Life and Death in the Farrowing Stall

Farming is wonderful. The magic and wonder, the true miracle of life, it's a welcome gift in the barn.

Barely awake Midlife Farmwife meets barely awake
newborn Red Wattle piglet

But behind the scenes, the miracles are not so pretty, or as in the case of my own barn looks, average.
As I mentioned in my last post on Tuesday, Miss Debbie, the Matriarch of our Red Wattle herd, was due to farrow soon. We had no idea how soon but we're getting smarter. Instead of putting them in the farrowing pen a few days before the expected date, we now put them in two weeks before.

Good thing. Deb wasn't due until Feb 4, at least by our calculations. Apparently some rolling in the hay occurred BEFORE we witnessed it. Imagine that. And so yesterday morning we were a little (lot) surprised to see Miss Deb had gone ahead and birthed a bunch. 13 to be exact.

Miss Debbie nurses newborns while still
giving birth to more piglets at the
other end. Love those multi-tasking mamas!

Red Wattles are known for their large litters but 13 is large even for them. But of those 13, three were DOA and one of those three was partially mummified. Still in labor when we got to the barn yesterday am, we witnessed one birth of a well formed babe which wasn't breathing on its own. Keith assisted with some mild chest compressions and after seeing a couple of breaths we hung the babe upside down (gently) for improved chest massage and drainage. Interventions worked and new babe was off in search of a nipple

To the right, the beauty of farming, to the left
the reality.

Sadly though, a few hours later Miss Debbie was down to just 7 viable babies. Why ? So many reasons. Possible a crushing incident. Even though her pen is very large with lots of room to move, mama pigs are big and clumsy. In confinement the piglets are pulled away from their mama's and kept in a tiny metal floored area next to her, where they can reach her nipples but nothing else. Their survival rate is higher but often runts survive that end up being put down later anyway, and their short lives are horrible.

We have farrowed outside before in groups but lost piglets when they were stepped on by other adults. Again they had plenty of room to move but chose to stay close to each other thus the reason we have moved on to the separate farrowing pen idea.

Yet, we still lost piglets.

We feel strongly that weak piglets  are not meant to survive even though it may be possible to save them. Genetically, saving the less perfect of the breed will not in the long run SAVE the breed. The solution to preventing extinction is to raise healthy animals with strong genetics.

Rationalizing the loss of some of these piglets? Perhaps. But we have seen other breeders of purebred anythings, keep the offspring just to get the money which comes with "breeding stock." But how ethical is it to save animals whose genetics are weak, only to have them reproduce more weak offspring.?

The amazing fact of hogs: weight at birth
about 1-2 pounds. Weight in 6 months 200 plus.
Can you imagine keeping THAT baby in diapers?!

From birth we want to see strong animals with the iron will of survival. Offering a little help at the time of birth especially to those last piglets who have been in the birth canal longer and maybe aspirated a little amniotic fluid seems reasonable.  Just need a few thumps to get them over the birth hump? Yeah, we can do that.

But when I hear of breeders who go all out to save those very sick, very weak animals for the sole purpose of increasing the farms bottom line...I get angry. Nature never intended for the weaklings to live and reproduce more weaklings, and I firmly agree with Mother Nature on this point.

And to be perfectly clear...this post is about ANIMALS, not human beings.