Friday evening was a bizare but rewarding evening. At 5:30pm with my usual feeding routine I headed to the pig paddock to feed the crew. No one was in sight so I yelled the ritual, "pig, pig, pig, Prince, Doreen, Beatrice" Prince being his usually enthusatic self stuck his head out of the galvernized iron water tank converted into a pig shed and looked around then bolted the 50 yards toward me. Doreen then emerged and waddled in my general direction. I yelled several more times for Beatrice but she didnt appear. I got to the shed and stuck my head in and was bowled over by the sight of Beatrice lying on her side and two tiny little pigs staggering about in their fragile state not really bigger than my hand. 
Panic set in, this wasnt meant to occur yet. Beatrice hadnt even looked like she was ready. She had dropped around the back udder area, however her teats hadnt looked like they had formed yet, not compared with other near 
farrowing sows Id seen.
farrowing sows Id seen.In the Chaotic state of my thoughts there were a number issues I was trying to resolve quickly, getting Doreen and Prince out of the Paddock, creating a barrier so Beatrice could exit the shed but the piglets couldnt, establishing an escape area for the piglets, food, water and protecting the piglets against cold and foxes.
I lead Doreen, then Prince back to the house pens individually and by the time I returned to the shed at 6:30pm the third piglet was born. I took the tail gate off my ute and put it against the pigshed entrance propped up by rocks dirt so the piglets couldnt excape and then put a gate inside the shed as a piglet escape area. I gathered food and water for Beatrice and as for guarding 
against foxes I pondered getting our keplie sheep dog, Basil, and tying him up near the shed but thought that he would bark all night and possibly stress Beatrice so I decided to park my ute next to the shed and camp for the night. I hoped that me checking regurally and the body heat of Beatrice would protect against the cold and for 2 of the 3 it did.
against foxes I pondered getting our keplie sheep dog, Basil, and tying him up near the shed but thought that he would bark all night and possibly stress Beatrice so I decided to park my ute next to the shed and camp for the night. I hoped that me checking regurally and the body heat of Beatrice would protect against the cold and for 2 of the 3 it did.
I dropped off between about 3:30 and when I awoke at 4:30 I checked and found the last piglet born lying out by herself and when I picked her up she was alive but ridgidly cold. I brought he back into the ute and cranked up the heating. At 6am her body temp had returned and I bought her back to the house and placed her under a heat lamp and went and collected colesterum from Beatrice and then every 30 minutes fed her Natalies baby formula. She then started to struggle breathing like there was still fluid in the respirtory system. As per the literature I swung her by her back legs between my legs. This did provide some relief however Im guessing the fluid had been down there for too long and she passed away around 4pm.
Not long after that we brought Beatrice and the two piglets up to the farrowing pen they were meant to be in to begin with. We were hoping there would be more then 3 however not surprised as Beatrice is getting on and aparently litter sizes decrease the older a sow becomes.
Tomorrow Ill be ear notching which is required for identification purpose. I think Doreen is now also close to farrowing so Ill be a little more prepared however I wasnt expecting them both to be farrowing around the same time.
After writing the above and before retiring for the evening I went to check on the piglets. Only one was visible. After looking around the pen I nudged Beatrice to move and as I suspected one of the piglets laid squashed to death underneath. So the Three Little Pigs are now One. Its a harsh reality of life.
