This summer was a tough one with the high temperatures. In May, June, and July, sows started their heat cycles at 28 days apart instead of 21. It was hard to order semen for artificial insemination. We bred CoCo with Sampson. She went into a pseudo pregnancy. She stopped cycling but did not give any piglets. Nikita was artificially inseminated with No Diggity semen from Reinhardt Mini Ranch in Wisconsin. She had 8 piglets with seven alive. We lost Nikita 4 weeks after she gave birth. She was 2 years old and this was her third litter. Ayita was bred with Sampson. She had 11 with 3 of those stillborn. Cheyenne was bred with Sampson. She had 12 with 12 born alive. All males have been spoken for. We will have a few females that have not been spoken for yet.
We bought Pepper from Reinhardt Mini Ranch in March of this year as a new blood line for breeding. We had Emily, a young girl from the community, show her in the Open Division Purebred class in the South Logan County Fair in Arkansas. She won First place and Grand Champion. Emily also won Jr. Showmanship. A big Thank You to Emily for showing our new gilt. Pictures are on the Breeders and Winners page. Emily’s little sister Katelyn thought Pepper needed some cooling. Her picture is somewhere. See if you can find her. 😊
Sherlyn bought one of our gilts in the spring this year. She showed “Fresa” in the Yell county Fair in Arkansas. She won First Place Market Weight Class, Third Overall, Second Place Showmanship. Congratulations to Sherlyn. Her picture is on the Winners page.
On our Updates, some people may wonder why we give good and bad news. For farmers who have been farming for several years they already know there are trials and tribulations. We don’t want the new farmers or young kids to put on rose colored glasses and think that this will be easy or not think about some of the things that can go wrong. The most important thing is to pull on your boots and work through the hard times. Try to find solutions to your problems. Try not to make the same mistakes twice. There will also be things that come along that there is no explanation for. Those are hard to swallow or understand.
For the older farmers that have heard of Paul Harvey and the younger farmers just getting their feet wet, Please google “So God Made a Farmer by Paul Harvey” and some of this will become more clear to you. Good luck to everyone and Happy Thanksgiving. We still have plenty to be thankful for.
