Farms are interesting places to work. And they’re even more interesting places to live. This week, I came home from my other job late in the evening, excited to put my feet up and relax, and noticed that Greg was not busy in the kitchen making dinner like usual.
He was calling my phone, instead. I picked up and I could tell something was on his mind. My first thought was that he needed my help with something…a pig had escaped, or maybe a laying hen needed wrangling? There are certain tasks that are just easier with two people and I’m (almost) always happy to help him with such things.
This wasn’t the case this week. He was worried because one of our pigs had some pretty serious swelling on its ear and he asked if I could come figure out if it needed draining.
I’m tasked with managing most of medical issues on the farm, which luckily have been very few and far between over the past 5 years. Farrowing (pig delivery) complications don’t phase me much given my line of work (I’m a midwife, too!) and neither does a little suturing, gastrointestinal issues (organic garlic and hard-boiled eggs are miracle workers!). But draining a hematoma? This was a new challenge.
I started making a mental note of all the supplies I’d need. Luckily, we had everything stashed away for a “rainy day” such as this. We consulted a few of our go-to resources in our “farm library” besides Greg’s desk and agreed that draining and disinfecting, seemed to be the recommended course of action.
Just as we were started getting ready to move forward, I took a quick look online to see if there were any other resources we should be consulting, since most of the farm books we use are quite old. Usually, when I search farm-related questions online, we find absolutely NOTHING useful for small farms like ours (they’re all geared toward giant pig factories that keep their animals in confinement). But on this fine night, I found exactly what we needed.
Peer reviewed journals, randomly controlled trials, and recent research studies were abound and they all said two important things – hematomas are very common on pigs’ ears (which we already knew, but made us feel better) and that draining these actually leads to more complications like infections. We both agreed on the new plan. We would sit on our hands and wait.
So, this week, in addition to celebrating our 10th Christmas together (and our 4th Christmas here on the farm) we thanked the good lord for the interweb and a pig’s ear that’s improving more by the day. As I said, farms are very interesting places to work and live…
Your Farmers,
Jenney and Greg
PS – If you’re wondering why we didn’t call the Vet, I can only say this… vet bills are costly and when you’re a livestock farmer, you’re tasked with making the judgement call about which types of emergencies warrant a vet coming out to the farm and which don’t. In my estimation, and in Greg’s too, this situation did not. The pig was eating, drinking and was not suffering in any way. It just had a big floppy swollen ear, presumably from tussling with one of his new friends. And to our great relief, it’s getting better!