Of Pigs and Goats

Wednesday morning Miss Piggy's hooha was swollen, she was making her nest and when I checked her teats at 7:45am I was getting droplets of milk.  All of these are signs that birth is 12 to 24 hours away.  I texted a picture to a pig person friend and she even said that it looked like Miss Piggy had 6 to 12 hours.  So began the watch.

One sign of birth is most pigs will turn down their food.   Miss Piggy was still eating like a pig.

All day long Miss Piggy would tear apart her nest and rebuild it.

 She drank massive amounts of water.  Mom brought her snacks of sour cream and a loaf of bread.  She ate it all!










By 9:30pm there were still no piggies.  I needed a shower and sleep.  I set my alarm clock to go off every two hours and Miss Piggy was doing the same she did all day long.  
11:30 PM she would work on her nest, drink water, pee, work on her nest and lay in it for 30 seconds...no kidding I timed her. 
1:30am she was doing the same, 3:30am the same, since it was close to my regular getting up time, I just stayed up.  Around 6:30 am I poured her grain in her trough.  She sniffed at it but turned it down.  Miss Piggy never turns down food. 

10 AM Miss Piggy finally laid down in her nest and started having contractions and pushing.  My pig friend text me to see how many piggies I had and I told her none, that she had just started into labor.  She asked if I wanted company and I said sure as this was my fist piggie births.

Before my friend arrived Miss Piggy jumped up and had the first Piglet standing up.  I grabbed it, dried it and when Miss Piggy laid down I put it on a teat to nurse. 















Almost an hour later we had two.  Miss Piggy did the same thing.  She jumped to her feet and had it standing up.
















After the second one, she had a very large piglet that was stillborn.  After that one things began to happen fast.  I could not let the others nurse as Miss Piggy would jump up and step on them, they would squeal and upset her more so Papa Bear was taking them into the house and putting them into a box to stay warm until Miss Piggy finished giving birth.  She had the last 4 lying down.  Papa Bear and I tied off all the umbilical cord with dental floss and dipped them in betadine and took them back out to Miss Piggy.

She had a total of 9 including the stillborn. Here they all are lined up at the milk bar.

It was very cold yesterday and all Miss Piggy had was an open shelter.  Papa Bear put up two half walls to block the wind and hung a heat lamp.  Miss Piggy was still jumping up and stepping on them.  Kermit the  boar in the pen next to Miss Piggy was going nuts, making Miss Piggy nuts.  Around 7PM last night I couldn't take it any longer.  I wondered if any piggies would be alive this morning. 











I had just made it into the house longing for a hot shower and a nap when Papa Bear called to tell me our doe Brownie had lost her mucus plug.  Brownie is not due to kid until March 18th.  Everything I have read on premature kids is they very seldom survive and if they do have health issues for life.  I put my jacket and gloves back on and found Brownie with no other signs of impending birth other than a little mucus stringing.  I had read that a doe can loose her mucus plug several weeks before giving birth but ours never had before.

I finally got my shower and had a good nights sleep.  When I went out to unlock the gate this morning around  5am I could not stand the torture of not knowing if I had piglets still living.  I took a quick peek and they were piled up asleep next to Mama.  I could not count them.  Hopefull when I go feed in a few minutes I will find them all there safe.