Ok, finally....PIGLETS!!!
Wednesday, I watched her all day. She made a big nest with all the dry bedding and plunked herself down in the middle. She got up and down almost continuously all morning and afternoon. No piglets.
I checked once more before taking Jeremy to the dog training class. Nothing.
Checked when we got back. Is it possible that she'd been waiting until I got home? Because it started immediately as she heard me by the side of the stall.
First one little black piglet, surprisingly it slipped right out. Bea was in more than just a bit of discomfort, but that little thing was so tiny next to her...
I grabbed a towel that was left over from the sheep births, and wiped it's little nose. The baby was already breathing on its own, and making his/her way towards the nearest milk source. :)
In rather rapid succession, 4 more were born. Poor Bea seemed terrible uncomfortable with each birth, but not so bad in between.
When we thought she was done at six piglets, she took a long break and then delivered one that had trouble breathing. I messed with it, roughed it up a bit, cleaned out it's little mouth (at the risk of being raked by those very sharp baby teeth!), made sure it was finding a nipple....it probably would have been fine without my interference, but I felt better that I had "helped"... About an hour later, I was satisfied that it was doing fine.
In the meantime, a chunky one was born and was soon nursing as well as it's older siblings, and Bea took a long rest before delivering the afterbirth.
There were eight tiny, but very solid cuties, jostling and "eating like pigs" within half an hour. I had the mental image of a stern parent telling children at the dinner table to stop eating like pigs. And a whole new insight into what that description actually means!
Within an hour, they were all falling asleep with their own teat firmly clamped in their mouths, eyelids drifting shut. If one moved, they all started squirming until the shiny black mass quieted down again. If one ventured around Bea's nose or (GASP!) farther around her head, she snorted loudly and insistently until the adventurous piglet gave up and hurriedly returned to the safety of the warm piglet hang-out by Bea's well-endowed milk-makers.
Bea started shivering uncontrollably, but a quick call to the vet confirmed that she would benefit from the heat lamp that I hadn't yet hung up for the piglets. (Nightmare images of a barn burning down kept me awake later, because not only did we hang a heat lamp at 250 watts, but we had to use an extension cord to reach where we wanted it over the piggy nest!) This morning, all was well.
I'd been told that mama pigs eat their young, that they roll on their babies and suffocate them, that the piglets' sharp little teeth cut their mother's teats to shreds, all kinds of things that undoubtedly could happen. But Bea is showing herself to be an excellent mama, even down to being fiercely possessive when I pick up one piglet to show someone and all the unknown angry pig noises erupt from my normally calm Beatrice. :)
The litter is perfectly balanced. Four boys, four girls. Because their daddy is purebred Kune-Kune, some of them have wattles under each side of their jaw. Two of the girls have wattles, two don't. Two of the boys have wattles, two don't. All of them are sleek, black, and soft as crushed velvet (or softer!)
So, introducing the "New-Bea" litter, the product of Pig Newton (a Kune-Kune boar that belongs to my friends Michele and Damon) and Beatrice (registered name "Anna Suey", a purebred American Guinea Hog.)
Cuteness!
Laura
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