NIce day a Church, pig tragedy......

We had a nice morning at Church but then going to Church should be nice shouldn't it?  Yes, sometimes we should feel that we got a little chastisement and other times we should go away thinking that we should do better in the Lord but all in all going to Church should be a glorious occasion.  We got to commune with the Lord as well as our brothers and sisters in the Lord.  So, we had a nice time at Church.

Yesterday was not so nice a day all in all.  We made it through the night of taking care of one baby pig, baby pigs like company so it was a little trying.  We went out and checked the piglets right off, another one was dead laid to the side.  We noticed one had a cut on it where maybe it got stepped on, Poppie sprayed it with wound coat and shoveled some of the soft dirt out of the nest.  I noticed one little one was smaller than the one we had in the house so we decided to try putting our lonely little one back in with it momma and siblings.  We put her in and she tried to fit right in, her siblings were happy to have her.  Momma was eating so we left them and went to play with the baby goats.  A short while later the piglets were making a ruckus.  Poppie went to check and the momma was pushing the little one we had had in the house out of her pen.  Poppie picked it up and we took it in the house.  We were in the house an hour or so and then came out to work on the garden areas.  I heard the piglets making a bunch of noise.  I asked Poppie to take a look at them but he said they make noise all the time,  I said no they are making odd noises.  Poppie reluctantly went to check on them.  He hollered for me to come help.  Momma for no reason we can think of had gone off her rocker.  She grabbed one piglet by the stomach, with her mouth, and threw it out of the nest.  She was stomping the one with the cut into the ground and just trying to hurt them.  She had always been a wonderful momma, this was her fourth litter.  She was such a good mom that could count on only loosing one or no babies.  We do not know what came over her but Poppie got all the piglets out of the pen and we took them into the house to save what we could.  He said he was going to butcher her he couldn't take the chance of losing so many again. We had 7 when Poppie and I took them in the house.

I rinsed all the dirt off of the one that was really cut up and pressed down his skin,  I forgot but I should have super glued it and I will remember that next time.  I then cleaned out the cut on the one that momma had thrown with her mouth.  He was deeper but not as expansive a cut.  I used wound coat on both of them and Poppie got butterfly strips and bandages.  I then wrapped them with strips of tee shirt around their little bellies.  They were both in shock.  The others all seemed to be okay.  We feed them, stoked the stove to get the heat up.  Poppie went out and got a heat lamp to get the little bathroom warmed up.  They like 90 degrees and the little bathrooms seems to be our baby animal catch all.  Baby piglets can be almost feed from a bowl from day one so I will  feed them on the bottle for about a week, maybe less depending up on the size of them, the bigger ones wean faster.  I feed them all afternoon and Poppie took the night shift, he was up four times with the small ones, once for the bigger ones.  The little one with all the cuts didn't make it through the night.  The other one is out of shock and starting to eat, he has a little infection but I gave him a penicillin shot so that should do the trick. 

The Lord truly did bless our day, 6 live babies, hams and bacon to eat soon enough.  A new second momma to come.  We will have two first time mommas come spring when we have new babies next year.  Death brings new birth and new birth brings the foretelling of death to come, as my Booboo was say it's the cycle of life here on our farm.  It's the cycle of life in Gods plan I am a thinking....tomorrow.