Bacon bits!

Last night, one of the dogs was acting funny down by the pig pasture, so I figured I would go check to make sure they were all right. What do I find but 12 beautiful babies! We've only had these sows for 3 months and 2 weeks, so either they were preggers when we got them, unlikely since they were the only pigs the previous owner had, or they delivered at the same time at least a week early! The 2 moms are Kune Kune, the dad is 1/2 Kune 1/2 AGH. Moms are both doing well and co-parenting. My family is ecstatic! I'm thinking the kids aren't going to be too keen on these guys eventually being bacon...

Congratulations Tony !  They look great ! Your officially a pig farmer now (I'm SURE its just what your mom always wanted you to be ...)
mmm bacon bits soon to be bacon on the hoof! Wait till you get to try your first bites of sausage/ roasts / bacon you won't be able to eat store bought anymore. You will be ruined ! I know we are !
Your kids will adjust eventually. Show them videos of an industrial pig farm and then remind them how happy and contented the piggys are at your farm. Tell them a piggy or a cow or chickens and their eggs is almost always destined to become food for something or somebody.And then remind them how much they like bacon / eggs / hamburger / steak ....  and where that all comes from.
Happy contented farm animals raised by you are a most humane way of continuing to be an omnivore and eat high quality food not available at your local store.  

Very nice litters, if they weren't already pregnant then those are premature delivery (moving stress can do that on occasion).
KK and AGH, along with all other breeds of hogs have a gestation period of 3 months, three weeks and three days. (just in case you didn't know that)

I'm sure my mom had much more grand dreams for my future, but she doesn't seem too concerned with it right now!

I think the kids will be ok eventually. They have known all along that the animals are for food. There were some tears this morning when they found out that 2 didn't make it. There was also much rejoicing!

It is always sad when the little guys dont make it, no matter what species.  As far as the eventual harvesting, the cute factor will have long since been gone-especially if there are piggy chores the kids are happy to get rid of!

Congrats on the new additions😀

We’ve told the kids that they can name the piggies, but they have to be food names. The blonde one has become meatloaf. Other names include blood sausage, oats, pizza, grains, pancake, pepperoni, and chicken parmesan. The piggie dad is Headcheese. Bacon, Ham, and Porkchop will be enjoying Camp Cure this fall.

Update:

We lost another pig. I think one of the moms may have laid on her. The mom's aren't terribly delicate, and the babies aren't terribly agile. Losing this one was more upsetting for me than the first two.

We have a couple of runts, but they are active and moving around with the others. a few are taking advantage of having two moms and a getting pretty tanky. The all black pigs are starting to get really pretty red-bronze horizontal stripes. They may end up being my favorite. All of the split skin is healing nicely, and everyone seems to be happy and active. When we check on them, our daughter makes a point to pick up every pig at least once. She absolutely adores the pigs. And the sheep. She told me she wants a dog for her birthday. We already have 3 dogs, but she wants a birthday dog. I'm fairly certain that she would live in the dirt with the pigs if given the chance...

Our other sow is showing signs of pregnancy, although she is much smaller, so I'm not really expecting such a large litter. I guess we'll see! I'll get some more pictures up tonight when I get home from work

Edit: here’s a piglet with some stripes. They show up much more coppery in the early sunlight. Also one of our handsome LGD working hard.

Pigs are continuing to do well! I just went to check on them and thought there may have been another casualty. I was checkInto over each pig and when I picked up one of the males, he didn’t really move at all. I made sure he was breathing and jostled/nudged him and he finally woke up and wandered off. Very lazy pig!! I tried to get a picture of the bronze streaks, but the photos just don’t do them service!