When we got Remi, the pig, a few weeks ago, we knew that she was pregnant. The previous owners said that she had been “exposed” (bred) in April and since pig gestation is typically 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days, we figured that she should be due around the end of July or early August.
On Thursday (June 30th), as Jershon and I were putting the animals in for the night, we were commenting to each other about how huge Remi’s udders were looking. Jershon even snapped this picture…
We figured that her body was just getting prepped for the big day in a few weeks.
Well… on Friday morning Jershon went out to let all of the animals out like normal. I was inside changing Crosby’s diaper when I got a photo text from Jershon…
I just responded: “are you serious?”
I mean… I don’t know where he would get a photo of a bunch of piglets in a pasture that looks just like ours (haha… I’m sure google has one), but I was really surprised because it was only July 1st and piglets being born definitely wasn’t on our radar yet. haha.
Apparently she must have been “exposed” sooner than the previous owners thought she was… or maybe they meant to say March instead of April.
I any case, we found ourselves with surprise piglets. haha.
10 of them! American Guinea Hogs typically have litter sizes of 1-14 piglets but we were expecting closer to 6, which is average, so we were surprised to see 10. After checking the genders we found that Remi had 5 males and 5 females. All looked healthy and happy… although one was significantly smaller than the rest so she was the little runt. She instantly stole our hearts… both because she was tiny (all of them were…but she was the tiniest) and also because she was the only one that we could easily and quickly distinguish from the sea of black. haha.
Remi must have given birth sometime in the middle of the night or so because by the time we saw them at 8 am, there was no sign (besides the babies) that she had even given birth. Everything was all cleaned up.
We spent a while just watching them. They are so adorable!
And when Remi was distracted with some food scraps, we got to hold them. 🙂
Remi is a good mom. This ain’t her first rodeo… she’s had 7 or 8 litters in the past so she knows what she’s doing. She also has a friendly and docile personality (characteristic of her breed) so she doesn’t mind us being near her babies… although we do try to distract her with food scraps anytime we want to hold them… just in case.
We texted Remi’s previous owner to tell him that she had the piglets and when we told him there were 10 he said that if they were all alive by the 3rd day then we were pros. … He said that there are usually a runt or two in each litter and it’s likely that they may not survive. That was good to be aware of, but we were hopeful that they might all make it. The runt looked so energetic and healthy.
He told us to just make sure they all stay together and that Remi would take care of the rest.
By Friday evening, all 10 were still healthy and seemed to be doing well.
On Saturday morning Jershon and I went out to let the animals out and check on the piglets. We counted them. … we could only see 9. We triple checked our count. Still only 9. The runt was missing. We looked around the pasture near where they had been but we couldn’t find her anywhere.
We finally accepted the fact that she must have died sometime in the night. Since we couldn’t find her body anywhere, we figured that maybe Remi ate her… not alive… but after she had already died. I know that some animals do this when their babies die and I read that a sow with good maternal instincts will eat their deceased piglets so that the carcass doesn’t attract predators.
I was so sad. The runt was my favorite and I was really hoping that she would make it. She had seemed so healthy and vigorous even when we saw her on Friday evening before going to bed. She must have had a hard time with the competition to get milk. I was really glad that we had at least gotten 24 hours with her and I was glad to have some photos and videos of her.
She was the only one that we had officially named so far. We had named her Marcela…after Jershon’s 2nd great grandmother (who is Remigia, (who Remi is named after), his 3rd great grandmother’s, daughter.)
Since we don’t have a body to bury in our little animal graveyard, we are going to have a little memorial for her instead.
Today is day 4 and all 9 are still alive. We hope that they all continue to be healthy and survive.
I finally got some individual photos of them (and took note of their genders) so we could name them. We decided to name all of them after Jershon’s Filipino ancestors since we know that some of his ancestors raised pigs, and Remi is already named after his 3rd great grandmother.
So 3 of the piglets are named after Remigia’s children (Marcela, Hermina, and Pablo) and the other 7 are named after Remigia’s grandchildren (Maria (Marcela’s daughter), Pastor, Santiago, Ingracia, Diograsis, Miguel, and Florentina (Pablo’s children).)
