Apifera Farm - where art, story, animals & woman merge. Home to artist Katherine Dunn

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Sunday, March 05, 2017

Little Lonely's fight



Little Lonely made it through the night, and I was feeling pretty good when I saw him up and about this morning. He does have this weird breathing spasm, I've shown to some pig friends and they agree its odd. But no signs of pneumonia or rattles/fluid in the lungs. Cornelia is ok, she is still really tired, but eating and drinking. I'm going to get some goat milk which one of my pig friends uses on her pigs and she learned it from a vet in a similar situation when the sow had a singleton and her milk was not plentiful. Cornelia has milk, and he has the hang of the milk bar, but just in case, I might help him for the first couple days.

It's hard with just one as he doesn't have his mates to sleep with so he wants to sleep with her and each time she gets up I cringe-but you have to let go of what you can't control. The cold weather snap is suppose to gradually warm by tomorrow and 40-50's in mid week. We feel like hypothermia was the killer. We analyzed our actions, mistakes, lack of foresight, missed cues if any...and we ended up with the same conclusion-it's sad, but it happens. I never would have had piglets in winter, but Earnest had other ideas, and we just hadn't gotten our paddocks totally secure since we just arrived in May with so much fencing to do all at once. But...I am responsible, and Cornelia and I have an understanding about it. It is between her and me.