WAHOO!

Great news: Rosie is pregnant! Mr.Pig did his job just before he left, apparently. I assume the summer heat disrupted her cycling or made her miscarry...either way once things cooled down she must have finally taken. I was the one saying she wasn't pregnant when everyone else said she was, and thoguht she was pregnant when everyone else gave up. I guess thats what I get looking at her anatomy ALL THE TIME. Plus, she's been acting CUH-RAZY since early October. So fellow first time pig breeders take heart: it is hard to tell with some pigs if they are pregnant. Some people say look at their back end and if their vulva is pointed up, she is pregnant.

Well, not with Rosie. My clues were: stopped having heavy mucous breeding cycles, nipples were still small but pointed funny directions, wanted LOTS of grass, wasn't as interested in being friendly, and her attitude was just...a little crazy? But her vulva looked pretty much the same the whole time.

BOOBIES! This means BABIES!

She sure is lucky that her teats are developing because she was juuuuust about to be sent to the slaughter house. So these babies will be a white meat (roast, tenderloin) breed (Yorkshire pig) and a red meat (bacon, ham) breed ( Gloucester Old Spot) making the pigglets Yorkshire X Old Spot. Apparently its an amazing combo, so we will see.

Thanks Mr.Pig, I'm sure your babies will be crazy cute!

In other news, I crutched Ash the sheep aka gave her a Brazilian. I didn't get any pictures of the process, but if you arn't going to shear before lambing it is pretty important to crutch. By cutting the wool away from the anus, legs and stomach mom is cleaner and the lambs don't mistakenly suck on poopy wool instead of her teats. When I turned her over and started shearing her tummy I saw her udders were caked with poop and urine. GROSS! The waste gets stuck in the wool and dirty tags grow bigger and bigger. She's all cleaned up now and ready to have her lambs. Also, I won't get as much crud in the milk. Her udders didn't look too big so I assume we are still a few weeks off. I hope so because I want to be moved back in before she lambs.

So the farm is really a farm!