Trials & Tribulations of a Hobby Farmer.

[Lazy Farmer]

 

[black_dove2]

I'm curious, my father used to help his friend at his ranch with the piglets. These were born with tusks that had to be pulled so they could nurse.

Is that normal or a breed thing?

 

[Lazy Farmer]

I'm curious, my father used to help his friend at his ranch with the piglets. These were born with tusks that had to be pulled so they could nurse.

Is that normal or a breed thing?

I think you are referencing needle teeth. We do clip needle teeth only if they become aggressive feeders at birth. If they hurt or cause discomfort to the sow she wont let them feed and reject them. Also if they are rough housers when playing. We have had only a small handful of litters that drawl blood during playtime. But if they injure the Sow, we clip the teeth to avoid the burden of bottle feeding after rejection as well of infections on our sow's bellies. Needle teeth are like human baby teeth. They eventually fall out by themselves.

If you are referencing Tusk Removal. We castrate all boars. Boars are converted to Barrows. The Tusks grow large and dangerous upon maturity. Our males are sold as feeder pigs. Meaning the are designated for processing. Raise to market weight then... Use your imagination or recipe book for the rest.. Hehe.
Tusk removal is dangerous and lots of room for error. We don't attempt that procedure. When we need fresh bloodline boars they come from far away farms. So tusks being removed for our program is not required as far as or program is concerned.

Here is an interesting web page I bookmarked awhile ago.
http://americanminipigassociation.com/owners/helpful-owner-articles/dental-care-tusk-trimming/

BTW. Thank you for your interests with our LHF thread.
It is so refreshing to refer to other livestock rather than chickens chickens chickens all the time!
Best regards.
FC

 

[Lazy Farmer]

POURING DOWN RAIN! SOS...
Got all my chores done in a rain coat this morning, so back to while I wait for a few brave souls to show up here around noon to purchase some yard birds.
While taking care of the Tweety Factory earlier, (T.F.=incubator/brooder room) I found out that one of our LG incubators died during the night. Either the control went out or heater core or both. It is 86. Down to 2 incubators now. Our program was perfectly timed to 3 batches a month, now we'll adjust it to 15 day intervals I suppose. Coincidentally incubator 1 hatched 3 days ago and I slacked on prepping and placing the next eggs in. So I gave it a quick clean and transferred over the eggs from the d.o.a. bator. I took the opportunity to candle of course. Only discarded 3 out of 25 eggs.
I wonder if it worth fooling with the dead bator?
Anyway. When I had to turn out all the brooder lights the room went from loud cheep cheep cheep to an awkward silence. The room is packed with brooder tubs and the brooder are comfortably full. I slowly turned back on the brooder lamps 1 by 1 after a quick candling and cheep after cheep started to ring my ear drums. I am the Sun King! Wake up my babies!

We have started to make some better outdoors brooder yesterday. This is the first one. We have 5 to go. Pretty simple and inexpensive. Getting them out to the barn after the heating process is one of our top priorities right now.

We sold about 45 birds yesterday so we bought these pools at dollar general on clearance really cheap. Already had a ton of feeders/waterers. Surplus fencing and wire as well. Raising poultry on a budget.
Alright, that's it for now.. Coffee break over. Hubby giving me the look, if you know what I mean.. Haha!
Thanks for taking the time to review my ramblings!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Gobble Gobble!

​

 

[black_dove2]

This south Texas gulf coast towards central .

He definitely said tusks teeth on new born baby pigs. It's possible they were a hybrid of some wild javalina jumped the fence per see.

They at one week look like it bitty tiny Minnie me Adult Javelinas.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

This south Texas gulf coast towards central .

He definitely said tusks teeth on new born baby pigs. It's possible they were a hybrid of some wild javalina jumped the fence per see.

They at one week look like it bitty tiny Minnie me Adult Javelinas.

It is easy to crack or break the jaw.. You really got to be good at it.. Hats off to them! I would be scared. But I used to be afraid of castration too. I guess after awhile your confidence grows. Our pig are all heritage btw..
Thanks a bunch!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Here is something I shared with BYH. Our daughter way back in 2009.

Enjoy..

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Mmmmm... I will take a guess at raining?

It rains a lot here too!

Our adult pigs are starting to show signs of external septic. The ivermection only works on the internal infestation. We have been swabbing iodine on their ears 3 times a day. You have to be extremely careful because it can blind them if it gets in their eyes. 6 dinosaur size pigs that want to knock you over when you put a stinging burning chemical on their open wounds! The goats, 18 of them are packed in the run to's. They hate rain. So we have to re bed the floors constantly so they don't lay in filth. Baby pigs are swimming! Even though they are covered, the flooding water makes it into the 2 pens.
We just had another 14 hours straight rain from Sat, all thru Sun.
And this was the recorded fall from a gauge on our front gate.

4.5" that's on top of the everyday stuff for last 2 months straight amount.
This was one of the greenest areas the goats spend a lot of time in. The other paddocks are ponded too. We have a tremendous clay bed under our property.

Water doesn't drain well. They weather man says we are close to breaking the all time record for rainfall for this period.
He also said this morning to get ready for this!

I don't need the weather man to know we are in dyer straights. Insult to injury.
The Chickens? The have a cozy nice life. Clean and dry quarters, producing tons of eggs. But the rats need a high and dry safe harbor too! With the rats come the mamba giant rat snakes! OMG
We had 5 people scheduled to come out this weekend to buy young pullets, only 2 showed. The pouring rain keeps folks from venturing outdoors. At least the 2 parties that showed bought a combined total of 32.
At the end of the day when I am changing out of soaking wet clothes and cooking late dinners, I wish sometimes I only had 5 silkies in a tractor house, but all rested in the morning I say I wouldn't change a thing if I had to start all over again! HeHe!
What don't kill ya, only makes you stronger!
We just had a hatch day on Saturday too. 2 chickies had splayed legs. We had to brace their legs. 1 is up and about already and the other is catching up.
No rest for the wicked.
So, in a round about way of putting it, if you see my posts here on BYC or BYH, you can bet that most likely it was raining during that moment when FC pushed that "Post" tab..
Anyway, thanks for reading my flapping thumb work and taking the time to reply! Break time is over and gotta put those muddy boots back on!
Toot-a-loo for now.
FC

 

[Lazy Farmer]

It is easy to crack or break the jaw.. You really got to be good at it.. Hats off to them! I would be scared. But I used to be afraid of castration too. I guess after awhile your confidence grows. Our pig are all heritage btw..
Thanks a bunch!