I’d held off entering our new piglets into our herd book until today as Louise, a work colleague of the Other Half, was coming over with her daughter Claire.
Claire, who is in Secondary 4 (year 11), loves animals and wants to be a vet when she finishes school, so we’d invited her over to see our animals and meet her first piglets.
We also thought it would be a good opportunity for her to be a bit hands on, so she was given the job of inspecting and sexing all the piglets so they could be entered into the herd book.
Claire had already put some thought into coming over, turning up in old clothes and in a pair of well-scrubbed wellie boots (good hygiene is vital with pigs).
Given the choice between surgical gloves or cold disinfectant, she went for the disinfectant and then came in to meet Delilah, spending a bit of time talking to her, feeding her a couple of apples and giving her a pat before moving on to the piglets.
Claire was very confident for a first-time piglet handler, scooping them up, supporting them, reassuring them, checking them, marking them with spray marker and then returning them to the creep.
She remembered to keep an eye on Delilah, reassured the sow when she came over to see what was happening with the piglets, and always kept enough space clear to get out of the pen if she need to. An excellent job all round.
Her mum Louise also proved up the job, keeping Delilah occupied most of the time with a few more apples and more patting.
The same can’t be said for the Other Half, who was supposed to be doing the record keeping but managed to be distracted by Delilah, the piglets, our boys or all three.
So we found ourselves with 12 marked piglets and only 11 in the book. After a recount, we found Delilah had five boars and seven gilts.
After that, Claire and I went out to meet Ginger, our Tamworth boar. She had a good look at him, handled him well and again remembered the safety advice I’d given her - don’t turn your back on him, keep a way out and, while he’s an amiable animal, he’s still a boar so it pays to be wary.
Claire also had a look at the chickens, handled some of the cockerels to see their development at different ages and from different lines, and we had a good chat about conserving rare breeds.
I was very impressed with her animal handling skills, with the way she listened and asked good questions, and with the way she was prepared to be hands on. So, Claire’s been invited back in 8-10 weeks when we tag the piglets and separate them from Delilah.
Claire showed herself to be as much a people person when she quickly won over our boys, and that’s as much an attribute needed by a vet as animal skills.
We hope Claire does well with her exams, as she certainly shows promise as a prospective vet.
Well done young lady!
That’s great, good luck to Clare for her future. She would get on well with Danielle, she wants to be a vet nurse or similar. At the moment she’s helping out the owner of the 6 horses in the paddocks behind our house.
Feeding them this week while the owner, Christine, is away, grooming, getting used to handling them. She did some wound care yesterday and massage for inflammation.
In return Dani will be having riding lessons and trail rides over the holidays. All good experience as she wants her own horse when we get our farm and wants to work with horses etc when she leaves school.
The OH came home today with a great thank-you present from Claire - a farm calendar, complete with pigs. It’s nice to be appreciated.