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Friday, April 11, 2014

Pig - Breeding successful, only time will tell

With the box’s arrival at the office last week came several comments and jokes from my colleagues.  Was I going to play soft music, did she get a nice dinner first, and EWWW were among them.  I hadn’t gotten a call back from the veterinarian and although I joked back, I was genuinely concerned about how well this was going to go.  I had done the research and it didn’t look all that difficult, but I was still worried that I had just thrown a couple hundred dollars out the window.  That is certainly an amount of cash that this farm and its caretaker cannot just toss.

Saturday morning I went to the farm store and looked up and down the aisles for lubricant.  Well they don’t sell swine lubricant in anything less than a one gallon jug!  Not knowing whether something for people would work just as well on a pig, I have plenty left over.

I had decided to wait until Little man’s father got home in case she didn’t want to stand still.  I didn’t want to worry about where Little man was while I was attempting to ‘work’ on the business end of a 600 lb. sow.  Allegedly if the pig is truly in heat, they will stand board stiff when you put weight in the middle of their backs as if they were prepared to take the weight of a boar.  If my calculations on her heat cycle were correct, I would have nothing to worry about.

Little man gave her a sweet muffin while I went behind her, cleaned her up, and lubed the inseminating rod.  She stood almost completely still.  When she decided I didn’t belong back there Little man’s father leaned in the middle of her back – she stopped moving completely. 

Like many other things on the farm that I have never attempted before, I was amazed at how easy it was.  All the contingencies had been pre-planned and thankfully didn’t need any of them.  Saving a a few dollars by not having the veterinarian out to the farm was an additional bonus.  If Pig doesn’t go into heat on the 26th, then we will know that it took.

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