I thought that I was prepared for everything that Big Marie’s farrowing could bring. I had her farrowing house set up and ready ahead of time and prepared her and myself as much as possible. What I wasn’t prepared for? The emotional and physical toll the whole experience would take on me. I have never felt such a combination of total physical and emotional exhaustion, frustration, happiness, helplessness, and sorrow.
Anyone who follows me on Instagram knows Big Marie was five days overdue when she gave birth. She is a gilt (first litter) and this was my first farrowing experience, so I was doing everything in my power to make sure I didn’t miss it. Pigs (especially gilts) can need intervention, and I didn’t want her to be alone in case she needed assistance or something went awry. Even more, it’s the middle of winter so it was my responsibility to make sure those babies got dried off and warm immediately after being born. So, starting before the day she was due I checked on her from the video camera and would set an alarm for every two hours at night to wake up and check on her. After six days of this she went into labor so suddenly I didn’t even know it was happening despite me watching her like a hawk.
The Farrowing
The actual farrowing brought on an incredible mix of emotions. Big Marie was an absolute champ and required very little assistance from me. The only point I really had to assist was when she had been struggling and pushing for quite some time and was having no success passing the piglet. At this point I was afraid of two scenarios: that she would totally exhaust herself on this piglet early on and wouldn’t be able to deliver the rest of the litter, or the the piglet had been in the birth canal for so long that it wouldn’t survive if it wasn’t already dead. So, I sleeved up and went in after it. After working for several minutes and struggling to get a good grip on this rather large baby, I managed to successfully pull her. She wasn’t breathing, and I had to aggressively work on her drying and patting her trying to revive her. I was able to, but she was noticeably weak right off the bat and passed shortly after.
Big Marie ended with a total litter of nine, with only four survivors. Two girls that looked like their Berkshire daddy, and two boys that looked like their mama. Four babies were born dead perfectly developed, and we lost the one after I revived it. It was hard to see these seemingly perfect little piglets be born dead and at this point we still don’t know why the mortality rate was so high. We have several ideas as to why, and are working to try and reduce this number next farrowing.
Despite the high loss, Big Marie really did incredibly well for her first time and didn’t have any complications I couldn’t handle on my own. For this I am incredibly thankful. Of course most importantly, she was okay and doing great after and quickly was up, moving around, eating, and checking on her new babies.
Mother of the Year
With any new mom, there are concerns and cautionary tales that you hear. Some mothers will turn savage on their newborn piglets and attack them, while others won’t accept them and let them nurse. Some just make generally bad moms and will pay no attention to them, and will carelessly step on them or flop over onto their side crushing the entire litter. Big Marie is part Gloustershire Old Spot, who are notorious for their natural mothering abilities. Paired with her incredible temperament and personality, I had high hopes for her but was mentally preparing for the worst.
Thankfully, Big Marie was a natural and exceeded my expectations. She was an extremely attentive, caring, and wonderful mother right from the start. She would run to her babies when they screamed and cried, and respond to their grunts and squeals demanding milk. She would carefully watch her step as she moved around. When it came time to lay down, she would gingerly ease her massive body down and then as gently as possible roll onto her side to let her babies nurse. While she laid there letting her babies suckle, they would crawl all over her body and face without a single bit of grief from her. At one point while the babies had a bit of scouring, I even saw her cleaning their butts which is atypical behavior in a sow. She truly is the best mother there is. Despite all of the sadness this experience has brought, Big Marie and her natural mothering has been my beacon of light. Seeing her dote on her babies and do such an incredible job of raising them has been my source of happiness and inspiration through it all.
Milk Production Issues
The first 36 hours were incredibly exhausting but went off without a hitch. Everyone was gorging on milk and had more than they could drink. But, being that this was everyone’s first time, there was no way I was going to be able to soundly sleep throughout the night and let whatever happens happens. In the first three days of a piglets life they are bumbly and clumsy and their mortality rate is at its highest. With only having four piglets survive I wasn’t going to risk potentially loosing them all to an accidental crushing in the middle of the night.
Piglets in their first week of life need to nurse every 2-3 hours. So what did I do? I went out there every 2-3 hours around the clock. I would let them out of their kennel and monitor as they went to mama to nurse, filled their bellies, and then put them back in their warm kennel and shut them in. While I recognize this is a burden I 100% took upon myself, like I said I wasn’t willing to take a gamble with my small litter.
After the first day and a half, I noticed that something wasn’t right. Big Marie although was eating hadn’t really gotten back her appetite yet and I noticed her body was struggling to produce milk. To produce milk you need to eat, and it is recommended that a sow eats 3-4 pounds of food a day for her bodies maintenance and an additional 1 pound per day per piglet. So, she should have been eating eight pounds a day, and was barely eating four. Milk is also supply and demand. The more the babies suckle, it triggers her body to produce more milk to keep up with the demand. Big Marie has fourteen teats and and only had four piglets nursing. Between a combination of the decreased appetite and small litter, her body was struggling to produce.
Seeing my loving mama pig roll over and answer to her babies cries for milk only to have them suckle and be quite literally starving almost broke me. It was heart breaking and I cried for her and for myself. In the meantime I was doing everything imaginable I could for her. Buying gallons of raw cows milk to make her feed more desirable and get as many nutrients in her as I could, calling every feed store within fifty miles trying to find an alternate food to give her, and Saturday night runs to the vet to get her some oxytocin in hopes that that would help. I was sparing no expense, and my life quite literally revolved around trying to get Big Marie’s milk production up over the course of almost the next week. If something seemed like it could possibly help I was doing it. There was little improvement, and about twelve hours after I noticed the problem I had no choice but to supplement the babies diet with raw goat’s milk I had saved in my freezer. So, round the clock I went outside every 2-3 hours allowing them to drink from a saucer and fill their bellies thanks to Audrey. This is an incredible commitment to say the least. Waking up every two hours to heat up milk go outside in the freezing cold and feed piglets and then doing it again after a two hour nap. By the end of their first week of life I was physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.
Fast forward to now, the piglets are about a week and a half old. All but four of Big Marie’s teats have dried off due to lack of suckling. Thankfully, her appetite has improved, I have switched feed, and her milk supply has gone up some. It was all a bit too little too late however, and I am still supplementing the piglets three times a day to make sure they are getting enough to eat. Thankfully they are only needing to eat every 3-4 hours at this age, so I don’t have to go out in the middle of the night anymore for feedings, just morning noon and night.
Midge
As the piglets approached being one week old I felt a huge weight beginning to be lifted off my shoulders. I wasn’t leaving them shut in the kennel anymore. Despite all of the stress, the sleeplessness, and the frustrations that came with this farrowing they were strong and healthy. They were also getting some milk from Big Marie! So with the litter doing great, and Big Marie such a cautious mom I decided to treat my body to a full uninterrupted night’s sleep. So for the first time in almost two weeks I slept without my alarm being set for every two hours and it was incredible.
The next morning feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed I went out to do chores and bring their piglets their morning supplement. I went into the farrowing house and found Midge (the bigger of the girls) laying in front of her warm kennel. I picked her up to put her in to the kennel to warm up and she immediately flopped over unable to stand. Obviously something was very wrong, so I immediately whisked her into the house and put her next to the wood stove with a heat lamp. I thought that she had just somehow gotten chilled and couldn’t go back into the warmth of her kennel on her own. I thought she would just need a quick warm up and she could go back out with the rest of the litter.
After only about a half hour she was standing, walking, and eating. I thought great! She’s still a little bumbly and fumbly, so I am going to give her a couple more hours until she can hold her own with her siblings. That’s when she took a turn for the worse. She couldn’t stand, would flop over to her side paddling, refused to eat, and began convulsing. Did she get stepped on? Kicked in the head? Her temperature and poop was good, was she sick? The symptoms of head trauma are almost identical to symptoms of strep meningitis. Meningitis is something I could have quite literally picked up on my shoes and brought home with me from the feed store, or when I dropped off our meat pigs at the butcher. Head trauma is an extremely likely cause too however, despite the fact that Midge was one of the fastest of the litter. It could be as simple as she was standing behind Big Marie when she took a step, and got a hoof to the head. With the size difference between mama and her piglets, it doesn’t take much.
I did absolutely everything I possibly could to save Midge. At one point, after watching her seize and convulse I decided I couldn’t let her suffer anymore. After cuddling her and bawling my eyes out I grabbed what I needed and was taking her outside to put her out of her misery and let her be at peace. She refused to eat for six hours and at that age, she should have eaten two meals in that time. If it wasn’t the head trauma/meningitis that was going to kill her she would have starved and I just couldn’t let that happen.
Just before taking her outside something told me to give her one more try at eating. So I did, and to my surprise she ate! I thought there might still be hope and if she was going to eat then I was going to keep trying and doing everything I could. I called the vet, gave her some medication I had on hand that could help if it was meningitis, and planned on being at the vets office at 6:30 the next morning when they opened to get the rest of the medicine I needed. I went to bed, made sure she was comfortable and crossed my fingers she would make it until morning so I could give her the rest of the medicine that could save her. When I went to check on her in the middle of the night, I found her dead.
Naturally, I blame myself. WHY did I sleep through the whole night? I should have set my alarm for at least every three hours to check in on them. But now that some time has passed and I can reflect, would that have helped? If she did get kicked it would have happened in such a split second that unless I was physically there to grab her from behind Big Marie’s foot I couldn’t have helped. But then, maybe I could have gotten there shortly after, seen her lying there in front of the kennel and warmed her up sooner? Although I can rationalize that I wouldn’t have been able to do anything, I still of course do blame myself to an extent and I feel that that reaction is only natural.
Farm life is hard there is no denying that. For every baby that is born alive and thrives, there are those that don’t make it. The highs make you feel like you’re on top of the world and you couldn’t be luckier, and the lows make you question all of your choices. When you truly care about your animals as much as I do, you take every loss to heart and the sting is very real and raw.
Farm life is also all about learning quick on your feet, making choices, and adapting. This experience if nothing else has brought me a wealth of knowledge. Going into my next farrowing I am going to feel so much more confident and prepared because of this whole experience.
So was it worth it? I’m not going to lie, over the past couple weeks I have had some serious doubts if I want to put myself through this again. I mean, how could I not? It was truly a heart breaking experience and part of me feels like I must be a masochist or something to knowingly put myself through this again potentially. But then, I see Big Marie with her babies and what a phenomenal mother she is. I see Smidge come running over to me oinking and quacking and crawling up my legs for some snuggles and those fears fall to the side. With every lows there are highs and at the end of the day I do have three very healthy and strong piglets with a fantastic mother at the helm. So was it worth it? Yeah, I would say it was.
Thank you for sharing this journey. Sometimes there arewho enter into having a hobby farm or homestead without realising how much pain and loss there can be. We care for our animals as best we can and sometimes things end up pear shaped. I have had chickens that I nursed the crud out of only to have them pass. It’s a process to go through being hard on ourselves, absorb the lessons we learned from the experience (good or bad) in order to be more informed next time and continue on as is needed.
B
You are doing a wonderful job! Thank you for bringing us with you. We have horses and know all too well how heart breaking farm life is.
You are so tough!
Thank you for sharing your experience and keep your head up! Your sich a great inspiration for me and for us!
Kate,
This is so well written! And the end just made me smile so big. So much heart ache after so much hard work, it would be too easy to quit and never look back. To hear that there is always a pay off at the end, regardless of all the struggle is truly inspiring!
Beautifully written from the soul of a true warrior & survivor!
Your story is just as awesome as it is bittersweet.
I want you to know that each day I find inspiration from the photos, comments and experiences you share
and…I strongly suggest the next farrowing finds you with a trustworthy helper so you can sleep & eat much better. ? God Bless!
Amazing post!!! You have done an amazing job. Thank you for being so raw and catching us all up!
You are amazing, Kate! I have loved watching your journey with Big Marie and I have shared in your heartache of little Midge and the babies lost during farrowing. It is never easy but you are an amazing caregiver to your animals and they are so lucky to have you! Thank you for sharing your journey with us, even the sad and hard parts. Keep doing amazing!
I honestly wish I could give you a hug. I know that’s lame, but you have been through so much. Unless you go through it people just can’t comprehend how draining and painful it can really be. You put so much love and care, above and beyond. We always tell our selves if only I had done this or tried this. So much regret and remorse. I always feel like why does everything have to be a learning experience! Why did I figure out two weeks later that maybe if I had given this supplement I wouldn’t have to feel this way, and maybe life wouldn’t have been lost. You really did everything humanly possible, needing sleep is human. We just can’t do it all, even though we desperately want to. Your awesome to sacrifice as much as you do for these amazing animals.
What an experience. I raised sheep and those lambing days were difficult. Your instincts are strong and farm life is hard on both the farmer and the livestock. My first year I lost my prize ewe and it was mastitis. I was devastated and blamed myself. You have a sweet bovine family and I will pray for your continued growth.
Thank you for sharing your story and it’s just human nature to wonder if you could have done something more or different. I have a son who has been homesteading for about 10 years and I see how hard it is. I enjoy the animals and hearing when there’s a new litter of pigs, a new calf, twin goats, and helping collect eggs but he’s stopped telling me the sad stories but I know things happen and you keep going or give it up. So far he keeps going and learning. You are an inspiration and I love following you. So happy to see you back and sharing your life (the good and bad). â¤ï¸Â
Kate,
Thanks for sharing this beautiful story. I’ve learned so many things that have helped me care for my goats by following your blog. When farming on a smaller scale, losses can feel so devastating yet wins can feel so great. I think you’ve done amazing with Marie and her babies. Thanks for sharing your farm life and your well loved and cared for animals with all of us!
Kate – thank you for this blog and all the posts that took so many of us through Big Marie’s journey to motherhood. And you are, in addition to being an amazing pioneer, also a very talented teacher – I feel as if I just took the best college class of my life without having to write a single paper – you did all the writing – thank you again!
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You’re phenomenal!!! I’ve learned so much of “Farm life†from you!!! Hang in there!!!
Thank you for sharing, we are preparing for our first farrowing.
Can I ask why you keep the piglets kenneled away from their mother? Just as a human mommy trying to understand why they would not be allowed to nurse on demand, I’m totally new in this pig venture!!!
The kennel is their safe space to stay warm away from Big Marie to prevent them from cuddling and potentially getting crushed. You can also use a board that goes across a corner but you will want to give them a safe place to go to to stay warm away from her.
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Do you have a suggestion for milk replacement to keep on hand if you don’t have or know anyone with a lactating goat?
What’s the next best thing?
Thanks for the wealth of information in your posts. We have two (we think) pregnant gilts due in February 2022. Excited nervous scared and thrilled for this new adventure with our IPP ladies.
cows milk also works. If not, just whatever your co op carries. Just make sure that if there was no colostrum had, you get colostrum replacer as well. It’s essential