Sometimes my life is pretty spontaneous anyway, but with homesteading, you never know what you will encounter some days.
Our STEEM-powered piglets were off to a great start. They had made it through the night on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but all was not exactly well on Monday morning.
Unfortunately, one got stepped on pretty bad sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning. Red-Pepper let me know when we were up early doing chores together on Monday. Suddenly, all of my morning plans flew out the window and I became an emergency veterinarian.
THE RANDOMNESS OF HOMESTEADING - EMERGENCY VETERINARIAN
The cut was bad, but no bones were broken and it did not penetrate the muscle. The thick skin of the little hog was tore open though, so we had to clean it and evaluate it. Dirt and feces is usually not good have inside an open wound.
Quickly Red-Pepper and I got to work. The cleaning went well, and the tiny piglet was surprisingly cooperative. Once we could see more accurately what we were dealing with, I chose to go with some stitches too.
Most likely this pig would have survived and healed, but it would take a lot longer and scar much worse. With just a few little stitches we could help the process, so I go to work. I used a needle and fishing line instead of some sort of fiber-based thread. With fibers, the healing wound would stick to it and could even make matters worse. Fishing line will not adhere to the scabs in the way that fiber-based thread would.
With Red-Pepper there to hold and comfort it, I got to work and got the job done. In hindsight, I should have put in one more stitch, but this will still be better than nothing. Since this piglet will be growing, I was mindful not to make the stitched too tight. We will keep an eye on it and see how it heals, but so far, so good.
Before too long "Bo-bo" was back with his siblings. Yes, this happened to be one of two piglets that we had actually named.
The ointment that we used after the stitches is vouched for by many local farmers, and also creates a barrier against dirt and other debris.
That was on Monday morning, and now we are already onto Thursday night. So far, everything is going well. There is a little more to the story, but I'll share that later. Hopefully the photos of the wound did not gross you out too much. Situations like this are just one more reason that I am glad my pigs are not in concrete pens. To be caught between a hoof and some concrete could have been a lot worse for this little one.
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-emergency-veterinarian
Until next time…
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