At any rate, they spent the rest of the winter in the barn and I didn't have a way to get them outside.  The standard advice is:  don't let them get fat or they won't breed!!  Well, I think they got too fat inside and they didn't get pregnant as soon as I expected.  I also think they may have been pregnant once and miscarried soon into it but I'm not sure.  I spent the summer trying to figure out whether they were just fat (as my brother kept telling me) or pregnant.  I eventually decided that they had to be pregnant since it was very obvious that the girls (who have always been bigger than Bosephus) were much fatter than he was.  My first clear sign that I was right was when their udders "dropped" even before they filled out with milk.  Their vulvas were a bit dilated but not as much as I would have expected.  I found a Storey magazine that talked about both respirations increasing and temps increasing about 72 hours before birth.  Well, I wasn't interested in checking temps but I was able to notice that Pru (my biggest mommie) was really increasing her rate of breathing and that she would waddle out a bit and then lay down.  This was potentially a red herring as we had unseasonably warm temps for the last 3 weeks before they gave birth.

Well, I knew it should be soon but on Sunday morning when I arrived, she had 8 active, cleaned up little piggies.  There was one large piglet that was dead and a much smaller one that didn't make it out of the after birth.  My LGD cleaned up everything.   Pru made a nice big nest and I noticed she fed them outside of it.  I put up a heat lamp just in case, but it was still warm and they have rarely used it.  Sometime after two weeks one of them "disappeared"...I'm guessing it died and the LGD disposed of it.

The next largest girl had hers on Thursday.  By the time I got there, she had 6 babies running about although  they were obviously smaller.   The weather had started to turn cold and got unseasonably cold over the next week.  She made her nest in a small shed that had partially blown down and didn't have much straw or much space.  I gave her more straw and a heatlamp but within 48 hours she obviously laid on 3 babies.  I tried to save one but it just never seemed to be able to get enough nutrition and it only lasted another 12 hours.  The other 3 are strong and healthy although smaller.

Mommie #3 had 7 babies about a week later.  By then it was 20 at night (about 20 degrees colder than it should have been) and wet.  She made a very small nest in deep straw.  She lost 2 right after birth and lost all the rest over the next 24 hours.  She was the smallest of the sows and the weather was the worst. 

They all ate the same feed and they all gained weight at the same rate as their original sizes when I got them so....I believe that my losses were based predominately on the weather change and their inexperience with motherhood and nest building.  I am hoping (controlling this is somewhat controlable but not completely) that their next litters will be in May and that weather will be a bit better.  I am also planning (now that I know what pregnancy looks like) to confine them in pens before birth.  Guinnea hogs aren't supposed to need farrowing crates.    There are definately differences in their mothering styles as momma #1 is very observant but not aggressive about it.  Momma #2 was much more protective of her 3 after she lost the others.  She acted like she might bite me once but thought better of it.  She did step on my foot which probably hurt worst.

Since this is "rescue breeding" I am planning to try to sell the best 4 or 5 as breeding stock and the rest as just plain pigs.   I know this is really long and congratulations if you've had the patience to read it.  Sometimes I've found that if you don't know what to ask, it's hard to know what you don't know so I thought I'd share this in some detail for the other newbies like me.  Mary Ann

Congrats on the babies!

How much do you think they weight now and how old are they?

Did you clip their teeth? What shots have you given them so far?

How's the family feeling? Hopefully better.

Family is recovering from whichever flu/colds we had so I am planning to do some serious sexing of the babies.  I haven't wanted to touch them too much as we were all sick and I was worried we'd give them something.  They are 4 weeks old now.  Mary Ann

So do pigs have to be a certain age like rabbits to find out what sex they are?