Saturday I got to go see the gilt I showed last summer - "Big D". (The D is for Duroc - the breed of pig - durocs are red with floppy ears.) While I was there "Big D" had piglets - this is called farrowing - she had a huge litter of piglets. We thought she would have 7 or 9 babes but she had 16. Only 11 were born alive, the other 5 were born as mummies. The mummies had died much earlier and were being absorbed. I saw several gilts farrowing and got to clean off the newborns and trim the navels - then helped them start nursing from their mother. The picture shows my gilts piglets nursing they are so tiny - it is amazing to think they will weigh close to 300 pounds in August. It will be great to see them again to see how they have grown and changed.
Andrew
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