City Girl Walks a Country Mile

Today was a special day for me.  I was down at a friend’s farm this morning and a mama piggy was giving birth to piglets.  She had given birth to 6 (2 were stillborn) and was working on pushing the seventh baby out.  She was struggling for quite a while and I was starting to get nervous.  For a first time piggy mama, they can get startled easily when the babies are out and grunting and it can scare her.  My farmer friend told me that she thought the next piglet was probably breach.  I was worried.

Anywho…

I grew up in a neighborhood and have watched exactly zero animals give birth before so I’m going to say that I easily qualify as a city girl.  I’ve always liked the Aerosmith song Girls of Summer which has the line:

My favorite thing that drives me wild is when a city girl walks a country mile.

Hence the title for this blog.

So, last weekend I was chatting it up with this particular mommy pig and asking her when she was going to have her babies.  She let me in on a little secret that she was mighty uncomfortable and ready to have her piglets.  Evidently throughout the week she was eating spicy food and going on walks.

Take a look at these little hungry beauties and their tiny tails.

Look at this little babe getting some warmth, cause it’s cold outside, y’all.

I did take a little video of the breach piggy birth that was holding up the train of the rest of the piggies.  Once she got this one out, the next few came pretty quickly.  I got to help with the delivery and clear the snout area to make sure the piglet could breathe, then help to move it over to the lamp.

Something that is really interesting is that the amniotic fluids and afterbirth don’t have a strong scent, in order to prevent predators from being alerted.  That’s pretty cool when you stop to think about it, that God had a plan to protect piggy babies and mamas when vulnerable.

For this city girl, it was a really cool country milestone.  I’m so thankful I got to see this moment.

If you aren’t squeamish about birth stuff, watch the video below!