Your Thoughts By Kerrie Chalmers
Farrowing for the unprepared In July this year we moved into our new small farm. We had planned to buy a couple of breeding sows after our first winter in the place. Planning to get to know the buildings and land before embarking on our new adventure. The best laid plans… We were gifted a couple of sows who would come to us via a visit to an OSB boar, but the catch was their move was imminent. We immediately started planning the farrowing barn, ordering gates from IAE to make the space work. We also ordered 2 larger 6’ x 8’ arks from Solway. The ladies arrived in October having been living with Handsome Hamish for 8 weeks, and we had no idea when they would be due to farrow, only an 8-week window. I have a little experience of lambing, but absolutely no idea about farrowing. I read as much as I could on the OSB page. We borrowed the scanner from the charity, and on 11th November both sows gave a positive result. Using the optimal times for scanning I worked out we likely had till at least early January before piglets would appear. Oh, how wrong I was! JP works offshore so is only here 50% of the time. By mid-December, the gates from IAE were still not here so I needed a plan B. I got one of the outbuildings cleaned and disinfected but ended up moving our weaners in there.
