For the past few days, our pigs have been living out in the livestock trailer because the Great Flood of ‘06 turned our pig pen into a bigger mud pit than two young pigs really deserve.
But the sun has been shining and drying up all the rain, and as we carried the pigs uneventfully into their new home, I was reminded of last year’s… ADVENTURE, shall we say. So here is a re-run of what I wrote last summer after a similar task went horribly wrong.
The pigs had been living for a couple of weeks in the barn — not a great place for disgusting, smelly animals, by the way. But with their new house completed and an adjoining yard fenced in, Saturday was
pig moving day.
When we picked up our pigs, we asked a lot of questions, one of which was, how do you lead a pig? You can’t really put a collar on them — their heads just don’t work that way — so he showed us this board he had set up with a handle for directing them where you want them to go. Just keep them moving forward and direct them with the board — don’t let them learn that they can back up — and they’ll go pretty much where you want.
So Wifey opened the stall door, and out they came, easily enough, and stuck together the way you might expect. I had my piece of plywood — no handle or anything fancy like that — and picked one of the pigs. I kind of shooed it along and whenever it tried to go a different way, I’d push with the board and it would pretty much move the way I wanted. The first pig was easy enough, since the new pig pen had no pigs inside and its gate was wide open. In he went, and the gate was closed.
Now it was time for pig number two. A bit feistier, maybe having watched his/her friend being guided around like a hockey puck across the thirty yards between the barn and the pig palace. But I, being the master of the pigs, did prevail, and Wifey guarded number one as number two was welcomed inside.
When I turned around to fetch pig number three… no pig. But not to worry — there she was, wandering around the side of the barn. So I took my board, which I was wielding like an old pro by now, and started working its magic. No go, this one. She wasn’t really interested in being pushed around. She had a mind of her own and it took her back into the barn.
So into the barn we followed, and talked to her about the nice pig house and how her friends were having a party and how she was invited. She wouldn’t hear of it. Into a stall, out of the stall, and out of the barn she went, and into the pasture. And where she went, we followed, of course. And she was headed for some tall brush at the edge of some woods.
I’ve heard of pigs being clever, but there’s really no telling whether she knew how much trouble I’d have following her through the brush. My right thigh was stuck with a half dozen little green thorns before we finally got into the open woods. I carefully picked them out as I watched her trot further from her new home.
What I knew at that point was that I needed to get past her and scare her out of the woods and back into the pasture, hopefully in the direction of the pig house. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to run around in wooded areas, you would have been able to warn me that such an activity really isn’t recommended. In these woods there are a lot of fallen limbs to negotiate, and it had rained just enough to make what footing I could find a bit slippery.
I did, however, manage to get between the pig and her freedom. As luck would have it, there was kind of a trail I was able to use to get around her. And I learned at this point that pigs won’t climb stone walls. I suspected she could have, but she didn’t.
I called to Wifey, who was just beyond the edge of the woods, so she knew where we were, and as soon the pig came out… well I don’t know what she would have done, but I was working the pig out of the woods. Or so I thought. Back and forth we went along the edge of the woods. I’d go this way and she’d go that way and she really wasn’t all that interested in being caught, I guess.
She won this battle and headed along the edge of the woods and I tried to keep up. I was deeper into the woods than she was, which was the only way to avoid being skewered by the thorny stuff that was nearer the pasture and barn.
And she emerged! And so did I. And Wifey had a bucket of pig food and ripe bananas — tempting enough for my own self, but sheer delight for a young pig. A little bit interested, she was, but didn’t really jump at the bait. Her mind of her own took her wandering in and out of the woods.
I was exhausted at this point, and so Wifey and I sat down with a couple beers and considered our options. I figured that if we could ever get close enough, we were going to need to rope the pig in order to bring her in. I fetched some rope and made little lassoes, as best as a Yankee might.
The hunt was on, Wifey and I with our loops of rope, sneaking around after our pig. She was in and out of the woods and we were hot in pursuit. But we were never really close enough to catch her. This was going nowhere. Wifey went back into the barn to do the work this pig was keeping her from.
I may have been losing my mind, but I wasn’t about to lose a $65 pig. I took the bucket of food and placed it on the ground near to where she was rooting around in the woods. I laid my loop of rope atop the bucket. Yes, you get the idea, but it gets better. I had placed the bucket under a good, strong branch of a nearby tree. I climbed up into the tree and waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing.
We were pretty much resigned to giving up. Hello, Police? Yes, we’ve lost a pig. Yes, that’s right — a pig. Would you please bring a tranquilizer gun? Oh, the humiliation.
She ran loose and on her own for a while after that, when all of a sudden she meandered over in the direction of chalet pig. Her buddies were in there, of course, and they struck up a conversation. We don’t speak pig, so we can’t give you a translation, but we’re pretty sure it involved them being on the inside and her being on the outside. And apparently among the three of them it was decided that she would come in to join them.
She pawed and pushed, but couldn’t get in. I called to Wifey, and she was out in a flash, ready to work the gate. Around and around piggy went — I guess it seemed to good to be true. It seemed as if she was just messing with us, taking us for another long ride down hopeful road. But then it happened, she slowly but surely found her way inside the pig pen!
Naturally there was great rejoicing. And to celebrate we went to So-And-So’s Rib Place for dinner. Apropros, yes. And delicious.
The hours we spent in pursuit of our pig were not lost without a lesson. We have learned something from all this. You simply cannot, no matter what you try… you cannot catch a pig.
