Meet Lani

Here in Louisiana we have a word, lagniappe (lan-yap), that means “a little extra; a bonus.” (It’s a cajun French word with its origins in the Spanish Creole phrase “la napa.” Language here is as diverse and flavorful as the food, y’all.)

Well this week we got us a little extra on the farm.

Meet Lagniappe, Lani for short.

On the farm we have breeders and feeders when it comes to the pigs. Breeders are obviously the source of our stock and feeders are the ones we raise to sell as pork. (Shameless plug ~ Idaho Pasture Pigs are the best tasting pork around. Seriously.)

Last week The Farmer came in and said he thought that maybe one of the feeders was not just fat a little extra healthy but maybe preggers.

That would be quite the surprise for two reasons.

Firstly, there is a very specific list of characteristics that makes a piglet a candidate for being a breeder. In order to have registered breeders bloodlines have to be traceable and it’s sort of a big deal. Any male piglets that do not fall into that category are castrated. You do not want an intact boar loose among any females, trust me. They are indiscriminate creatures and kinship matters not to them. This is why even if a boar is left intact he has to be moved away from his mother or any sisters he may have before he reaches the age of majority, so to speak. When it comes to the girls being breed quality we can acknowledge it but not have to do anything about it.

Secondly, if by some chance we had missed a little fella and he still had all of his parts it would not take long before he was living his best life and we definitely would know about it. Not just because of his attention to the girls but his interaction with the other boys within the herd. Boars are very dominant and will exercise that dominance on all the pigs around him.

Last week we both walked out to the paddock and this little gal wandered over and it was abundantly clear that she was indeed pregnant. We started trying to think when and how she might have been compromised by one of our two boars, Amos or Sylvester.

Now in case you don’t know a pig is pregnant for 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days. It suddenly clicked that about four months ago we were moving pigs around and there had been a breech with Sylvester’s pen and apparently he made friends with her without our being aware of it.

But since we didn’t know exactly when she had gotten pregnant we just had to start making preparation for her to be moved to one of our nursery pens. For two days we tried coaxing her away from her herd.

The Farmer ended up having more success moving all of the other pigs out of that paddock than getting Ms Lani out of it. No big deal, right? She had a shelter and as soon as she had the babies he was confident he could scoop them up and she would follow after him to the nursery pen.

Sounds so easy.

But Lani just kept on with her surprises and the very next day a neighbor showed up to tell me (because this sort of stuff always happens when The Farmer is out) I had a little piglet on the loose. Thankfully my mother-in-law’s CNA had just arrived so I knew I had about 25 minutes to handle things.

You might recall that Honey Pig just gave birth about a month ago so I assumed it was one of hers. Piglets are naturally very curious animals and her babies would be about big enough to be clearly seen from the road.

Well, it seems that piglets only a few hours old are also easy to spot when they are on the side of the road! As I walked out to the pasture I saw the neighbor stoop down and pick up something black and oh so tiny tiny and I realized Lani had had her babies. I quickly looked at her shelter but it was empty, so I begin to scan the paddock and wouldn’t you just know it!

She was on the far side of the pasture right up against the dang fence line closest to the busy side road!

Bless her, she was exhausted after giving birth to nine little piglets (sadly one did not make it) and no matter how much encouragement I was giving her I could not get her to budge from that spot. My neighbor came home and took my distress call and we moved the eight other precious little squirmy piggles to the shelter hoping mama would follow.

No dice.

Not even fresh strawberries could induce her into moving away from that little spot. I was clueless about what to do other than keep an eye on the piglets who were robust and very adventurous. They had no qualms about scooting under the hot wire into the paddock next door. Thankfully, the bigger pigs in there were curious but not concerned overly much; although they did lets us know they didn’t appreciate us trying to move the piglets whenever they squealed. IPPs are by nature gentle animals though so noone, human or pig, was in any danger or came to harm.

Of course, The Farmer gets home and up Miss Lani goes and trots over to her shelter and babies where she proceeded to nurse the little *mangiatoris. My neighbor and I like to think it was because our strawberries had refreshed her and she had a little nappy nap. But the truth is probably closer to the fact that The Farmer gently removed the deceased piglet. Once it was out of her sight she could leave where she wouldn’t leave that one behind.

It turns out that Lani is a fantastic little mama. And the crazy thing is that a litter of nine is pretty big for a first timer. We are evaluating her physical qualities and we’re thinking she makes for a good breeder which could make for a difficult decision down the road. We don’t really need another breeder, male or female. But being such a strong and good mama right out of the box is in her favor.

For now we are just enjoying these sweet little lagniappes and trust that things will sort themselves out. She and her babies are all settled in their new home and all is well.

Life on the farm is never dull, that’s for sure!

*We are nothing if not cultured around here…mangiatori is Italian and means “eaters.”