The worst weekend on the farm

I always like to give you the good and bad on the farm, because there is no world where only one is true and partly because it makes us feel like maybe there's more than just us with skin in the game, you know?

This past week has been the hardest and most devastating week we've had on the farm yet - I've never felt as gutted as I did this past weekend.

See, our sow was pregnant, which we weren't 100% sure on until a couple weeks ago. Her body is SO long that she hides it very well and it honestly, for the longest time, looked like she had just gained some weight.

We knew that she was close to farrowing but didn't have a due date because this wasn't a planned breeding, although one we were excited about anyways. We checked her every day for milk let down (pigs will typically get milk in 24 hours before going into labour) and our plan was to move her to her own pen on Sunday morning. Through all our checks and monitoring, she gave us no sign on when she might go into labour.

Unlucky for us, she had the piglets Saturday morning.

In the same pen with our boar, George, and while there's plenty of room in there for the two of them, there isn't enough room for a boar and a farrowing sow.

When Alex found her, she was mid labour. 

So we separated George (a feat in itself) and went to set up a pen in the barn for her as we had planned to do the next day.

One of the biggest things to worry about during farrowing over the initial 24-48 hours and up to a week after birth is piglet death due to the mother squishing them. Sows are so big (400-500lbs) and the piglets are so small (2-5 lbs) that the piglets just don't get out of the way fast enough. Which is why evolutionary speaking, pigs have large litters, to ensure that their genetics continue despite the high chance of death among piglets.

Piglet deaths happen so often that in commercial farming they have farrowing pens that prevent the sow from getting up at all (which we don't agree with), and upon first examination of Gilty, we knew that there were a couple dead ones (which actually ended up being 5).

In the end she had 15 piglets. 

And over the next 48 hours, wether from being stillborn or getting laid on, they would all be dead.
We lost them all.

At one point I managed to save one of the piglets, finding it still breathing after being laid on, so I pumped its chest and blew into its nose and it came back squealing.

We spent both nights barely sleeping, checking on her and the piglets that remained every few hours, making sure they were warm and nursing. 

And it still wasn't enough.

You'll often hear in the farming world, that when you have livestock, you also have dead stock, it's just the nature of the game and yet, it doesn't capture the dedication, pain and the mental what ifs that farmers go through.

We view that our job as farmers is to support and steward the animals to work with nature, instead of trying to control everything and sometimes, letting nature take it's course isn't fun or simple or amazing. As we've learnt, it can also be devastating, gut wrenching and just downright confusing.

The despair present in farming is rarely talked about but it's so often present and I think that's something the general population is completely blind to.  Another reason why farmers mental health overall is in crisis.

Will we change things around next time? Definitely, if we decide to continue with this pig breeding adventure that is.