Silo Piglets and Houndsheep

     The piglets poured in over the past two weeks like the rains this spring.  I wasn't surprised when Tigger farrowed first.  I'd seen Rorsarch gracefully mounting her in February and wrote in my trusty notebook to expect piglets on May 20th.

      I was wrong on both accounts.  First, pig sex is not graceful.  Pigs are tubes of muscle and fat, so the boar faces a challenge in mounting the sow.  His conquests aren't pretty.  Second, I was a month off with my guess at farrowing dates.  I suppose Rorsarch is a firm believer in "if at first you don't succeed..."

      Annie was second to farrow and had a large litter of 10 piglets.  Both sows gave birth in a shed inside the farrowing paddock and their piglets quickly took to frolicking and nursing together.  Last fall, we saw the same behavior when Tigger and Annie's piglets freely nursed each mom. Strength in numbers?  Each sow seemed grateful when the piglet hordes descended on the other mother and gave her a chance to rest.

    The piglet horde played and nursed happily for days.  Swayzie (not Patrick, but an apple variety, because Old Spots were orchard pigs in England) gave birth to a litter of eight piglets and all seemed well in the baby paddock.

    When the unnamed gilt farrowed things took a turn for the bizzare.  Said unnamed gilt got knocked up in her teenage years (pig years that is), so I wanted to keep a close eye on her.  Sometime the middle of this past week--which all blurred into a furious stream of chores, hauling feed, chores, catching animals, chores, unloading feed, chores, hauling animals... you get the point--I noticed that the unnamed gilt was missing, not to mention that 3 of Tigger's 7 piglets.

     I discovered the whereabouts of the teen pig mother's brood quickly.  After walking the baby paddock and checking each barn, I put on my pig thinking cap.  That silo looks like a safe place.  Nice and secluded, maybe not the ideal farrowing spot as it's open to the rains and there's no way an unassisted piglet could exit this nest until a couple months of age, but my pig mind lead me to the silo and the piglets. I fretted over the sow and how she'd get water and feed, and how the piglets looked cold (in June), so I first made a set of stone stairs, which the sow toppled, and then made a wooden ramp and nailed it to the silo's entrance.  When the sow demolished my second means of egress and I observed her greedily guzzling feed, I decided she had things under control and to leave her and her babies alone.

    The wherabouts of Tigger's missing piglets remained a mystery to me until yesterday evening.  I was pouring the pig's feed into their troughs and smelled either a skunk or a fox.  The hair on Annie and Tigger's backs shot up and they barked and ran around looking for the intruder. I guess Fantastic Mr. Fox is less afraid of a sow then me, because when I snatch a piglet, when the sow barks at me with back hair erect, I drop the piglet and proceed to wash my soiled pants (that second part might not be true).

    That's the new news from around the farm. But, before I retire to my nightly sheep check, I have some ewe news.  I've started shearing other people's flocks this spring and it's taken me from Pulaski to Gloucester.  I stopped by a "farm" in Earlysville on my way to pick up whole lambs from the butcher.  I drove west through Charlottesville through suburbs mixed into hayfields to get to my client's home. I pulled into the driveway of a beautiful suburban home chock full of gardens.  I met my client and she walked me through the gate into her backyard.  The yard looked like a standard suburban backyard until I noticed the hoop house full of chickens and ducks and all the vegetable beds. All cool and slightly surprising, but nothing compared to what happened next.

     I looked around the yard to find a good level spot where I could set my shears and run a drop cord.  I put my equipment down under the shade of a black walnut and a ewe and a wether ran up to me. Friendly sheep I thought. Pets, should be used to handling. Easy in and out job.  I decided that the spot I'd picked wasn't ideal, so I took my shearing equipment to the entrance of the yard and set up on the walkway by the fence.  The wether and his girl followed me over. Cake. A second ewe walked out from under the deck to check out the action. "That's her favorite spot," said my client.  I stifled a laugh.  I've heard of houndogs that sleep under porches but never sheep.

     When the flock came over to inspect my shearing tools, I found out that this was a pack of hound sheep.  Something they smelled in my shearing kit caused them all to bolt under the deck.  Apparently, they'd had a traumatic experience being sheared last year.  Nothing was traumatic about this year's shearing, only comedy.  I spent more time trying to keep the hound sheep from their "favorite spot" then I did shearing them.  When I finished, I left the flock  grazing happily, only steps away from their beloved deck.