Most of the time, the runts of the litters we have here are feisty enough to survive. You can tell who the runt is of a litter, but generally it is just a small size difference. My Frances had a litter of huge piglets last Wednesday. The runt of this litter was so tiny, a quarter of the size of his siblings. As I watched the litter as they were just being born, I noticed the runt crawling in some straw away from everyone else. He didn't seem very strong on his feet. I placed him with the other piglets to see how he could move around and to see if he was strong enough to get some milk. I decided that there was no way he could make it during the night with the piglet chaos so I brought him in the house. We got the formula and bottle ready and started the feeding process. Tiny little guy but he quickly learned how to take the bottle. The kids love taking care of the piglets, however, they know the possibilities when you bring in a runt. On Sunday we noticed he was gaining weight. Great sign! Yesterday I took him out in the warm sun so he could freely walk around and gain some strength in his legs. By last night, I thought he was out of the woods. Scott said he was fine during the night, but this morning he started to fail and we lost him late morning. When I went out to feed Frances, I was reminded how much smaller he was compared to the others. Frances herself was bottle fed in the house, but she was a full size piglet. Our little guy could have had something wrong with him that we just couldn't tell. Like a preemie.
On another farm topic...we got in some of our heritage turkeys last week(Narragansetts and Midget Whites). After a couple of days we noticed the Narragansetts picking at the Midget White's bottoms to the point of bleeding. The wounded birds had to be separated but they wound up not making it. We had a red light on them which they say will deter the birds from having this kind of behavior. The turkeys also had plenty of room. Overcrowding can also be a problem. We have had these breeds before living in the same brooder, but never had this cannibalistic behavior before. We then decided to take all of the Midget Whites out and put them in their own brooder. We already lost half of our Midget Whites. The hatchery will send out more turkeys but it's getting late to start raising Heritage turkeys for Thanksgiving. Ideally, February would be the perfect time to get them but hatcheries don't have them available until the end of March. I have to place my order in November to make sure I'm towards the beginning of the shipping list.
We are blessed with so many good days here on our farm. It just really stinks when you have a bad one.
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