It's About Memorization

I've been learning a ton here at Ironwood. The biggest part is learning the pigs. When I worked at Pete and Macs we would have over 100 dogs at a time and I could easily tell them all apart. Here, we have around 600 pigs which are mostly black and pretty similar looking. A lot of them are on particular medications or need to be separated to eat or have a special diet. Knowing who is who is so important so that the proper care is given. There are 4 or 5 fields that Mary, one of the owners, hopes to have me feeding and medicating by myself within the next 3 days. I feel confident about it, it's just a lot to take in.



First thing we do in the mornings here is feeding and medications, followed by spreading out hay. Feeding and medications alone take a couple of hours if not more. After we feed we might take a little break and then water. Watering probably sounds easy, but really when you have 12 or so acres of water bowls, pools, wallows and self filling bowls it is quite time consuming! By the time we finish with all of this we can get to the extra things that need to be done. Fixing pig houses, tarps, wallows, cutting carpet, changing blankets, raking, digging, etc. There is always something to be done. During the last couple of hours of the shift a couple of us will prepare evening and morning medications. I caught on to this quickly as it is similar to what we did at Pete and Macs. Here is the station I was using with some of the bread I had prepared.


Today we cleaned out Dee's nose. She could barely breathe. After she was rangled up Mary flushed out her nose for a while. With the flushing and a couple of good sneezes Dee can breathe well again!


Today was also the day that Toby and Taylor went to their new home. They were 2 of the babies here that were adopted. Sweethearts for sure!