“I
like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
–
Winston Churchill
I don’t
know that in all my years living in North Carolina that I can remember a summer
being this hot. Most of our days in the field end up being in the mid 90’s, but
once you add the heat index, things feel closer to 105 degrees.
Can you
say intense?
By the end
of the day I am usually hot, and so exhausted that all I can stand to do is
take a cold shower and lay in bed the rest of the day. Thankfully our living
arrangements don’t skimp on the air conditioning, and thankfully my roommate is
all for keeping things extra cool.
 |
| The attractive blue booties |
Last week
we began our research experiments that make up our livestock unit. The
information we collect from this projects will be used to help formulate our
final papers and presentations that we will give at the end of the summer.
We’ve mainly been focusing on working with the cattle at CEFS. For the last few
week we’ve done experiments focused on horn fly control, heat stress, and
identifying dung beetle species. It’s been super fascinating, but nothing has
been as fascinating as the CEFS swine unit. We were told about the swine unit
upon our arrival to CEFS, but it seemed like a long shot that we would get to
actually do anything with these pigs. You see, these hogs are essentially in bio-security lock down because this herd has been antibiotic free for over THIRTY
YEARS. So any disease that is tracked onto the part of the farm that makes up
the unit could be devastating to the herd.
All of the
interns thought we would be decked out in full blown "hazmat" gear. But instead
we just had to rock some cute blue plastic booties.
Mildred,
one of the swine unit employees, showed us the ropes of how to handle the pigs.
We started our at the first hoop house which houses the piglets that have been
weaned from their mothers. These little guys are “the most curious”, as Mildred
said. They were so funny bounding through the hay that covered the floor, and
some of them were even buried down in it sleeping. But the majority of the pack
ran around the house, looking so cute. Once Mildred finished telling us of the
piglets in the first house, we moved to the next house; the maternity house.
There was
only one sow in the house when we went in, but she had a full pack of piglets
by her side. Mildred asked us if we wanted to hold them, and before we could
even say yes, she was plucking the tiny babies away from their mother and into
our arms.
One of the
little piglets was so content and slept through the whole ordeal… On the other
hand, the little guy I picked up proceeded to pee on me. I like to think of
this as my FIRST STAGE OF HERD INITIATION!
Now get
ready, cause I’m about to tell you the highlight of the day… Artificial
insemination.
 |
| Insemination tools |
Yes, that’s
right, we got to witness “AI”. I cannot tell you the amount of excitement that
came over all of interns when we heard we would get to watch this. I know it’s
gross, and I know it may not be desirable to some of you, but it was amazing to
watch. On the day we were at the unit there were 4 sows that we in heat and to
be inseminated. All of the interns crowded around the front of the sow’s hoop
house and waited for them to bring the boars over. While the boars were not
actually being used for breeding that day, Mildred explained that the male boar
will secrete a pheromone when a female is in heat that will gauge her attention
and get her ready for the deed.
It was a
fascinating thing to watch. Mildred swiftly entered the insemination wand into
the sow and within probably 10 minutes, the process was completely done. Once
it’s confirmed that these girls are in fact pregnant, they will be moved to a
separate house to finish their gestation.
When we finally finished with the sows, we went back to the first piglet house hoping for some more time with the adorable babies! But of course, the little guy that was passed off to me proceeded to poop all over me right as I as taking a cute picture.
Herd initiation completed.
Can't wait to fill you all in on the rest of the shenanigans going on around the farm. Hopefully I'll be better about writing on here.
Until then,
--Jules
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