Week Seven: Fanny
Our senior intern finished up his internship and left last week which means we have a brand new intern starting this week. I was assigned the task of training him to do 'the rounds'.
"But wait, no, I'm still learning, I can't train someone yet - shouldn't I be certified or something?!"
I didn't get far in my protest.
While training I thought about all my past bosses and tried to channel their good energy - "OK McK be clear, be patient, be direct... ". My internal pep talk was going OK until I realized I was talking to myself more than I was the new intern I was supposed to be training. Somewhere between explaining proper coop moving patterns and channeling positive vibes we had a small incident with the gator (see below for "gator" definition) where the chain, which is attached to the gator and used to pull the coops, got wrapped around the back wheel while it was still hooked to the coop. It was a total mess and took us the better part of an hour to untangle. Training ended up being a learning experience for the both of us.
One of our mamma pigs, Fanny, was in labor all day... ALL DAY. Fanny is seriously the fattest pig I've ever seen which is probably why she had such a hard time giving birth. Will spent his entire day helping her through thirteen hours of labor. By the next day all but three of Fanny's newborn piglets had died from her rolling over and squishing them. As you can image we were all sad and frustrated. She was deemed an unfit mother and we moved the surviving piglets to another mom who had just had a litter the day before. This mom is great, all of her piglets are alive and happy.
One of the foster piglets is a super runt - so so tiny - he's just a little piglet skeleton. Despite his extra tiny size he's very mobile. Most piglets stay right next to mom for the first few days but Clark (yes, I named him) was wandering around trying to socialize with the adult pigs at the trough when he was only a few hours old! We all joked he was trying to get away from Fanny because she was such a bad mom. Clark is so small and adventurous we decided to pull him out of the pasture and bottle feed him (we were afraid he would get squashed at the troughs by an adult pig). Adorable Clark pictures below.
A note on our pigs' health: All the animals here are pasture raised so the pigs root around outside eating bugs, grass, roots, etc. We feed them lots of veggies from the garden and they have a pig feed full of the nutrients they need everyday. They are fed a certain amount of pig feed per day based on their age, weight, and how many pigs are sharing a pasture. They're all in the pasture together, however, so some pigs will be more aggressive eaters than others and will actually bully the other pigs away so they can eat more. This is why some are as fat as Fanny.
*A "gator" is a all terrain, two seater golf cart sort of thing, with a small truck bed. We use it to haul things like feed and hay, move all the chicken coops, and other such chores.
"But wait, no, I'm still learning, I can't train someone yet - shouldn't I be certified or something?!"
I didn't get far in my protest.
While training I thought about all my past bosses and tried to channel their good energy - "OK McK be clear, be patient, be direct... ". My internal pep talk was going OK until I realized I was talking to myself more than I was the new intern I was supposed to be training. Somewhere between explaining proper coop moving patterns and channeling positive vibes we had a small incident with the gator (see below for "gator" definition) where the chain, which is attached to the gator and used to pull the coops, got wrapped around the back wheel while it was still hooked to the coop. It was a total mess and took us the better part of an hour to untangle. Training ended up being a learning experience for the both of us.
One of our mamma pigs, Fanny, was in labor all day... ALL DAY. Fanny is seriously the fattest pig I've ever seen which is probably why she had such a hard time giving birth. Will spent his entire day helping her through thirteen hours of labor. By the next day all but three of Fanny's newborn piglets had died from her rolling over and squishing them. As you can image we were all sad and frustrated. She was deemed an unfit mother and we moved the surviving piglets to another mom who had just had a litter the day before. This mom is great, all of her piglets are alive and happy.
One of the foster piglets is a super runt - so so tiny - he's just a little piglet skeleton. Despite his extra tiny size he's very mobile. Most piglets stay right next to mom for the first few days but Clark (yes, I named him) was wandering around trying to socialize with the adult pigs at the trough when he was only a few hours old! We all joked he was trying to get away from Fanny because she was such a bad mom. Clark is so small and adventurous we decided to pull him out of the pasture and bottle feed him (we were afraid he would get squashed at the troughs by an adult pig). Adorable Clark pictures below.
A note on our pigs' health: All the animals here are pasture raised so the pigs root around outside eating bugs, grass, roots, etc. We feed them lots of veggies from the garden and they have a pig feed full of the nutrients they need everyday. They are fed a certain amount of pig feed per day based on their age, weight, and how many pigs are sharing a pasture. They're all in the pasture together, however, so some pigs will be more aggressive eaters than others and will actually bully the other pigs away so they can eat more. This is why some are as fat as Fanny.
*A "gator" is a all terrain, two seater golf cart sort of thing, with a small truck bed. We use it to haul things like feed and hay, move all the chicken coops, and other such chores.
Clark is the cutest thing I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteI love Clark!
ReplyDelete