Baby Pigs are born!

Here are some pictures of our first litter of Red Wattle pigs. This litter was small, only 6 pigs. It was Penny's first  litter. The usual is 12, so we will hope for that next time.

There are 3 boys and 3 girls, 4 red and 2 charcoal color. All 6 have the expected wattles on each jaw, so the genetics look good!

Mom and babies are doing fine.

This one looks tired!

Heres  the whole litter!

First meal

Yum!

After dinner naps :)

Baby piglets are here!

Finally, after almost 4 months, the baby piglets arrived! Our first litter of pure bred red wattle hogs.

The funny thing is.. we were waiting and waiting for them to arrive, day after day watching the signs and hoping. Then on this sunday noon we were called out of town for a family emergency. Our daughter and animal lover stayed behind to manage the farm while we were away for an extended visit. not 3 hours after we drove off she called to inform us that we had a baby piglet! The rest were borh throughout the evening.

We will post more info and pictures as soon as possible, still catching up from the trip!

I think she likes me!

While putting the turkeys to bed in their pen this particular night, one seemed to take a liking to me. No matter what I did, she would not leave my shoulder! If I picked her up and set her down, she hops right back up.

The greenest lawnmower

So what's the greenest way to mow the lawn and enjoy fathers day to the fullest?

Easy.... Open the sheep pasture gate and invite the 'workers' out for the day.. Then grab a cold drink and sit down to 'supervise'.

Grandma?

When we decided to repair the back fence of the horse pasture, even grandma go in the act. Here she is durinf her first evee tractor driving lesson!

First fruits

Look closely and you will find 2 tiny apples at the top of one of our apple trees! We are so excited to see fruit growing only a couple months after planting these trees!

Creating a better pig pasture

Today we took on a big project. In the corner of the property near the chicken coop has been a sizeable brush pile since we moved here. We always planned on burning it but never got around to doing it. Fortunately, there is a better use of this brush!

We decided to move it all into the pig pen to give them more of a pasture feel. There are no trees in the pig pen yet, so this will provide a little of whats missing. Slowly we want to do everything we can do to make this place more "natural".

the brush was piled up against the horse arena fencing in a long row.  Hopefully this will provide some place to dig, perhaps small animals will move in for cover, etc.  Only time will tell.

Additonally I connected a nozzle to a hose tied to the tposts, and installed a water timer. It is set to run fresh water a few minutes each day to keep a mud pond for the pigs. Having constant fresh water, but not too much, should keep this place fairly clean and desease free.  It will take a while to get hte adjustment right. In the summer, this will be the hang out spot! (as you may know, pigs do not sweat, they must use water and/or mud applied to their bodies to keep cool and block the sun. Its a sort of sunscreen mudpack.  This is probably why pigs have hte reputation of being "dirty", but they are actually very clean animals, they just have to use mud to block the heat and sun.)

Here are some pics of the water / mud hole. If you look closley you can se the nozzle tied to the top of hte center tpost.

Heres a pic in the daylight showing the water flow. We have dubbed this "Pig Springs"

One less turkey today

Sadly I found a dead turkey in the hoop house this morning. I suspect this one got too wet somehow in the unseasonable rains we are having. Turkeys can stand cold but not wet. There were no other signs of attack and they all seemed healthy last night when put to bed.

It might be safer for them to provide a ground level nesting box that would stay dry. Right now they have to stay on the perch if it rains.

Always learning something.