Sunday, November 25, 2012

Love is in the air

It's fall and that means one thing on the farm ... breeding season for the mammals. All of the goats are bred that I want to breed for January and February kiddings. The cows keep coming into heat, and we're working on finding them a boyfriend. Provided his DNA testing comes back negative for a nasty genetic disease, he'll be here soon. And now for the pigs --

I sold my boar last winter. I figured it was a no-lose idea. If I decided to stop breeding pigs, I'd have one less to sell, and if I decided to keep breeding pigs, I should buy a new boar anyway to breed to the former boar's daughters. Then as the months went on, I kept telling myself that I should sell all the pigs. Well, you know how my farm reduction plan has been going! So, I decided to borrow a boar from a friend.

Meet York --


He was slightly shy about hopping out of the trailer. I suppose he thought he should play it cool around the new ladies.


But in no time he was ambling around the pasture and checking things out, including the electric fence, which he had no experience with. He quickly learned to stay away from it. He also became a very quick fan of whey, which is a by-product of our cheesemaking.



The girls are not terribly fond of him, but I'm sure that will change when the hormones kick in at some point. York will be here for about a month or until we've seen him breed both girls. Pigs are pregnant for slightly less than four months, so hopefully we'll be seeing piglets at the end of March!

2 comments:

Mary Ann said...

I hope he's a gentle boy, for their sake and yours.

Donna OShaughnessy said...

Best of Luck (and hopefully some skill) to York!

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails