The sight of Irving’s trailer creaking backwards into the yard is a familiar one, though we don’t associate it with this season. Usually he arrives in November, as he did last year, delivering a boar to put with our saddleback sow. Mind you, the ground conditions today are not dissimilar, this spring mirroring last year’s early winter with its unending wet and mud.
Today’s delivery is of nine weaners – piglets around eight weeks old – and a mixture of gilts (females) and boars. It’s difficult to resist a smile as I peer through the vent on the trailer’s side. But the pleasure is bittersweet. Our sow farrowed in March. It was a straightforward evening’s work, notwithstanding the fact that she produced 15. She is a gentle creature and tolerant of assistance, but a primitive protectiveness takes over once she has shed the afterbirths, (two pieces, one from each horn of the uterus) so it is best to give her space. Besides, this was her fourth farrowing and she had proved herself the most diligent of mothers. A few fatalities are inevitable in a large litter, but over the next 24 hours, more came. Why? Everything appeared normal – she was lying with teats exposed, the piglets somnolently latched on.
Then it struck me. A feeding sow will rhythmically grunt, but this time everything was abnormally quiet. Not even the vet’s injection of oxytocin, a hormone stimulant, could induce her to let down her milk. With nothing to sustain them, the whole litter perished. It was utterly distressing, the more so for being without explanation.
Often in farming, you are further back than when you started. We have a much-loved sow that we can no longer assume to breed from and we’ve paid for weaners before we’ve begun to rear them, with commercial feed prices still high, not to mention the emotional toll this has taken. But these thoughts are banished as nine immaculately clean piglets bundle down the ramp and into the sty. They pause, calm but alert, their snouts busily taking it all in. Then one heads for the open field and the rest skitter after. Hours later, they are still out delightedly digging – at least someone is glad of the mud.
Sarah Laughton
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