Sugar Creek Farm

Matt came in the house about 6:00 last night and said Sarah was definitely acting “piggy”. He took the girls back out with him to get Winston moved and then they set up shop with Sarah, right inside her little hut with her. I’ll bet a pig never had such good labor coaches. Except for coming in to quickly wolf down some supper they hung in there with her, rubbing her back and cheering her on. They even played cards for awhile. It was quite a sight, all of them hanging out in this little 10′ by 12′ pig house that’s only about 4 feet tall.

Shortly after 10:30 the girls came in to tell me the first pig had been born. I went out to check her out, and then made the girls come in (against their will) and go to bed. Hopefully their teachers will forgive us for keeping them up so late on a school night. Sometimes there’s a real life lesson that’s just too good to pass up.

It was almost 1:00 a.m. when Matt finally came in. 9 piglets born live, 2 dead. Not bad at all. They’re absolutely adorable. Each of them is solid black with the floppy ears – just like their dad, Winston, who is a purebred Large Black.

Before all of this excitement began, Olivia took the camera out and brought back a couple of good shots of the other 2 new babies:

This is our pretty red heifer calf, Petey, named for the Little Rascals dog because of the circle around one eye.

This is our cow, Carmel, and her black baldy bull calf. No name yet – any suggestions?

This is our new used Port-a-hut , that our friends Gretchen and Jim gave us Saturday along with a heating mat and some little piglet feeders and waterers. We’ll move Winston into this because Sarah should be farrowing any day now.

Gifts like these are such a blessing when you’re in commando farming mode, doing only what is necessary for survival. It’s that time of year when there are a lot of expenses and zero income from the farm. It almost becomes a game, the Farming Super Challenge, to see how little we can spend and how creative we can be with our resources.

Two more blessings this weekend – Matt’s new nephew, Jake, born Friday evening in Texas. Congratulations Rick & Sandy, we can’t wait to see him!

And another calf born Sunday morning, a black baldy bull calf, no name yet.

Since we don’t candle our eggs, people that buy our eggs may notice more blood spots in them than what they’d see from grocery store eggs. Several people have asked me lately about these blood spots – what are they and are they okay to eat? I didn’t know the answer, so this is what I found out from the Iowa Egg Council:

“Blood Spots, also called meat spots. Occasionally found on an egg yolk. Contrary to popular opinion, these tiny spots do not indicate a fertilized egg. Rather, they are caused by the rupture of a blood vessel on the yolk surface during formation of the egg or by a similar accident in the wall of the oviduct. Less than 1% of all eggs produced have blood spots.

Mass candling methods reveal most eggs with blood spots and those eggs are removed but, even with electronic spotters, it is impossible to catch all of them. As an egg ages, the yolk takes up water from the albumen to dilute the blood spot so, in actuality, a blood spot indicates that the egg is fresh. Both chemically and nutritionally, these eggs are fit to eat. The spot can be removed with the tip of a knife, if you wish.”
&copy 2002 Iowa Egg Council – All rights reserved

My entry at Photo Friday for February 18th.

Another day, another new adventure. This morning when I glanced out the kitchen window (which I apparently do a lot without realizing it) I saw two strange dogs coming up through our pasture. I grabbed the binoculars and could see that it was a black lab and a Husky. Now I’m not the type to get wound up about people’s dogs running loose, as long as they’re not hurting anything. Lord knows ours does it when he gets the chance. But Huskies have a reputation as livestock killers, and with my hens free-ranging and a day-old calf in the pasture I got pretty nervous about it.

So I grabbed Ike and headed out to turn him loose in the pasture. But by the time I got out there the dogs had turned and gone back the way they came so I took Ike back up to the house and tied him out.

Our horse, Kickapoo, saw the dogs before I did and didn’t like it one bit. He’s a better watch dog than our dog. Whenever someone drives in he lets out a loud whinny that we can hear clear inside the house. He stood at the fence and watched those dogs make their way back through the pasture, flickering and flattening his ears the whole while, and didn’t move until long after they had disappeared from sight.

Maybe I should be tying him up outside the door instead of the BWD.

Both sides of the coin in one day. Yesterday afternoon the cow that’s been so sick went into labor but she was too weak to push. Matt pulled the calf but I guess it had been in the birth canal too long and was already dead. He tried to resuscitate it to no avail. So sad. Guess we can chalk up another three or four hundred dollars into our “Cost of Lessons Learned” column.