Hello everyone,
Once again I have realized that it has been a month since I made a post. I am finding that as things grow here on the farm and my duties at work evolve as well I am being pulled by more and more people and tasks every day. Some tasks are of my own doing, some are of necessity for work or for the farm, and others are from other people who look to me for assistance and help. While trying to cover and complete all the possible tasks I can I end up forgetting other tasks that I set aside that may be important to me but are not a high priority. For instance, my blog post gets set aside so I can feed cows before heading to bed early to get up early for a long day at work. Then, one thing leads to another and I end up not coming back to complete the task I set aside. I am going to do what I should have done a while ago and schedule it into my calendar so I have some time set aside for this important task which I enjoy so much!
So, now on to what I am sure you would rather read about!
The bigger of my two Berkshire x Tamworth sows had a litter of piglets on Saturday morning of last weekend. She is the one that had 16 in the summer. This time she had 14. She lost 6 in the summer due to still born's and a few got laid on. This time I wasn't expecting her to have them when she did. I thought she was still a day or two off, so she ended up having them in the cow shed. Ten were alive when we found them and moved everyone into the pig shed. Three of the ten got laid on the first night because they left the hot box to lay with Momma, and one more had other issues and passed away. So this time she is only feeding out six.
The pic below is right after we moved them.
This is a pic of them this morning. The biggest on is about 7 lbs already and the smallest is around 5lbs. They are growing at an unbelievable rate! I put my shoe in the picture for a frame of reference. The one in the top right corner of the picture is the biggest by at least 15-20% and is the one in the center of the picture above standing on top of everyone to eat!
Here are some quick pics of the building.
I still have to install the electric and water and plumb in the tanks.
Here is the door from the inside. The building looked huge when we first started, I even thought it was going to be too big and be out of scale with everything else.
However, once we moved two of the tanks inside it quickly became small!
This is a picture of the new heater. However, shortly after I took this picture this morning the heater quit working!!! With temps due to dip down to around 20 degrees tonight it looks like I will be making a trip back to Rural King today to get a replacement.
I am certain that the regulator for the gas is not correct. The pilot light has too much pressure and will not stay lit because it blows itself out. It worked for a few days but the longer it has been on the stronger the gas flow has gotten. It is nonadjustable and the only way to fix it is to replace it.
It is what it is I guess. So I will be headed out to get another in a few minutes! Have a great day everyone and have a safe week!
Kenny
