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countryman

Cruel to be kind.

I am sat at the computer in a state of depression. Last year i purchased two lovely Tamworth sows ready to go to the boar. They were both served and every thing seemed rosey. Later things took a slight down turn as it turned out one was not in pig. At first we decided that this sow was to become bacon/sausages, but for some reason i thought,"Ill give it one more chance"
The other sow pigged, and has raised a lovely litter of 6. Meanwhile her barren freind has been living it up on her own before i hire in another bore for these two and my other sow.
Today i planned to wean the first Tamworths piglets, and so after moving them i put the two Tamworth sows back together.
It must be said here that these two are litter sisters and up until one was about to farrow were never separated.
Today after they were put back together the barren sow somehow managed to either twist or dislocte somthing in the others back legs who now can hardly stand. After speaking to my vet on the phone i am waiting to see what tommorow brings, but in all honesty it doesnt look great.
So i could end up with one barren sow and one dead one.
Why didnt i send the barren one off for meat? A stupid and costly mistake, which has reaffirmed to me that there is no room for sentiment when dealing with livestock.
sean

Bugger. Sorry about that.
There's never any point in beating yourself up about what you should have done though.
VSS

Its an absolute bummer when something like that happens. All you can do is make the best of a bad job, and learn from it so it doesn't happen again.

If you want you smallholding to pay for itself you can't afford to carry non-productive animals.

www.viableselfsufficiency.co.uk
Mr O

Re: Cruel to be kind.

countryman wrote:
I am sat at the computer in a state of depression. Last year i purchased two lovely Tamworth sows ready to go to the boar. They were both served and every thing seemed rosey. Later things took a slight down turn as it turned out one was not in pig. At first we decided that this sow was to become bacon/sausages, but for some reason i thought,"Ill give it one more chance"
The other sow pigged, and has raised a lovely litter of 6. Meanwhile her barren freind has been living it up on her own before i hire in another bore for these two and my other sow.
Today i planned to wean the first Tamworths piglets, and so after moving them i put the two Tamworth sows back together.
It must be said here that these two are litter sisters and up until one was about to farrow were never separated.
Today after they were put back together the barren sow somehow managed to either twist or dislocte somthing in the others back legs who now can hardly stand. After speaking to my vet on the phone i am waiting to see what tommorow brings, but in all honesty it doesnt look great.
So i could end up with one barren sow and one dead one.
Why didnt i send the barren one off for meat? A stupid and costly mistake, which has reaffirmed to me that there is no room for sentiment when dealing with livestock.


A lesson that you have learnt then?
Sows will seldom get on, once seperated unless there is a boar present to distract one of them.

And there is nothing wrong with giving a girl a second chance
2steps

Sorry to hear that Sad

If things don't turn out ok all you can do is learn from it and carry on. I know nothing about pigs, but could you not eat the injured pig as well? so gain something
NeathChris

give her time, pigs always make an injury seem worse than it is. Luckily i seperate and reintroduce my sows all the time, they fight for 5 mins but the field is big enough for them to have there space.

Get the barron killed off.
Tradbritfowlco

VSS wrote:


If you want you smallholding to pay for itself you can't afford to carry non-productive animals.



yup. hard lesson i've had to learn over the last couple of years.
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