Sad News

Life is hard. 

This is probably not surprising to you. 

No matter what walk of life you are in things are difficult, they go up and down, ebb and flow. 

This is not a complaint of what we've been through, it is not asking for any sympathy, I'm just going to give you the facts. 

The facts are sad.

Our brood sow Primrose came down with an illness on Friday afternoon, she didn't want to eat her food. her tail was droopy and she seemed lacking any interest in anything.

Now a pig not wanting to eat their food is pretty surprising, and a bit concerning!

A call to the vet was made but it was late in the day and I did not have time to receive an answer from them.

Of course, this had to happen over a long weekend.

Saturday morning she was laying in her house and answering me when I spoke to her, but not much else.

My concern grew, I called several other vets none of them were open and had any emergency services for anything other than a small fluffy cat or dog. 

I, being desperate, called one of my pig farmer friends and ask them advice. They gave in abundance, by Saturday evening I got her to eat some supper, she was even excited about it! 

I hoped things were improving. 

We suspected she had ingested some fencing, we had recently changed where her paddock was and there was some old chicken wire buried under the ground that I did not know about.

She had symptoms that seem to go along with this illness.

I was able to get her to eat supper again on Sunday and thought we were out of the woods.

Even if she had ingested some fencing, pigs are very tough!

If she was able to pass it or throw it up, as her body was trying to do for her, she may well recover and be alright. 

As you all know this is a pig that I had no intention of butchering anytime soon so I was rather fond of her! 

She was a good mother and a friendly pig, pretty easy to work with.

By Monday evening she was going into the muscle convulsions that go with Hardware disease, the term for when a cow or pig or other animal does ingest some metal of some kind.

In cows, it can be helped with them being force-fed a magnet.

Also because a cow is a ruminant and has 4 stomachs, a veterinarian can perform a local anesthetic procedure and remove the metal. 

Pigs are built more like humans and this cannot be done for them.

I talked to a good friend of ours who knows a lot about Veterinary Care and we decided she needed to be put down.

This is was very hard decision for me to make and I cried profusely while making it. The decision was made that she must be put to sleep before she suffered in any prolonged way.

As we were preparing to take action she passed away on her own accord.

This was very heartbreaking to us as it has been a tough year for our farm, and this was just the icing on the cake! 

We rushed her babies into the barn to remove them from any contamination just as a precaution.

The vet has since visited and everyone has gotten a clean bill of health along with a tetanus shot just in case.

I will always remember Miss Primrose as one of my favorite pigs, she was kind and beautiful and will be sorely missed!

Her daughter is shaping up to carry on her bloodline and her kindness on our farm.

Rip Primrose.