State Fair Success

We've been home from the Ohio State Fair for a week, but I haven't summarized how our pigs did. We entered the majority of our pigs in the Muscle, Quality and Performance Show. This show focuses on how well the pigs grew on the farm, how they looked in the show ring and how their meat graded after the fair.

Three of our pigs were in the top ten in the meat quality portion of the show. This is exciting - these were pigs that were born and raised on our farm. It's exciting to have them recognized as top in producing meat that is lean and has high quality.

In the show ring, we had some firsts, thirds and fourths. Our two daughters were the top two in senior showmanship and in the top 30 in the overall competition.

Rounding Up the Pigs

This morning we didn't get an opportunity to eat breakfast until 9:00! The dog started barking as soon as we were up at 6:00 a.m. We looked outside and saw three sows (mama pigs) outside in the lawn having a fun time.

We had weaned the sows the night before and put them in a new pen. As usual, the sows were very glad to have their babies weaned. By the fourth week, the babies are plenty big and ready for regular feed. The sows are pretty tired from having 12 pigs nursing around the clock and need some rest and relaxation themselves.

We must have not tied the wire securely on the gate after putting the sows in their new pen. A sow will always test the fence in a new pen, just to see where she can go. A 450-pound sow can put a lot of pressure on a fence and these girls busted out of the pen and were happily digging up the lawn by morning.

We easily put them back in their pen and tied the gate much tighter. The rest of the time was spent cleaning up their mess of turned over barrels, trash cans and dug up sod! One of the sows even put a dent in a 30-inch fan that was in the barn by just stepping on it.

Newly weaned pigs enjoying some quiet time.