Pig Adventures - Part 1

I call this installment: Frustration, thy name is Pig. We picked up the pigs last night and I must say that about 5 minutes into being there (the farm we bought them from) we decided that we would not be running an operation like there's nor would we keep more than 5 pigs ever again. Pig farmer is just not in the cards for us. They really stink if not kept in a "free ranging" type environment. Think toddler poo, ewe!!!! but worse, ewe!!! That smell is so hard to get off it is ridiculous. I'm getting ahead of myself.

We get there to realise that the farmer now has to catch the ones we're buying, and he hasn't even washed them down or scrubbed them up. So we watch in amazement as he ran through one door and emerged through another holding a pig by the legs, it was dirty, stinky and heavy.

We stopped on the way home and tried to wash the stink off of our hands again, no luck. We decided we did not want to take them home in their filthy condition so we decided to stop at the car wash. The high pressure hose released lots of warm soapy water and then lots of warm water to rinse, nice clean pigs :)

Then we headed off to find ourselves at a loss of how to get them into the training area. The plan became; back trailer up as close to the electric wire as possible without touching and then shoo them out the back door. WE figured that they would jump into the fenced area, wrong!! They ran up to the door and stopped. I ran closer with the push broom and they ran around me. :( New plan; I would shoo them out with the broom and push them out the back. A good plan in theory but it lacked a few pieces. WE had not re-tested the hot wire when we backed up the trailer. It was dead on our first attempt and the ones that were out took off running. We finally got that fixed when we tried again. One pig fell on the fence and since it was already getting zapped it just kept running out :( (At this point we are affirmed in our decision not to keep pigs as any kind of true livelihood).

The plan changed again. This time we shut off the fence and decided to drive into the barn and get them out one at a time. DH would catch them and walk them into the barn. Then I pulled the trailer out and he shut the doors. Phew, 9 out of 15 in the barn. Since we don't have a fenced yard we would have to wait for the light of day to get the rogue 6 that were able to escape.

I'll let you know how that goes . . . I'm off to the Co-op to get supplies.