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By pigwhisperer, April 16, 2011

No, we don’t normally paint our sows’ hooves hot pink.

Our sow, Mona, recently started limping and acting very crabby and agitated. Usually, Mona is our calmest sow, always ready to be brushed and petted. Upon investigation, we saw that her back hooves were overgrown and one had a crack in it. A cracked hoof is bad because bacteria can enter through the crack and, at worst, cause a systemic infection. Mona’s leg wasn’t discolored but it was slightly swollen and tender to the touch (she made this abundantly clear). We called our vet and he arrived with a Dremel rotary tool and sedatives. The rotary tool was basically an electronic nail file, which we would use to file down any overgrowth on Mona’s hooves. Mona is 300 kilos (around 660 lbs) and we were pretty sure she wouldn’t let us file her hooves without some drugs. The hardest part was getting Mona to even allow the vet to touch her (she is very sensitive to new faces, even those she’s met a few times). But, after about one hour, all of her hooves were filed and her cracked hoof was slathered with antibiotic ointment and wrapped in gauze.

We had to give Mona medicine each day for about a week. And also we had to spray all of her hooves with a hardener/hoof protector. The challenge was that this hoof medicine was in a spray can, and Mona hates the sound of spraying. (My only guess is that, to her, the spray sounds like a hissing snake.) The only way to treat Mona’s hooves was to paint the medicine onto them.

Each morning I gave Mona a good brushing to calm her. (She was still jittery from the vet’s visit, and I don’t blame her. Who likes to be corralled, sedated, and then have their nails filed against their will by a strange man?) As soon as Mona rolled onto her side, I brushed her with one hand and painted her hooves with the other. If I stopped brushing, she’d get suspicious and roll over and snort at me. After about 30 minutes each morning, she was all painted and ready for the day. The medicine just happened to be hot pink, which is a great color on Mona, don’t you think?

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By pigwhisperer, June 2, 2010

Mona gave birth to 16 little ones, which was more than any of us expected. But many have died. (Three were stillborn, four died soon after birth from weakness, and Mona sat on one.) Now we are left with 8 and are trying hard to keep them healthy. We’ve learned that large births are sometimes more a curse than a blessing. Mona has only 14 teats, so there isn’t enough milk for more piglets than that. But hopefully these 8 will stay strong.

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By pigwhisperer, May 28, 2010

We’re on high alert tonight. Our lovely (and very pregnant) sow Mona will probably give birth in the next 12 hours. I’ve whispered in her ear to please try to push those piglets out sooner (how about 7 PM?) rather than later. But Mother Nature doesn’t care about my bedtime, and the piglets will arrive whenever they please.

How do we know that it’s Mona’s time? First, she lost her appetite. Next, she started breathing heavily. Milk began to leak from her teats today and (read no further if you’re squeamish–this is a farm blog, folks!) her vulva is really swollen and red. (The picture above says it all, really.) We’ll check her periodically to see if her water has broken. If it has, that means piglets are on the way. Births can last anywhere from 1-5 hours. Sometimes there’s a long wait between piglets, and sometimes they slide out one after the other. I’ll let you know how Mona’s birth goes. Hopefully we’ll have 8-12 new additions by morning.