Mummy's girl

It was The Day of Weaning on Friday. For the weaning of the last litter we'd had the help of two young strong men but, not wanting to appear wimpish, we thought we'd try and manage alone this time. "Preparation and Planning" said the boss. And duly spent many sleepless hours doing just that!

The D-of-W dawned - another typical summers day ---- grey and wet. Not to worry.

The plans and preparations were put into effect.

The raceway was constructed......

Trailer parked level.....

Special Enticements from Heather's Fruit Shop were to hand - (well, actually to trailer and to ground) kindly delivered by Linda-who-loves-pigs, who volunteered to help.

Even the sun came out to watch.

And it all went swimmingly - more or less. Which just goes to show that P&P really make a difference. It was a bit of a game trying to separate Ginger from her piglets and she was none too impressed when I scooped one of the laggers up and added it to the 5 on the other side of the fence.

(I and the onlookers were mightily impressed by that bit of deft handling....Never managed to pick up a piglet and hang on to it before!!)

Separated from their Mum, the 6 little piglets were only too happy to go exploring the new green pathway and were almost oblivious to the fact they were actually being herded down that same green pathway. Lured on by treats of the nicest kind - cherries for instance - they were in the trailer almost before they realised! And whisked off to the weaning stalls where they disembarked, equally inquisitively and well behaved...... not a single murmur of discontent.

Leaving just little RedRuth behind with Mum.

She refused to leave --- and refused to be caught.

There was no point upsetting everyone.

She wanted to stay with Mum. Mum was more than happy for her to stay. And, on reflection, it was probably a good way of taking Ginger's mind off the fact that the others had gone. At the last weaning she went in search of her babes in the middle of the night - causing considerable havoc - but this time she and her sole charge went peacefully to bed...... AAAAhhhh. And in a day or two they'll be fed up with each other and then we'll separate them. Or we may just leave Little Red with Ginger rather than put Ginger back with Mangel. That way, she'll get a bit of a rest between litters.

And on the subject of Ginger..... we're mystified as to how that heavy lump of solid mud which has been stuck on her tail these past months suddenly dropped off. We'd tried breaking it off, removing it with water and rubbing it between lumps of stone --- all to no avail. But the vet's due during the week to sort out the piglets so we'd asked him to come prepared to deal with it, if necessary sedating her first. He was not looking forward to it. "Never come across anything like it before." He said, when asked.

Just goes to prove that pigs are really smart; it'll be a little while before the tail will curl 'cos it's been stretched straight for months. But at least She can now wag and whisk it around.

No doubt in preparation for visiting with Mangel again.......!!!!

The Brazen Hussy!