are really good at having babies on their own, but it doesn't stop me from worrying.
This is the girl who was having piglets. Ignore the slobber, she's really quite beautiful. She weighs in at about 550 pounds (light compared to the 700+ pound girls I got in today).
After deciding she wasn't going to have piglets til at least the middle of the night, I left and got up early this morning to check on her. When I came in this morning I found 7 newborns!
Don't worry, they were old enough to be dry and completely adorable. And I will spare you a picture of the placenta because don't get me wrong, placenta is amazing but WHEW it never fails to make me gag a little. I don't know if it's the smell or thought but OK, I will stop talking about it now.
If you can't handle an overload of cuteness then stop scrolling NOW!
Aren't they just ridiculously adorable?!
The following piglets are about 5 days old. You can see that they still have that silky soft smooth skin of young piglets but aren't as weak kneed as the newborns!
If you are wondering why I keep taking pictures of sleeping piglets, it's because even newborns are extremely mobile and wobble quickly (much quicker than my cell phone camera can capture)!
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| This is the same group from yesterday's piggy pile...as you can tell these 4 like to pile up next to mama. |
I will end this picture montage with my week old piglets. It's amazing how fast piglets grow!
So if you had a case of the Monday blues, I hope this cured it :)
Now do like the piglets do and pile up! Sleep tight!
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