Pigs & Poultry

Finally, our first pigs to the Actress gilt have arrived. We bought this gilt at Melton Mowbray last September at the British Lop Show and Sale. She had come all the way from Cornwall and it looked like she would be going back there when she didn’t meet the reserve.

We hadn’t taken a trailer because we weren’t going to buy a pig! However, we managed to find transport for her and buy her after the sale.

She is a much deeper bodied pig than our Harmony girls and a few days after arriving she came into season. We had a young British Lop Cornishman boar to put her to but the first service was not successful. The gilt got very stressed and eventually so did the boar!

When she came back on heat three weeks later the boar served her but we were disappointed when he seemed to think she was on heat again three weeks later. We were left wondering if it was “him” or “her”?  I thought it best put her to my other boar, he never misses. He wasn’t interested and she certainly didn’t like him and the result was a huge gash up the side of the gilt.

We put her in a box on her own, cleaned her up and then it was a case of waiting. She didn’t seem to change much and we still didn’t know if the boar worked. After Christmas I thought she had changed a bit but couldn’t be sure it wasn’t wishful thinking on my part. Then we used the boar on a Berkshire and she didn’t come back on heat so we were more hopeful.

As January progressed she began to fill out and bag up and then on the 20^th of February she gave birth to a litter of seven. She has been a really good Mum but then we find all our British Lops to be good. We already have an order for a gilt!

Mark and Isaac have been busy sorting out poultry. Penning up breeding groups. Many of the hens and ducks have been laying despite the cold weather. The first ten days of eggs from the breeding pens will be eaten, as they may not be pure then they will be put aside for the incubator.

The geese have been spending most of the day at the pond. This is the first year they have really bothered with it. The gander has been treading the geese so we should see goose eggs soon.

Last year Isaac and his cousin found a baby Mallard in a storm drain they rescued her and she went in with some day old ducklings we had hatched. A couple of weeks ago she disappeared so we hope she left with the Mallards that landed in our front field. She was the only duck we had that could fly, the runners “run” down to the pond where as she would fly and get there before them.

There is still a frost most nights and everywhere is very dry but the days are sunny. I wonder whether March “coming in like a lamb” will see it go “out as lion!”