New pens and running sows!

 Had we known when we first moved here many moons ago that we would one day keep a herd of pigs we would probably have moved to a farm instead of an Old Rectory! In the past 6 years (coinciding almost with the arrival of the curly coats) I have found myself almost lusting after other people's farm buildings or vast fenced acreages.... Silly really, but there we are.
Last year we converted the area formerly known as 'The Playpen' (so named for putting ponies in when the weather was too dire to put them out in the field) into three 'new' pig pens. We thought they would keep us going for a while.
Wrong. It didn't take long till they were fully occupied!

Last winter when some of the gilts were almost swimming in gloopy mud (in mitigation - it was the wettest one for decades) we realised we needed to make some more new pens and give some of the old ones a really long rest.  'Men' finally came last week and constructed two in a section of the Church Field opposite the existing ones.

And on Friday our amazingly versatile 'gardener/ handyman ' made a most salubrious ark. So, without wasting a moment - Victoria's weanlings (the Famous Five) were moved across the way (via a temporary hurdle-channel) to their new home. It's all shiny & new & wonderful and they love it - so much so that they promptly chased out Andromeda's piglets when they went to visit! The latter now think the new pen next door is theirs!  They'll find out differently when they are weaned in a couple of weeks - although the 3 girls might well end up there......!

The Famous 5 had actually been temporarily living in one of the sow pens. It needed to be vacated because Delila is in her third trimester and had to be moved away from Samson.

As you can see, she was happy to go! We simply gave Samson a bowl of feed, opened the gate and watched Delila run down the field behind Linda.

Regular readers will recall that not all sows are as well-trained - Mrs Merkel (now known as Ruth) gave Linda a fine old run-around when she was moved away from Black Banana a few weeks ago, ahead of going to her new home to join Moses! I seem to recall the words "never again" being spoken but there we are - Delila is Linda's special sow and accordingly beautifully behaved!

Arriving at her destination, she could be forgiven for behaving as though she'd not been fed in weeks - Samson has probably been helping himself to the Boar's share. Which is another good reason for moving the sow - she'll need feeding up for the next few weeks to give her piglets the best start in life..... I don't suppose Delila will object to that!