Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Saying Good Bye

I had to say good bye yesterday to two of my sows.  Hazel and Ivy, my two half wattles, were born on this farm, had one litter of great looking babies each here and were great pigs to have around.  When I decided to discontinue the breed-up program for my herd, I knew that they didn't fit into my new long range plan and that I would have to part with them.  I didn't realize how hard that it would be.  I miss my old boar Bernard and think of him often, but at about 900lbs, he can pretty much take care of himself.  He has a great new family and as the only boar with a harem, he probably has not much to worry about. 
Hazel and Ivy are different.  I keep wondering if they are doing ok, if they hate me or are upset that they had to go.  Do they wonder, why them?  Ivy is shy but around Hazel she is better.  I told the new owner (a very nice man) all of the important details about them but will he notice that when Ivy is upset she gravitates toward Hazel, her sister?  Will he notice that Hazel eats all of her food and most of Ivys if the bowls are not far enough apart or that at dinner time, sometimes you have to go wake up Hazel or she will sleep right through it?   I am sure that he will take good care of them and I understand that he didn't buy them to put in a shed somewhere just to spit out babies but I have an emotional investment in them.  I held them when they were babies, I threw apples to them when they were little just to watch them chase them, and each other, around their lot.  I doctored the cut that Hazel got scrappin' over a pumpkin. 
I am sure that he will fill in the blanks as he gets to know them.  I, on the other hand, will continue to miss them but I will always have the little things to remember them by...like the rip in my jeans that an impatient Hazel gave me when I just stood around talking to the pigs while I should have been pouring the food in the dish closest to her, the huge, pig sized hole in the barn door that Ivy went through because she heard me in the barn and wanted to for once, be the first for dinner, and the hunt for feed dishes that I went through every night because those two would hide all of the dishes under their bedding.
I still have some of their babies at home.  I won't be keeping any of them but they reminded me of their Mommas as I was doing chores the night that they left.  I caught a glimpse of one of the piglets dragging off a food dish...