For those of you that might be new to our blog, we'd like you to meet Dottie. Built like a battleship, ornery as a cross eyed mule, milk producer that Jersey cows would be envious of, Dottie is a 600 pound piglet producing factory. I was telling some folks at the market that I thought she was going to have piglets, and she shucked out 15 robust purebred Spot porkers in a 100 degree heat, and then let me know in no uncertain terms that she'd chew my legs down to stumps if I handled any of her piglets without her permission. Here they are:
We normally don't like to farrow this time of year, but our boar Rocoe failed to get her in pig after 2 attempts, so we rebred her to Jethro and she's consequently farrowing a month and a half later than we anticipated.
Dottie's on her third consecutive litter of 13 or more piglets born alive, and she's weaned every single one of them. We're not sure she'll continue that record in this extreme heat we're experiencing, since sows can get restless and less careful around their piglets when they're hot, although she might be part camel as well because she only ventured out of the hut once this morning to roll on each side in the wallow. She didn't even take a drink of water, just rushed back to her piglets right away.
You can get a sense of her size by looking at the width of the nest she made. I could drive my truck through there:
Anyway, we just wanted you to see the latest piglets on the ground, and thanks for reading!
Pork & Greens