Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The heat

The worse part of this life is when conditions outside of your control take the life of the animals in your care. For the past week temperatures have spiked hitting 104 and feeling even hotter, my poor pigs could hardly cool down fast enough to keep up, the ground drank the water rather than making mud. By the end of the weekend we had lost 1 sow and the boar and with temperatures continuing to rise and winds high, all we could do was move them away from the other animals. 


 Dh contacted the rendering plant yesterday but we discovered that they do not take pigs, only cattle and horses. Today I began to search for options and thankfully the Farm Bureau came through with options. It's something you ever really want to think about but it is part of this life and knowing your options sure helps. Dh and AR are working on a fire pit of sorts and we will incinerate the bodies. I pray it goes well and that we will never have to do it again. :( Thankfully we have been able to keep the other 2 sows comfortable and Praise the Lord, the temperatures this week are much milder.

2 comments:

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James Holdener said...

We lost our sow in the hot weather at about this same time. 102F outside. We were only keeping her because we thought she was pregnant. About 300 pounds. We checked around on options and the best one was just to take her out to the far pasture and allow nature to take its course. After a week she was mostly scanvenged and I'm happy I supported the ecosystem. I'll leave her out there a few more days to allow herself to be picked clean then sterilize the bones and try to make bonemeal from them.