Some Pig: A Farrowing Story

This whole thing started with some horses.

 

I’ve always loved horses—I’ve got a whole lifetime of heartbreak behind me from loving horses. But horses don’t make much money—and to be straight up, most people in the horse world aren’t made up of sugar and spice and all things nice, you know? When we moved to the country, I had this idea that I would teach horse therapy to kids with behavioural issues (it’s going to happen, one day). Turns out, all animals cost a bit of money, so I started a looking for a way to pay for our new rural lifestyle. Enter the Mangalitsa pig. I had nabbed a copy of Modern Farmer and read an article that hooked me—I mean, who doesn’t love a pig that looks like a sheep?

 

Turns out, they’re fairly rare. Like $2000/pig rare. But I’m hooked, so I find some and fly them from Alberta to our wee farm. And my bank account takes a notable plunge, but fingers crossed, right?

 

Enter Boris and Betsy, my swallow-bellied wonders.

 

I had big plans for these two: a birth plan, a ready farrowing stall, a heat lamp inside a secured animal crate. I was going to do a ton of research and maybe blog about it. Then big old Betsy broke through her fence, breaking the barrier between her and Boris before anything was ready. And all my plans went to sh**.

 

Add in that I have three small kiddos to look after and a husband off at work. Lucky for me, the internet had some information on Betsy’s gestational period: three months, three weeks and three days.

 

Here’s another thing—there are no swine vets around here. Fortunately, my neighbour is a boar farmer, which was helpful, but no one seemed to be able to tell me what the eff to do except for Google (sort of) and some champion accounts on Instagram (thank goodness for @themodernsettler and Big Marie and the folks at @ravenwoodfarmlife).

 

Betsy went into labour in -15°C weather, which could have been worse, but it could have been better. At 1 A.M. in the morning. I’d been keeping her inside the nursing barn (a.k.a. a converted machine shed) to better observe her, but she showed NO signs that she was about to farrow. So I was checking her every few hours and stuck close to the house, but nothing. Of course, I fell asleep early one night, around 8 only to wake up with a jolt. I headed out to check on her, expecting another fruitless night.

 

Betsy was in flat out labour. As a woman who has given birth to some very large babies, I felt her pain. Then I spotted the three dead piglets on the ground around her, Betsy grunting mournfully. My heart fell to the pit of my stomach: I had failed my girl. I sprinted back to the house to change and grab all the things–towels, warm water, gloves, ETC.

 

When I got back to the barn, there weren’t any more piglets…and Betsy was in a world of pain.

 

Let me tell you—there is something very human about pigs. People can tell you all about it, but until you see it, you look in their eyes, there’s no way to tell you just how sentient they are. I couldn’t let my girl down.

 

Twenty minutes pass. Five more. My instinct is telling me this isn’t any good. I’m kneeling in her stall, googling what the eff to do. I took one look at her poor, swollen vulva, and realized I was going to have to pull the goddamn thing out. And I really, really didn’t want to do it.

 

It wasn’t easy. She kept getting up, moving, getting pissed at me and then laying back down again. I could feel her pelvic bones contracting and releasing with my hand inside. I couldn’t get the baby out, blood moving around my hand, or fluid-I didn’t know what anything was. I was able to turn him so that he was right side up, but I wasn’t strong enough to pull him out. He was STUCK, like, really in there. He was wiggling around madly and I could feel his sharp teeth against my glove. I had to go elbow deep in there, something I wasn’t prepared for. It was effing crazy. She could have easily broken my arm, with one twist of her body. So there I am, elbow deep in a pig, while my other hand is googling what to do.

 

My own first child was like hers—giant and determined. But there was no epidural for Betsy, no c-section. There was her and I, alone in the cold night, my own babes sleeping soundly in the house, safe and warm. I wasn’t going to let her down.

 

Finally, I was able to get the piglet far enough through, to the point where he could do the rest of the work. Once he was out, Betsy settled down. Within seconds, four more piglets, alive and kicking poured out of her, to be towelled down by me and placed under the heat lamp for a moment. They nursed shortly after, and Betsy was off on her way.

 

I think I slept three hours that night. But since then, Betsy is my girl. There is a closeness between us that isn’t unlike a stubborn pup and its owner, which led me to my next decision as a farmer, which is to never abandon my mothers. Here at Old Wood Hollow, they will retire peacefully on the farm, as every momma should.

 

Things after that seemed small—there’s something about farming intimately, on a smaller level, that pushes that moment of humanity on you. The little things I worried about before starting Old Wood Hollow–I can’t even remember them now, because they can’t compare, for me, to the rhythm of life here. And it’s all thanks to Betsy.