If you can believe it, we’ve had over 250 piglets born on the farm over the past few years! This means that Greg and I are fast becoming experts in all things pigs-related.
Of all the interesting elements to this work, I realize it might sound a bit odd to write about removing pig testicles. But this week, that’s where I’m headed. Before I go there, though, I wanted to explain why we castrate.
It turns out, 3 out of 4 of us have a gene that makes meat from mature uncastrated males taste really bad (this is called “boar taint” and it’s a very real thing!). Selling meat that tastes bad would certinaly not be a good business decision, so this is part of our rationale for castration.
But also, if we didn’t castrate, the males would breed all of the females, which would lead to a whole host of issues including unwanted pregnancies and aggressive male pigs.
Long ago, we learned the best-practices for on-farm castration from a farm down near Ithaca. And through our experience, we’ve seen first hand that castration is quick (takes less than 1 minute per piglet) and causes very little stress when it’s done early (3-5 days of life).
It’s very safe, too. But, like any procedure, there’s a risk for complication and recently, we ran into that 1% when we realized, while we were castrating, that what we thought was a second testicle, was actually a displaced loop of bowel.
We leaned heavily on our prior experience and made the swift decision to abort the mission to remove the testicle and instead stitch the incision closed. (Stitches aren’t necessary with the usual castration procedure, but it was imperative here because of the hernia)
We worried about how the stitches would hold and if the piglet would keep growing well. The text books say to put down piglets with this condition, and while we knew that this could ultimately be this pig’s fate, we hoped we’d found a better path forward.
Tonight, we’re thrilled to share that this little piglet is doin’ just fine. Actually, he’s doing better than fine. The stiches are out and the incisions healed perfectly. He’s the biggest pig in the litter and has become the ring leader of his little pack.
He a trooper. And he’s one of the many pigs we were so happy to show everyone at our farm tour last weekend!
Your Farmers,
Jenney & Greg