OT, but a tractor was involved

Out of 4 bred sows we have 2 had their pigs today. One was already nicely settled in the farrowing house (we keep them on pasture except when they are farrowing) but another one who appeared to be at least a couple of weeks out had hers in the pasture sometime this morning and we found them late this afternoon. Needless to say it was a surprise and we had to start scrambling. It's been in the 50's and raining all day due to a strong cold front moving in, but we had to get her in the barn, which we haven't had any luck with until now. Thankfully, she is very tame and we put the pigs and some corn in the front of the trailer and she went in the back with a little gentle coaxing. Now they are dry, warm, and protected from coyotes. The other two sows look like they should have their pigs any time. I am thankful though that we got 16 healthy pigs so far. This was the first litter for one sow so the litter was small and the second for the other. I checked them about 10 o'clock tonight and they were all nursing and vigorous looking, so maybe they will all turn out well. We shall see I guess.

Sounds like they are off to a good start. There always seems to be at least one that will get caught on the far side of the pasture or somewhere, when they go into labor. My daughter and her ex tried raising hogs for about three years. I think they mostly went into the hole on it. Good luck.

Thank you. This area is full of confinement operations and we are 30 miles from the largest hog plant in the world, but there is a strong and growing demand for pork raised the traditional way. We have our hogs processed and inspected and sell the meat straight to the customer in accordance with state law. We also sell excess feeder pigs, and demand is strong for them also. We have only been doing it a couple of years and expanding slowly, but we have been successful so far.

There are several large hog operations here in N.C. Where are you located?

Remember the rule for hog gestation. From the time they are bread to the time that they farrow is on average three months, three weeks, three days and three o;clock in the morning.

We are about 30 miles south of the big Smithfield slaughter plant at Tar Heel, which is the biggest on in the world. They also now own the smaller Lundy's plant in Clinton, which is about 50 miles northeast of us. There are contract and company confinement farms all over the region. They sprang up like wildfire in the 90's but due to complaints about odor(some can be smelled for miles, others cannot, so it seems to me to be more of a management issue), and widespread concern that the clay lined lagoons would allow waste to eventually contaminate ground water, the state put a moratorium on permits for new operations in 1997 and it remains in place. There was a big lawsuit and settlement after some lagoons burst during Hurricane Floyd and caused problems up on the Neuse river and its tributaries and the money was used to fund research to find alternative ways to handle waste. I had a temporary job on one of the projects right after I graduated from NCSU and they came up with some ideas that would work, but as of now the lagoon/spray field system is what almost all of them still use. A few farmers who got odor violations have to inject it into the soil, but I only know of one in this county and I'm sure they are a rare exception. If you have less than 250 hogs per farm, you are exempt from state regulation. We are sort of between Fayetteville and Wilmington off Hwy 87, but we are about 20 miles closer to Wilmington. If you know the area, we are halfway between Elizabethtown and Riegelwood right along the Cape Fear River.

With 6 inch's of snow, and 19 below, plus wind-
chill, you can be glad those piglets wern't here in Wisconsin yesterday!

My hat goes off to livestock producers in climates like that. BTW, all 16 pigs look really good this evening. Still waiting on the other 2 litters

Kinda thought you might be in that area. Yeah, I remember the big stink about the big stink, so to speak. I thought then that someone might have been able to manage things a little better. Of course, the larger the operation, the more difficult it is. I live about halfway between Asheboro and Seagrove, and there a lot of chicken operations in this area. You pass by one of those on a warm, humid night and that will open your sinuses in a hurry too.

We used to buy quail chicks from a guy in Robbins and we have a cousin who lives in that area.