I smell like the pig barn!

One thing that Farmer Rick can't stand is the smell of the horse barn.  One thing his wife can't stand is the smell of the pig barn!

Today was one of those days when that nasty old job had to be done:  cleaning out the pig barn.  We have a gilt and sow ready to farrow (give birth) and had to get the two maternity pens ready to go.  (For those who don't know hog terminology, a sow is a female hog that's already had piglets, a gilt is one that has not, a boar is an intact male and a barrow is a "fixed" male.  Just thought you might want to know)  What we thought was going to be a 20 minute job turned out to be a 2 hour job.  Rather than one bucketful of manure, it turned out to be three!  Then came the process of nailing up dividers so that the two hogs could be kept separate, hanging heat lamps and getting the bedding spread out.

Once the barn was ready, we had to sort out the sow that's due from the pen of hogs that houses the boar (the gilt was already snuggled down in one of the pens), a butcher hog, and another really HUGE sow.  Wouldn't you know that the sow that is not bred was determined to come out that gate no matter what!  She kept pushing the others away and tried to get her nose under the fence to lift the entire thing up.  For those of you who've sorted hogs before - you know exactly what I mean!  Try arguing with a 450 pound, low center of gravity, determined animal with nothing to hook a rope on to and you'll know what I mean!  After much running around, getting bumped and tripped, ran over and covered with manure, we managed to finally weed out the sow that we wanted and head her in the direction of the farrowing barn.  Once out the gate, she was determined to stay right there by her buddies.  No way was she going to head in the other direction.  But, after starting up the skid steer, finding a sorting panel and gently guuiding her in the right direction, her ears perked up and she went round the corner and trotted right into her pen, snuffled her head down in the bedding and was taking a snooze before we had the gates closed and the barn door shut.  She likes it in there, but trying to convince her to leave her buddies and just GET THERE, was the hardest part of the whole day.

Now, we wait.  And watch, and wait some more.  Once we have little ones, we'll have to keep everyone up to date on how things go.  We have lost little ones in the past and it can be so frustrating, but we keep trying.  But atleast for now, I'm heading to the shower to get this awful smell off of me . . .!