[Polished Arrow]

STILL nothing!  How big is it possible (and safe) for a pig to grow?!

[Tamsaddle]

Our smallish saddleback gilt, who farrowed 3 weeks ago and 3 days earlier than I was expecting, was more enormous than I could have believed it possible for a pig to be, her belly tight and hard as steel and sticking well out on both sides.  She looked as if she might have 30 in there, in the end 13, but everything worked out just fine in the end despite the massive load she was carrying.   So just hang on in there, they'll arrive when they're ready - Tamsaddle 

[Polished Arrow]

Our smallish saddleback gilt, who farrowed 3 weeks ago and 3 days earlier than I was expecting, was more enormous than I could have believed it possible for a pig to be, her belly tight and hard as steel and sticking well out on both sides.  She looked as if she might have 30 in there, in the end 13, but everything worked out just fine in the end despite the massive load she was carrying.   So just hang on in there, they'll arrive when they're ready - Tamsaddle

Tis true.  Thanks!


I am not so sure about Margot now, though.  I suspect she may either have lost hers a while back, or just not have taken the first time she was in season.  She is pretty tetchy, to be honest, unlike Lady p who is now simply recumbent, waiting for the dam to break!  Margot is also now noticably less large than Lady P...


How much time can be wasted on this Is She/Isn't She game, I wonder 

[HappyHippy]

STILL nothing!  How big is it possible (and safe) for a pig to grow?!

I reckon just when you think they can't possibly get any bigger........they go another fortnight 
Just wait, the first day you have plans to do something that's when she'll decide to farrow 
You've got my sympathies 

[Blinkers]

Our smallish saddleback gilt, who farrowed 3 weeks ago and 3 days earlier than I was expecting, was more enormous than I could have believed it possible for a pig to be, her belly tight and hard as steel and sticking well out on both sides.  She looked as if she might have 30 in there, in the end 13, but everything worked out just fine in the end despite the massive load she was carrying.   So just hang on in there, they'll arrive when they're ready - Tamsaddle

Tis true.  Thanks!


I am not so sure about Margot now, though.  I suspect she may either have lost hers a while back, or just not have taken the first time she was in season.  She is pretty tetchy, to be honest, unlike Lady p who is now simply recumbent, waiting for the dam to break!  Margot is also now noticably less large than Lady P...


How much time can be wasted on this Is She/Isn't She game, I wonder 

PA - I can empathise totally as I'm in exactly the same boat .   My Middle White was due (according to my records) just over 2 weeks ago...and no show.    I turned her back outside into her pen a week ago and then the day before yesterday rushed her back in again as she was lying down in her ark and had 'appeared' to have nested.  However, still nothing, no nesting, no difference in size and the annoying thing is, sometimes she looks huge and other times I think "no chance".   So frustrating.   I have gone to the luxury of buying the Doppler but either I can't 'get my ear in' (as it were) or she is indeed just empty.   I'm waiting another few days before I test out the doppler on another sow who's been running with the boar for 6+ weeks and if I can hear the 'sounds' with her, I'll know for sure the MW isn't in pig....but if I hear nothing with her either,.....she's either not taken or I just can't hear the 'sounds'......aaaarrrrgggghhhhhh    

[kitchen cottage]

I'm going against the flow with a ....no.
 
This is based on my tremendously wide experience of breeding.........one sow a few times 
 
She has no line or any sign of milk movement.....
 
Not being svelte myself please don't take this amiss,..... but she looks like a very "content and wellfed" pig.
 
If my betting average is to continue, you will now find yourself blessed with a litter of 22, no need to thank me 

[Polished Arrow]

Well Lady Penelope is definitely there...


Interior decoration seems to be a new interest:



Some unusual garden features have started to appear too - such as a floating garden in the water trough!



And she has milk bottles the size of Yorkshire tea Cakes with milk squirting out of them!



Now that she has blocked off the farrowing rails with wet grass, she is lying with her bottom almost out of the front door... I am now trying to think of ways to get her to turn around so that the piglets stay inside and don't fall out of the door 


Margot, meanwhile, is muttering under her breath in the next door pen... something about 'Drama Queen' if I heard correctly     Kitchen Cottage, you may well be right!  And Blinkers, you have answered my question for me about the Doppler, without me having to say it!  Hope yours both come through with the goods in due course