It’s been a long month and my mental energy and patience levels have been pushed to the extreme.
The deaths on the block have been horrific, the drought is causing extra work and I strongly suspect we’re experiencing the after affects of our sister-in-law’s inability to keep her knickers on.
Our block, my sanctuary, has done nothing but batter me this month and I feel completely worn out. After months of voraciously reading I have been too tired to pick up a book all month. The only thing I’m reading are trashy magazines in the staff tearoom at lunchtime and even then I’m struggling to get past the first couple of paragraphs.
This Blog is woefully behind but I hope it is a mere glitch in the proceedings.
Life and Death Battle It Out On The Block
Mabel and Rose were due to give birth on Easter weekend. It was perfect timing. But the girls decided they wanted a few days extra.
The Tuesday after Easter Aaron and I had to go to work. With 2 short weeks in a row we had no choice. We prayed for a late afternoon arrival but Aaron arrived home to find Rose had chosen a midday birthing, up the hill, behind the shed.
 |
| Rose & Piglets |
She’d had 16 gorgeous wee stripeys but only 8 had made it. Without someone there at the birth nature had taken its natural course and what might have been didn’t get to be. Aaron was upset but accepting. I was upset and pissed off.
Why couldn’t she have had them on the weekend?
Why couldn’t she have had them 4 hours later?
Why didn’t she have them in the shed?
So Death was back to visit, sitting on a fence post no doubt, picking off my babies. It’s impossible to express the helpless frustration I feel at a situation like this. I feel responsible for letting it happen. I feel angry at myself. If only I had been home.
Wednesday morning Aaron rings me from home. Mabel is nesting. She has also rejected the shed for a flat spot at the back of the paddock, near the bush.
This is not good news but her nest is apparently huge and well laid out. We can only hope that things go well.
Aaron calls me just before lunchtime. He thinks I should come home. And so I ask my boss if I can do a half day and she very kindly lets me leave after lunch.
Mabel, whose belly almost scrapes the ground, pants and struggles to move but she is determined to create the perfect nest. Occasionally she lets me rub her belly or massage her back. The contractions come and go and I wish she would just lie down and rest.
Finally, somewhere between 5pm and 6pm she lies down. She has finished. The nest is perfect and it is time for her to bring some little stripeys into the world.
 |
| Consuelo & Meg |
I sit and wait and then the suddenly we have company. Her grandchildren have broken through the fence and run over to see me and Mabel and to dig up her nest. Aaron is on the other side of the stream with our Italian HelpXers. I call and wave frantically. He comes running and we clear out the piglets. I sit down on a tree root behind Mabel and talk to her.
She suddenly stands up and it is clear she is in a bad mood. She pants and heaves and then unbelievably she starts slowly staggering up the hill. When she gets to the top she starts hurriedly trying to build a new nest. For an hour she rips branches off inkwood bushes, grabs manuka branches and creates what looks to me like a death trap for piglets. She’s as angry as hell and I’m worried sick. I run up and down the hill, carrying bundles of nesting material from her original nest so she can finish her nest sooner rather than later.
She doesn’t want me there but I’m too scared to leave.
Eventually she lies down and after half an hour of panting the first piglet pops into the world. It’s healthy, happy and eager for food. Another 30 minutes ticks by and nothing. I’m feeling more than a little concerned. The contractions seem to have stopped and I find it impossible to believe that’s it. Suddenly she stands and starts rearranging her nest. The wobbly little piglet is in the worst kind of danger and I dance around trying to make sure I’m in the right place to grab it for when she lies down.
She lies down eventually, the piglet resumes feeding and within a short space of time the contractions start again.
The piglets come out one or two at a time, roughly 20 minutes apart. Despite her age she delivers 16 little stripeys. The 11th one is unresponsive when it slides out. I clear the mucous from its mouth, rub its body and try my best piglet CPR. It weakly moves its limbs but won’t open its eyes.
For 15 minutes I beg it to live while 2 more siblings emerge into the world. I tell it about all the great adventures it’s going to have and how good life will be. But Death stands behind me, waiting patiently, and then he reaches over my shoulder and takes the little piglet from my grasp. I hold its lifeless body and cry. 3 more siblings appear and I lay the dead piglet on the ground and help these little ones. The tears still course down my face. I am both happy and immensely sad.
And as I watched the 15 piglets fighting over Mabel’s 13 nipples I knew that we would probably lose at least 2 more.
After several minutes of trying to hold myself together I head down the hill, hoping like hell the piglets would make it through the night.
Marty was there for dinner, and of course we had our HelpXers. I stood on the verandah for a couple of minutes and shed more tears, eventually going inside to join the others for dinner.
Aaron and I set the alarm for 3:15am to give us time to get up and spend time with Mabel and Rose, watching them eat and being there to watch them lie down again.
Rose’s 8 were all alive and well. Mabel’s 15 were now 17 and there was an 18th one cold and still, caught in a placenta. I was mortified. I had never dreamed she would have had 19 and the 19th had had no chance without someone there to release it from its placental coffin.
I picked it up and put it in the empty bucket. Mabel took an age to eat and then unexpectedly took great offence at my being anywhere near her nest. Much to my horror she started to rearrange it. The baby piglets tumbled around on the ground barely missing getting trod on, having nesting material dumped on them, and being pushed around by a determined snout. As calmly and quietly as possible I begged her to stop and lie down. It seemed an eternity before she did and she snorted angrily at me as I tried to count all the babies.
When I was happy they were all okay I left.
Mabel’s attitude towards me was unnerving. I wasn’t worried for myself but I was scared stiff for the piglets.
 |
| Mabel & babies |
Little did I know that this was the start of a mental slide into hell.
Aaron arrived home for feed out and discovered two dead piglets. Mabel had rearranged her nest again with terrible consequences. And so for the next week, every time we fed out and plucked another dead piglet from the nest Mabel would become incensed with our interference and either rebuild or move her nest. Piglets got buried or left behind and I found myself stuck on out of control train wreck.
Monday at home one of the four 3-day-old ducklings was trampled to death by the adult ducks at feeding time.
British HelpXer Alice was appalled and wanted the mother and her babies removed but as I explained, we had done just that at Christmas and lost 3 due to shock.
She was scared for the ducklings though and I reluctantly made the effort to remove the mother and her ducklings.
I raced around the duck paddock and the mother ran and flew and basically continually escaped the reaches of my net and the ducklings panicked and somehow ended up in Phyllis’ paddock huddling under her enormous body, dangerously close to her trotters.
“Phyllis don’t move!” I screamed as I jumped the fence and scrabbled underneath her to grab the ducklings. The ducklings were safe but highly traumatised, as was their mother.
I was shaking and stressed, freaking out at my ineptitude.
“I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I’m not doing this!” I went back inside the house.
Wednesday night I came home and our British HelpXers advised me that the last of the 4 baby ducklings had died. After failing to remove them from their paddock 2 had been trampled to death by the adult ducks and the last one ended up being eaten by Coppa.
It had upset Alice a lot, especially seeing duckling feet protruding from Coppa’s mouth.
 |
| Matt & Alice |
The dramas weren’t over either.
Thursday the 15th Mabel’s 10 remaining piglets were 9 days old. She had moved them down the hill to her original nest. I got up at 4am as per usual and Mabel came down to her trough for breakfast.
Rose had moved her litter into the shed and they were all cosy in the woodchip and hay.
I went up to Mabel’s nest and discovered a piglet on its back, struggling to move. I picked it up. Its cold little body and lack of verbal protest was a bad sign. I clutched it to my chest and rubbed it to try improve the circulation. I quickly raced around to feed Stanley and the headed back up to the house.
For 2 hours I sat with the piglet, trying to warm it with a hot water bottle, massaging its limbs and trying to feed it warm baby milk. It seemed to rally a bit, moving, grunting and then I think I stuffed up. I tried to get it take more milk and then within 15 minutes it took a little breath and passed away.
That was it. That was my breaking point. 19 piglets and 4 ducklings in 2 weeks was as much as I could handle. I couldn’t stop crying. I rang Aaron. He was half way to work. He couldn’t come home. There was stuff at work that needed to be sorted.
I rang work and told them I wasn’t coming in.
I don’t know how long I sat on my bedroom floor clutching the little piglet. It seemed as if I would never stop crying. But eventually I did and I wrapped the piglet in surgical cloth and laid it gently on the bedroom floor. I know it probably seems an odd thing to do but I didn’t want to give up on it. Several times during the day I checked on it in the hope that I’d made a mistake. I knew I hadn’t but sometimes it’s really hard to accept death.
I spent the morning Googling information on orphaned piglets. There were a number of things I could have done better. Instead of a water bottle I should have held it in a tub of warm water to obtain all over warmth. I should never have fed it until it had regained enough energy to ask for food. I now live with the knowledge that putting a bottle in its mouth may have killed it. I may have missed the throat, getting the lungs, effectively drowning it. Is that why it wheezed at the end? Warmth, sleep and a saucer of milk was the best course of action.
I know now but I wish I knew then.
And so I spent the day mentally beating myself up. For 2 weeks it didn’t matter what I did I just seemed to leave a trail of destruction in my wake.
There was so much I could have done better right from the start. For some reason every choice I made was the wrong one; it was a huge burden of guilt resting on my shoulders.
I’ll do things differently next time. Aaron and I have formulated a plan. It’s all a bit late of course but it won’t happen again.
Eventually I managed to pull myself together and went back to work the next day.
Friday I got home to more bad news. One of the piglets was wheezing. We agreed we would take it to the vet but it didn’t live long enough to get there.
And so now we have 15 piglets. 15 happy, healthy, adorable piglets. But I’m emotionally drained and I feel just like I did when Phyllis’ piglets were injured. I don’t remember quite how long it took me to recover from that; a month maybe?
 |
And so I’m dragging myself through each day with little energy and that awful feeling that although nothing’s actually wrong with today, I’m actually not coping particularly well.
This Little Piggie Went To Market?
The loss of so many piglets has suddenly made our plans a little shaky. We have less live piglets than we expected and so how can we guarantee supply at a market?
Then to add the pressure, Phyllis, my beautiful red-head Phyllis, came onto heat 3 times in a row while sharing a paddock with Arthur. Those piglets we were counting on for market weren’t happening.
Phyllis came into heat for the 4th time during the same week the ducklings died. I was gutted. I knew she hadn’t particularly enjoyed motherhood the first time around and I wondered if perhaps she was rejecting Arthur’s advances so that she wouldn’t get pregnant.
Of course I was upset but I could never be angry. How could I be upset with a pig who felt the same way as me?
I do not want children so I could never condemn another female, human or otherwise, if they feel the same.
Phyllis was on heat for 3 days, as is usual, and then on the 4th day I knew she was pregnant. She was absolutely glowing! I know they say human females glow when they’re pregnant. It’s not something that I have ever really noticed but I think I understand now. Phyllis is positively serene. She wants to talk to everyone who walks by. She wants cuddles and scratches and lots of attention. It is like she is saying “Isn’t life wonderful?! Isn’t everything just so beautiful? Am I not the most beautiful pig you have ever seen?!”
I don’t know for certain that she is pregnant of course, not for another week or so, but I shall be very surprised if I am wrong.
And so where does that leave us anyway as far as markets go?
Aaron and I think that we are not in a particularly good situation.
Then I had an idea.
“Why don’t we sell from a chiller truck at the gate? We set up exactly as we would at a market, sell on the weekends and supply dictates whether we work or not.”
Aaron listened and he agreed it seemed like it could be a very good idea.
And so I’ve contacted the Council and the NZFSA to ask what they need for us to be compliant and there is a lot of work involved in getting permission. Being on State Highway One, we must also seek permission from Transit NZ. There is screeds of regulatory paperwork to go through and I can see there are a few costs involved in getting the various permissions.
From what I’ve read so far the biggest sticking point may be our driveway. It needs to comfortably fit 2 parked cars and there needs to be enough visibility for cars to be able to slow down and turn in safely. We would like to park the chiller truck on the grass verge behind the Armco barrier but Transit NZ may deem that a visual hazard. I guess there’s only one way to find out though and that is to ask. However, I think we will scrubcut the area first to give it the visual perception of being spacious.
Certainly there would be more work involved selling from the gate, in terms of hours selling, but at the same time it would allow us more flexibility.
I’m not sure where we’re going to find the time to do all this investigation / research but maybe in a couple of weeks time, after the Muriwai Valley Farm Open Day, we will be able to spend some time on it.
Aaron The Pig Expert
Aaron has written the first draft of his half hour talk on pig-keeping and he will present this at the Muriwai Valley Farm Open Day. I think he has done a great job and I really hope there are people who turn up to listen to him. I think that even after only 3 years of pig farming we have a lot of good information to pass on. And who knows, maybe if it goes well we can at some stage offer workshops on our farm about pig-keeping.
The Stream Runs Freely
Marty came, he saw and he conquered! Our stream is now cleared right back to Naniwha Hill.
 |
| Marty & digger |
We have spent our stream clearing budget for this year and I hope next year we can clear it back to Frank’s place. That actually means clearing DoC land stream but there is little point clearing ours if with every storm the willow from DoC land clogs up our stream again. Hopefully we can get some funding from the Regional Council to help us. We want a clear flow to alleviate any flooding and to provide a haven for fish, eels and waterfowl.
Perhaps we should be grateful for this year’s drought. It has made a hard job a little easier.
Now the stream is clear the water is incredibly low. In fact at some points it is probably no more than ankle deep. It is amazing now to drive across the bridge and actually be able to see the stream bottom. Aaron has chopped down a huge amount of willow and yet there are maybe a hundred more to still come down. We cleared out a few more than initially intended but their root systems created dams in the stream. However, we still left a few. We needed to because they are too important to us in terms of stockfeed, and bank support to get rid of. We have also only cleared our side of the stream. The trees on the highway side remain. I expect we are 2 more summers away from finishing the clearing. We also have a mass of planting and fencing to do along the stream edge.
We had Marty dig out 2 large mountain flaxes for us and we had HelpXers divide them up into many small plants, most of which have been planted already.
Bob at Northland Regional Council has been great. He came and talked over our plans and then gave us the go ahead. He even organised for Downer to give us some old culvert pipes so we could create a safe flow for highway run off and have a land bridge over top to move our cows.
As Marty cleared the stream and dug out our pond a bit more, we came across many baby eels and even some fish. We saved all that we saw when Marty accidentally scooped them out. I was shocked at just how strong a baby eel is. They fight very hard to get away.
 |
| Oops...broke it again! |
Our most fascinating and perhaps slightly scary moment was when Troy leant down to look at a pile of mud Marty had scooped out and picked up what looked like a Toheroa. I figured someone must have dumped shells in the stream at some point. And then I looked at it and discovered it was in fact alive.
"Aaron. We might have a slight problem. We’ve got live shellfish in the stream”
He was as shocked as I.
Oh my god. Had we just unearthed a breeding ground for a very rare form of freshwater Toheroa?
We had barely started clearing the stream and the thought of us suddenly being closed down because of a shellfish was more than we could stand.
“Okay everybody, you haven’t seen anything. Not a thing, got it? There are noooo shellfish here.”
I threw the shellfish back into the water.
It was environmental sacrilege and there’s a part of me that is shocked that I could ever do such a thing. On the other hand I think clearing the stream is actually ecologically important as it allows freedom of movement for fish and eels.
I did some investigating and thankfully, it turns out what Troy had found was in fact the common NZ freshwater mussel. Say what?!
Yep, turns out such a thing actually exists. They’re not uncommon and were in fact once very popular with Maori. However, as luck would have it, our streams are now so polluted that to eat them would be too dangerous.
The Locals Take Offence
British HelpXers Ash And Lou came to stay for a week. Last Thursday, while Aaron and I were at work, they were walking the dogs along the drive when a car pulled up outside the gate.
 |
| Ash & Lou |
The man on the other side of the gate was from the Regional Council. He was not happy. Having received concerned phone calls from local residents about our stream clearing he came to investigate. He launched into the HelpXers. The mound of dirt and trees in our front paddock needed to be moved now. The HelpXers explained they weren’t able to help. The man wasn’t listening. The mound was an ecological disaster waiting to happen. Once again the HelpXers explained they didn’t live there and couldn’t help. Not good enough apparently.
The HelpXers explained again that they could not help and told the man to call Aaron.
He called Aaron and his aggressive nature made Aaron see red.
They argued on the phone.
“You will move it now”
“No I won’t”
“Yes you will”
“If you pay for it, okay”
“We’re not paying for it”
“Neither are we”
Aaron was in no mood to explain that we hadn’t finished with the mound and that the chainsaw is at the local workshop getting repaired.
The man from the Council kept pushing Aaron to concede to his demands. It was the wrong thing to do. After several more minutes arguing Aaron told him in no uncertain cirmstances where to go and ended the call.
Apparently, having taken all that crap out of the stream it was now an ecological hazard. Why? Because if there is a flood it could end up back in the stream.
Say what??
That’s right. Although it wasn’t a hazard while it was in the stream, as soon as we took it out it had become a potential stream hazard.
Aaron rang Bob at the Regional Council the next day and explained what had happened. Bob was very nice. He had been to visit the site himself and was happy with progress and as long as we were planning to do some clean up of the mound it was fine. Aaron explained that yes it was our intention to cut out the trees and tidy it up and that in fact we intended to plant the remaining mud with flaxes and trees, etc.
Bob was happy with us but not so his colleague.
The next day the grumpy man rang Aaron back. Having had the situation explained by his colleague he now understood the situation better and was no longer concerned by our actions. He was entirely civil.
Aaron was happy but I was fuming.
I am not happy with the local person or persons continually trying to get us done for creating environmental hazards.
The reason we met Bob in the first place was because a ‘concerned local’ thought our pigs were polluting the waterways. Bob had come to investigate and found our animal husbandry practices to be just fine.
Now this.
I don’t mind people being concerned about the environment but I am not convinced that is what is happening at all.
Since late last year we have noticed a subtle but very real snub by some of the locals. Even Frank and Marj are no longer speaking to us.
While we have racked our brains for the cause of this snub the only common dominator that we can find is the actions of the sister-in-law. de Jonge is not such a common surname that we can claim to be unrelated. Kaiwaka is not so big that people do not know that we exist.
I have no proof of course that it is the de Jonge name that is causing us grief. Certainly Frank and Marj have refused to tell us what we have done and so we remain in the dark.
While Aaron has very clearly stated that he wants nothing to do with such narrow-minded people, I am not happy.
Instead I am paranoid that things will only get worse.
I am so frustrated that I cannot undo what is done because I don’t know what we’ve done wrong. Are people really having a go at us because of Aaron’s surname? Are small town New Zealanders really so narrow minded that they have tarred us with the same brush?
If we start a business at the gate how long before a local tries to shut us down?
