Monday, September 29, 2008

This little piggy's going to market...

Content warning: Gross stuff on the way.

Well, we have learned a little more about hogs than we knew before. And we could really have done without this bit.

Yesterday, with three sets of guests at the farm, girl pig presented with a most disgusting new issue. Two words: Prolapsed rectum. Let's just say it looks like she's, um, well -- trying to smuggle water balloons into the pig pen. Yow.

Our time on the Googler gave us two options. Well, three - but one involved the insertion of a plastic tube and some heavy duty rubber bands and was therefore not an option at all at BHF.

Long story short, when it looked like reversal would not be spontaneous, we tried one thing which shall never be put into words nor spoken of again and then we made an appointment with the butcher. Girl pig goes tomorrow.

What we learned is that this is not terribly uncommon, and it does not appear to be terribly painful, as she is still eating, playing and napping with no complaints. She is also able to defecate. Just in case you were wondering.

But since she is a food animal, we thought it best to turn her into food before the tissue had a chance to get abraded and infected. Boy pig will stay behind to eat whey and get fat alone.

We recently moved the pigs into the buck pen, so I hope he won't be lonely. And truthfully, I think he may be glad to be rid of his sister, as she was the dominant pig and got the lion's share of the food at meal time. If I had to estimate, I'd say she's at about 160 pounds right now. We'll have a good hundred pounds or so of home grown, whey-fed pork in the freezer next month. Goodbye girl pig. You were a nice, silly resident for your short stay.

1 comment:

Pam said...

What, no pictures? :-)