First, I have to apologize for being MIA for the last month. Summer is so busy! I'm blogging tonight because first cut is finally done, giving us a little breather before second cut. I spent the whole day home :) so my house is respectable, dinner is in the oven -salsa rice chicken casserole (my salsa & triple k chicken), blueberry cobbler (thanks to K3 for going blueberry picking) & veggies (local & my garden) ready to grill, and I am blogging on the deck with a cold drink. I'm feeling pretty content right now.
So here's another pig story for you. I read my blogs and think people must think we are making this up, but I assure you it's my life and not as funny as it sounds!
Tuesday night Mark feeds the pigs. Two come to eat, but one doesn't. Mark thinks it's because he had drank too much whey that Mark had brought in the afternoon. Mark comes in to shower & then we head out the door to family dinner. We hear a zapping sound followed by a pig squeal...then again & again. Mark investigates & the pigs head is in the page wire fence & it's getting zapped by the electric fence that's around the bottom. Mark gets the pig out and it's shaking. Than the pig turns around & walks back into the fence & get zapped, again! We put him in the corral & think the poor pig is not thinking straight because he was just repeatedly zapped. This pig is 3 months old & has always been small - it was the runt.The next morning I get up and go check on the pig - it's dead. We go to the barn do chores & come back. Mark goes to feed the pigs. He comes in and says another one is sick. The pig is shaking, didn't eat, and Mark thinks it's dying. Now I'm stressed. What is going on? I call the vet.
Here's his assessment. The pigs hadn't had whey for a few days, so when Mark fed them they drank too much, it's salty. The salt combined with the hot weather made them drink too much water & caused fluid on the brain. The fluid made them blind & disoriented. He felt the first one died from the shock of being electrocuted. His recommendation was to feed them pig mash, and keep them out to pasture on grass. He would get better. That night Mark fed them and they both ate. Phew! It was going to be OK.....until morning!
Mark fed the animals here & then was going to work. I went to the barn. He called me " the pig is gone, I can't find him anywhere." Me "are you kidding?" He was not. After chores K1 and I looked all over...the pig was gone! That night we put on pants, long sleeves, and bug spray to search the woods/swamp for the missing pig. Nothing, no sign of the pig. Here's our assessment. The pig was worse than we thought,and he couldn't see, went through the fence into the swamp. A-he died or B- something ate him, or C - we just started a wild boar population (actually he's fixed so this isn't actually a possibility.)
So long story short- we lost two pigs = a big financial loss, less bacon come this fall, and the remaining pig is very lonely.
