Four Winds Ranch: " Life on the Farm "

[Four Winds Ranch]

I fear my hubby is getting too in love with pigs!!!!
Lol, the reason I find this a problem is because I am the one who looks after the feeds/waters, nutrition, farrowing, and treating what ever needs treating. (He works off the farm, so the farm is my baby besides him loving the tractor work).
We have 4 breeding sows, (2 with piglets, and 2 soon to have piglets), and a boar! When all 4 sows have 2 litters every year it equals out to a lot of pigs, if ya get my drift!! Lots of pen cleaning!

To make matters worse, last week my hubby was late for supper, and came home with 2, 50lb Duroc gilts for future breeders!

2 days ago, he went for coffee and lunch with one of his buddies, and came home with 2, Great White, 200lb breeding sows!!!

Now, he just informed me that he will be late for supper today cause he s picking up a 450lb, Berkshire breeding sow!!!!

Everyone may officially start hearing from me less and less as my days are going to start filling up with cleaning pig pens!!! :/ Truthfully, those 300lb plus, sows kinda scare me!! As long as they stay on the other side of the fence and I don't have to go in there!!!


One of the Great White sows.

[/img]

 

[ragdollcatlady]

My DH loves pigs too. But thankfully he only gets them one at a time. The bigger they get the more afraid I get that they are going to knock me over or something. And I don't like when they are loose (on purpose) and try to go somewhere they aren't supposed to. I much prefer my goats. But he loves his pigs and gives them a good life. Then we eat them. This last one was a real sweet animal. He would pick up the edge of his pen and just shake it up and down when he was excited. He was pretty mellow. I am very thankful that mine doesn't want more than one. I don't like to share responsibility for his pigs so he is supposed to buy all the food and work out a schedule for the kids to share the pig work. I only fill in on an emergency basis. Like when the water is gone and it is too hot out.

Good luck with the pig business. I assume the plan will be to sell more babies for profit?

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Yes, the plan with the pigs is to sell weiners and finished pigs for profit!! And last but not least, our freezer full of pork! I love ham, and am on the look out for some big crock pots to cure my own!!

Lol, I had a busy day today!
For starters, this morning I went down to the barn to feed the pigs. As I opened the barn door, I ran head-first into 2, 200 lb sows, who, I later found out, chewed through thier pen wall!!! I decided my best plan of action is to get a bucket of feed and get them to follow me back into their pen. Ya, it didn't work at all, the one went in good, the other took off the other way down the barn isle!!:/ Ok, now I am a little scared of big pigs so I grabbed the pen cleaning shovel, and decided to try to chase it back into its pen! I got half way to her and she charged at me making some crazy growling noise!!! I swear she was triing to bit me so stuck the shovel at her and she bit it and ripped it out of my hands!!! I jumped up on another pen wall! Now how was I to get down!! I reached across to the open loft and grabbed the pitch-fork. I figured, if I could put a run on her she hopefully would run right into her pen with her friend!! I jumped down and started running and yelling down the isle!!! IT WORKED!!!!! In she went and I boarded up the hole in the fence!

I had 2 ewes in labour this morning as well. The first one had a beautiful Suffolk cross ewe lamb, but, another old ewe in the pasture continuesly tried to steal the lamb from her mother!! The old bully ewe would smack the mother out of the way and nose the lamb off! I couldn't get the old girl to leave them alone!! Decided my best course of action would be to pen the new mother off by herself, which seemed to work pretty good so far!!! I hope that old ewe has her lambs before anyone else so we don't have the same problem with the others!!!

The 2nd ewe was in labour...labour........ for atleast 3-4 hours with no progress! She is a 2yr. old and it is her first lamb, so I decided to check what was going on. I put her in the shute, and discovered just inside was 2 back legs!! BREACH! (I don't know why but everytime I have ever had to assist with a breach, the ewe never seemed to have much for contractions!) It took us a bit but, we got it done! A big strapping ram lamb! I was quite impressed because the ewe even let him nurse all on her own!!!

This afternoon was a little more relaxed! Taught my 11yr. a couple of riding lessons, cause rodeo season is just around the corner, May 20th is the first one of the year!!!
We oiled up the 4-H steer because he was full on clumps of manure (as you can see in the pic.), I made bread, washed 7 dozen eggs, and supper!!

Lol, I am so glad my life isn't boring!!!

The 4-H Steer, Monster

[/img]

 

[promiseacres]

Nice steer! Glad I am the only one who brings home critters last one dh brought home is our 11 yr old rotten chow Shepx when she was 6 mos....

 

[bonbean01]

Congrats on getting that breach birthing done with a healthy lamb

As for large pigs...they do scare me...as a kid I was bit pretty hard, but was lucky it was winter and had a thick heavy winter coat on...tore a chunk right out of my coat. For that reason I do not want any pigs, but DH is trying to talk me into it...so far it's not working Be careful around those big ones!!!! They can and do bite hard!

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Spring is always such a busy time of the year, I am afraid my journal gets ignored a fair amount!!

Exciting news!!!!! We now have chicks!!!!!! Unfortunatly, just 2, but I am not complaining!!!

I am thankful DH butchered a couple of his hogs yesterday, cause 'man' those things multiply!! In numbers as well as work!! Guess I really shouldn't talk, if ya include the babies in the spring in livestock numbers it is truely scary!! For instance, including babies, Four Winds Ranch has; 8 horses, 2 llamas, 3 donkeys, 1 steer, 32 pigs, 123 sheep, 65 chickens, 5 dogs, 5 +cats, and 74 rabbits!!!

We got the crop all in!!!! Now waitin' on the rain!!! Mostly barley this year!

I have started on the garden, but still have a ways to go in that area, because I have been distracted trying to get a feeder rabbit pen put up! AND, replacing the posts in the chicken pen!! Never did find the culprit, but luckily the posts seem to have stopped magicaly stopped snapping off!!
On a not so good note, a couple of weeks ago, a couple big dogs wondered over here and were chasing the sheep along the fence. My older LGD, Sasha, put an end to that! There was quite a tuffle, but everything seemed all fine! But, now, all my dogs have fleas!!! Such a pain in the butt!

'Jake' doing his LGD duty! He takes his job very seriously!

[/img]

Some of my Standard Rex bunnies that are almost ready for the pot, or to sell as breeders!

[/img]

One of the new 'peepers'!

[/img]

Getting the dirt ready for 'potato plantin'

[/img]

Nappin' in the sun!!

[/img]

 

[Bridgemoof]

Aw the lambs are so cute FourWinds!

Tell DH ENOUGH with the pig buying spree already! sheesh that sounds like a terribly frightening encounter you had with that big sow. I like pigs, but when they get that big and scary..well.... Be careful!

 

[promiseacres]

WOW! and people think I"m busy.... love the rexes so pretty!

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Guess what!!!!!! I am sooooo excited!!!!
I have been waiting for what feels like forever for a couple of babies to be born, and last night one has arrived!!!!!!!!
She is a little filly, and is Hancock, King, Jets blood lines!!! Such a little beauty!!

Now comes the exciting part of finding a fitting name!

[/img]

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

I have had a bad start to my day!!!!
I got up to feed my bottle lamb at 6 o'clock this morning to find 3, half eaten, 1 and a half month old lambs!!!!
Right off the bat, I assume coyotes, cause I seen one in the neighbors field a few days ago, but.................... my older LGD had brought the mangled bodies up to the yard????????? I sure hope it wasn't my LGD, cause I would feel horrible if she has to go!