hey pig, get off our lunch

with beatrice only piglet now weaned, we put her up in one of the house pens and prince in the pen beside ready for her to come onto heat, which normally occurs 3 days after weaning. After putting prince and beatrice in pens beside each other i also had to erect an electric fence as prince was begining to tear down the existing fence trying to get to beatrice.
As part of ve weaning process i also had to vaccinate the piglet. This was a tricky job in itself as she was quite heavy and fast. So i enticed her with food and while eating i grabbed her back legs at which point she squealed an ear splitting pig squeal. Doreen, the other sow in the pen, upon hearing this squeal came charging over and so i had to flee with heavy piglet in arms and run two laps around the shed to get enough distance between me and doreen for me to retrieve the injection on the top of the shed where i left it while i used two hands to grab the piglet. After grabbing the injection i then had to sprint another 20 yards to give me enough distance to put the piglet down and administer the vaccine before doreen caught me. Out of breath and mission accomplished!

Three little pigs

Pigs new digs.

Today we finally got the new accomodation for the piglets and their mums sorted out. A nice little patch at the back of the house dam with a couple of nice big old gum trees and some lush grass. We had put little to no thought what so ever into how we were going to move the new pig shed Id built from the place where we had built it to the the paddock. In the end Scott dragged it the 400 or so meters using the bobcat.

For the new enclosure we had to errect a electric fence, add a gate and run water down to the new paddock.

Once I had Beatrice, Doreen, B2, Dixey and Daisy safely down in their new digs they settled in and gourged themselves I think on the onion weed. A weed as its name suggests has a small onion shaped and colored bulb.

The primary goal for the new accomodation was to wean the piglets. So after a couple of days Ill remove Beatrice to begin with and shortly afterwards Doreen so that the piglets can concentrate on the important job of growing. As this is such a large field for 3 little pigs it looks like Ill be getting another couple of small weaners to keep them company.

Marking Lambs at Greenvale

This years lambing is now complete and now its time to prepare them for the next stage. Mothers and the lambs are brought into the yards. The mothers are given a drench (medicine by mouth) for worms. The lambs are then seperated off and yarded. Each of them is then loaded into a device which holds 4 lambs in a circle in a conveyor belt process the lamb is loaded on, on its back. A rubber band is then placed around its tail and depeding on whether its a male or female another rubber band is place around thier testies both having the effect of cutting blood flow and dropping off after some time has passed. An injection is administered to guard against pulpy kidney which is a fatal desease affecting lambs, then the lamb is given a drench for worms also and then release. Although we havent finished marking lambs we will have marked around 1800 in this go around for this year.