Ninja Cow Farm LLC

Today #35 went back to the main paddock from the hospital/nursery. She was looking strong and was to the point of hogging all the food and keeping the smaller pigs from eating so she earned a trip back to the normal world. There was some sweet justice in grabbing a pig that’s knocking everyone around and biting and putting her butt back in the paddock to fend for herself. I never have liked bullies.

#38 is a pig that is with all the young pigs, but she is way bigger than everyone else. At least 80 pounds and probably 100. At this size, you can’t just do what you want with the pig by hand. Unfortunately #38 has gotten the funk that the other little pigs have and she needed some medicine. The problem is, she’s just too big to grab and haul to the barn. Miguel and I decided to just hold her down in the regular paddock and treat her. Yeah, that sounds easier said than done. I was trying to work on apples so I didn’t want to get dirty. I prepared the medicine and told Miguel to grab to pig so I could give her an injection. Suddenly the lethargic pig was full of energy. Miguel rode her around a couple of laps before we finally were able to work together and get her on the ground. The good news is we were able to get some medicine into her and today she is bright eyed and curly tailed.

The rest of the pigs who are in the barn convalescing all look great except for 27, 29, 36, and 37. Actually 36 and 37 look fine but I want to keep them in observation for a few days longer to make sure they are ok. 27 and 29 need to fatten up a bit, they are looking a bit puny. Once some of the other pigs are out of there the remaining pigs will have more food than they can eat. This will let them quickly put on some body condition before we turn them back out into the regular paddock. If they don’t put on condition fast enough, we’ll just put them in with the next batch of 20 pigs. Kind of like holding them back a grade in elementary school. They go from being the runt to the big kid in class.

 

 

We are continuing to work on the sickness running through the new pigs. 33 and the other bigger pigs have had their second shot of Enroflox and have been placed back into the outside paddock with their peers. We have kept the little pigs inside the barn and continued with their rich diet and special care. We have also kept an ear out for coughing pigs in the outside paddock and have now added 34, 35, 36 and 37 to the barn.

35 and 37 looked bad when they came to the barn. They were heading the way of Roscoe when we brought them in. They were still able to get around but not very quickly and not for long. In another couple of days if left untreated they would be dead.

The good news is that the Enroflox REALLY works. When 35 was put in the barn it took me a day to be able to get out there to give him the medicine because of my work schedule. Miguel said, Jefe, you need to hurry. He looks bad. So I make it out there late that evening and he is barely conscious. I gave him 1.5cc of Enroflox and 1.5cc of Liquamycin and by the next morning he was up and running around feeling great. That stuff is expensive but it sure does the job.

This is a good example of how we handle antibiotics on our farm. We get asked if our animals are antibiotic and hormone free. The answer is what you are reading now. If they are deathly sick, we treat them. The same way you would treat your kids, with love and care, and the best that modern medicine has to offer. If they have a sniffle that will go away on its own, we let it run its course. What we do not do is give any medicines as a preventative to disease. That’s the real problem with livestock handling in the US.

#34 1.5cc Liquamycin IM, 1.5 ccs Enroflox sub q 12/16/14

#35 1.5cc Liquamycin IM, 1.5 ccs Enroflox sub q 12/17/14

#36 1.5cc Liquamycin IM, 1.5 ccs Enroflox sub q 12/17/14

#37 1.5cc Liquamycin IM, 1.5 ccs Enroflox sub q 12/18/14

This morning the sick pigs received the white glove service of Casa de la Ninja. They have already had two bowls of water, plus they had for breakfast:

A gallon of raw milk
1 quart of muscadine grape juice
20 oz of sour cream
10 oz of cottage cheese
Smoked Gouda cheese(smoked here on farm)
Turkey stuffing
Three bags of grapes
Two bunches of peeled bananas
And some various other goodies.

They are now piled on top of one another under the heat lamp snoozing.

Only 29 is still coughing. The rest seem to have stopped already. The littlest one needs more time in the stall to gain weight. He is looking poor and isn’t bouncing back, partly because the bigger pigs are pushing him out of the way, especially 33 who is a bully. Bullies go back to the normal paddock first so don’t worry, he will get his comeuppance.

Monday I’m going to go pick up two hogs from Dean Street Processing, and drop off two more at Acre Station Meat Farm. That means we will have a limited supply of pork available next week. I say limited because these two hogs are already sold, as are the follow-up hogs, but I will snag a few of the choice cuts for our own use and for a few of you folks who’ve been waiting on some Ninja Pig. Going forward we should have some pork available on a pretty much continuous basis on into spring when we will have a lull in supply and then come summer we should be back into pork steadily.

For those who only know pork as a pork chop, here is a very well written article on pork cuts and usage by a mentor of mine, Walter Jeffries of Sugar Mountain Farm. Walter’s website is a large part of the inspiration for our website and he farms in a similar method to what we do.

For those of you who don’t like pork chops, or anything from a hog besides bacon, you really need to try farm raised pork. You’ve never had pork till you’ve had the real thing. It’s night and day difference, I promise.

As I’ve said here before, the initial purpose of this blog was simply to take notes on what we do here on the farm. The fact that it gives insight into our lives for our friends and customers is just a happy coincidence. Today we treated the stable mates of Roscoe the pig for pneumonia. They were not in nearly the same shape as Roscoe and proved to be a challenge for Miguel to catch however I didn’t want to wait till they were in dire straits before beginning treatment. Better to get this stuff knocked out now and have them go on about their happy lives never to need treatment again.

We also bought new ear tags for pigs with a new numbering sequence.

We had an assembly line set up for this treatment. Miguel was in the paddock with the pigs catching them. He tossed them over the gate. Wait, tossed isn’t the right word. He picked them up and handed them to Justin, who then walked the pig to the barn where I was setup playing doctor. I took the pig from Justin and sat on it, holding it in place. I then administered the shots needed and then placed the pig in the stall with Roscoe and his friends.

Here is what we did today. I am remembering the drug names vs. going back to the barn and actually looking them up. I’m sure I spelled them wrong and I’ll correct it when I get over there tomorrow, with some pics of the drugs for the records.

#26 “Roscoe” received 1.5ccs of Enroflox, sub-cutaneously. This was Roscoe’s last treatment before he’ll be put back in the paddock in a few days.

#27 1.5ccs of Enroflox sub-q and 1.5ccs of Liquimyasin IM

#28 1.5ccs of Enroflox sub-q and 1.5ccs of Liquimyasin IM

#29 1.5cc Liquamycin IM, 1.5 ccs of Iron IM and 1.5 ccs of Vitamin B IM

#30 1.5cc Enroflox sub-q

#31 1.5cc Enroflox sub-q

#32 1.5 cc Enroflox sub-q

#33 1.5 cc Enroflox sub-q

Everybody but Roscoe will need a follow-up course of shots in 48 hours which means Monday night. Then they can stay another day or so and be turned back in the paddock with their friends.

One of the downsides to buying feeder pigs is that we always seem to get some that are sick. They aren’t sick when we buy them, but within a few days of arrival some of them always seem to develop something.

So of course after last weekends pig wrangling we ended up with a pig that was coughing. Coughing, just like in humans, can be a sign of a sniffle coming on, or it can by full fledged pneumonia setting in.

So I noticed that this pig had a bit of a cough. I pointed him out to Miguel and said lets keep an eye on him. Within a few days this was what we had.

A temperature of 106, difficulty breathing, pretty much passed out all the time but pooping and peeing at least so the internals are still working. This picture was taken in our barn bathroom where we keep a heather to keep the pipes from freezing. Miguel had made up this box in the warm for this little pig but the next day he still looked about to die so I hauled him off to the vet to have them take a look. Based on how the pig looked, I knew he was a goner, but now 5 other pigs were coughing so we had to find out what the problem was. Pigs are like kids in daycare. When one gets it, they all seem to share it around. The vet checked this little pig into the hospital and actually Heather put him in her office on a leather ottoman so I couldn’t ask for them to be nicer to the pig, which was nice because I was sure he was done for. The vet said he’d treat him and call me the next day to let me know how he was doing and also to tell me what was wrong with him.

The next day my phone rang and I saw the vets number. My heart sank because I knew that he’d be telling me that my little pig was dead but at least I’d find out what was going on and hopefully be able to save the other sick pigs. The vet sounded a bit down so that doubled my knowledge that the pig had died but much to my surprise, he said the pig was doing great and had made lots of friends at the hospital. Happy and surprised I told him I’d be down that afternoon to pick him up.

That afternoon I arrived to find this.

They had named the pig Roscoe and in only one day he really had made lots of friends. He was eating watermelon, spinach, and fruit. The vet had gone to the grocery store to buy him fresh produce to eat which I thought was especially nice since produce is what he eats normally on our farm. Basically, the vet had prepared some home cooking for him. Nice touch. Roscoe was burying himself in the shavings and coming up to everybody who entered the stall and allowing them to pet him. It was hard to remember that he will be a 300 pound hog at some point because folks, he was seriously cute playing in the stable.

I needed to transport Roscoe back to the house. He still had a touch of pneumonia so I knew I couldn’t take him in the back of an open truck. I could however take him in the Avalanche because the back is closed. But since he was feeling so good I couldn’t just place him in a crate because he’d jump out. Here was my high-tech solution.

Roscoe didn’t fight or flee. He squealed just a bit when I picked him up but quickly settled down as soon as I placed him in the crate. A single bungee cord held the contraption together and Roscoe was ready for his ride home.

When I got home, I cleaned up the stall where Benjamin had stayed before, our normal hospital stall. The setup for a 2500 pound bull and a 35 pound pig is slightly different (insert sarcasm). Roscoe got fresh water, fresh fruit (I peeled his bananas, I’m a sucker) and a heat lamp to help stay warm. Today we will wrangle up the other coughing pigs, place them in the barn with Roscoe, ear tag them, give them some antibiotics to get them over this pneumonia. A few days in the barn and they should be right as rain.

I sure am glad that Roscoe lived.