Rosie
Rosie comes to us from the beautiful rolling hills of Southern Wisconsin. Although our trip was short, we had a great time taking in the scenery through the countryside along the way. In this area of the state there are many large farms with grand barns with raised foundations. Next to the barns are large stately farmhouse nested down in the valleys of the land out of the cold winds. We found the difference in home placement unique to ours here in Southern Illinois as we tend to place our homes on the highest rises of the land.
Rosie comes from a beautiful farm named Dorothy’s Range which is owned by April Prussia. The farm used to be a dairy farm and has a beautiful grand barn and a gorgeous setting next to a winding creek and backed by a beautiful hillside. April and her husband have planted much of the area in a native prairie. They also have an Air B&B on the farm. April has been raising Gloucestershire Old Spots for many years and is a strong advocate in preserving the breed. She has been a wealth of knowledge and advice for us as we navigate our pig raising journey and we appreciate her guidance.
The reason for us bringing Rosie home to the farm is to hopefully solve our low litter problem. For those that have been following along in our pig journey you have heard us talk about our pigs producing low litter numbers. This problem is certainly not ideal, but its hard to know where the problem lays. Our goal is to breed Rosie with Rocky in hopes that together they produce a good size litter. If that happens, we know that the problem is with our current sows and not with Rocky. If Rosie does not become pregnant by Rocky, or has a small litter, we then know the problem is with Rocky. Rosie is hoped to be currently pregnant from a boar from Dorothy’s Range. If all goes well with her current pregnancy it will do several things for us. One, we will know that she can produce a quality litter, two, it will provide us with more sows to breed with Rocky down the road (assuming he is not the problem). Finally, if Rocky turns out to be the problem, we can then bring in another boar and have several different sows to try the new boar with. It’s a lot, isn’t it?
Needless to say, no one ever said that farming was easy, especially when dealing with things that are out of your control. However, one of these days we are going to work out all the kinks and have little piglets running everywhere!! Wish us luck!!