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What a Night!

Sunday was a night to remember, we had had a busy day preparing for the imminent arrival of our litter of piglets, the new pig sty was not nearly ready and we still needed to buy essential items such as a heat lamp, hinges for the door and a couple of bales of straw. So first thing in the morning the Boy King and I set off with a list to Santana market while CG stayed at home mixing cement and laying bricks.

We love the market so it was hardly a chore to go and when I actually managed to find everything we needed I couldn’t believe my luck (my Portuguese must be getting better!)

We drove home triumphantly, the car loaded up with all the piggy paraphernalia, and arrived to find CG still working away while Roly looked on approvingly.

It was about six o’clock that things started to go wrong. The Boy King took a bit of a tumble and fell down the stairs banging his head rather badly and hurting his arm. He is not usually prone to drama so when he was still crying and saying his arm was hurting ten minutes later we knew it was more than a bump.

Forgetting all about the relaxing evening we had planned we jumped into the car and raced to the hospital in Caldas da Rainha, returning home seven hours later with a very tired little boy sporting a broken arm.

Having settled him into bed and checking he was sleeping soundly I went out to have a look at Roly and make sure all was well - but what a surprise I had! I shone a torch into the sty and immediately spotted a tiny little piglet greedily drinking milk!

I ran back to the house to get CG and the equipment we had bought earlier in the market. The rest of the night was spent running between the pig sty, the sleeping Boy King and the computer where we felt the need to check our favourite pig website every ten minutes. Phew!

By about half past five in the morning we had four healthy piglets all sucking away and along with a poor little still born fellow that seemed to be it. It was rather a small litter (the average is ten), so we weren’t sure whether to expect any more. Roly wasn’t really displaying the signs we had read about on the internet, calling to her piglets and breathing steadily etc. so we decided that something was definitely wrong. Having spent more time looking at the pig website than with the pig CG was all for inserting his arm inside and groping around for a stuck piglet but it didn’t seem like the sort of thing us amateurs should be attempting and we decided that now was the time to call Miguel the farmer, and take him up on his offer of help - we couldn’t risk losing our precious pig.

He arrived in record time armed with a vitamin injection which had an immediate effect on Roly who quickly stopped panting and seemed much more content. Miguel told us that there were no more piglets now and that the five she had produced was it - unusual for a pig of her size - indicating that she probably had a problem with her reproductive system. This could explain all the trouble we had getting her to come into season in the first place. In his opinion we should send her to that great pig sty in the sky at the first opportunity and concentrate on a more productive animal.

No way! We love Roly and now she is proving to be a fantastic mother to her little family. The new pig sty extension is still not ready so it seems that it was nature’s way to only come up with four healthy piglets, the old pig sty where she has had to stay could not really accommodate any more, but we have made it snug and cosy with plenty of fresh straw and the heat lamp. In fact I’m quite tempted to move in myself!

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