A Disappointing Development

In July of 2016, we bought our first piglets - naming the two females Peppa and Olivia. Eleven months later, one of the sows gave birth to eight piglets. The second sow should have delivered a couple of weeks later, but instead, she had some sort of bizarre miscarriage and had zero piglets. To cut our losses,we sold her for slaughter, taking what we could get.

As my reliable swine gestation chart predicted last Sept., the sow that had delivered in June, was due to deliver Monday. When my wife's papa arrived at the property this morning, the sow has delivered three piglets. When we arrived two or three hours after her papa, the sow had not delivered any more.

This is very disappointing. I was expecting more than eight in June and now we didn't even get half that number with her second pregnancy. After the failure of the sister sow, it's obvious that these were poor breeding stock. When these three piglets are weaned, the sow will be sold for slaughter, like her sister.

I had hoped to have more breeders from this batch, but that won't happen. These three will be used for food - either for us, or sold. I'll look to buy two or three female piglets from someone else in a few months.