Musings of a shepherd.

These little Piggies came home!!

Oh dear, half way through this entry on Pigs and I press the wrong button. Oh I do hate computers

Off I go again. In the Spring of 1997 we decided to have a Pig. Other half liked the idea so why not. As with all our animal acquisitions [as you will know from previous items] first thing is Buy a Book. Pig Breeding by Numbers seemed to fit the bill so off we go.

We found a local farmer who kept free range pigs and he had a litter due. We asked various locals about keeping pigs and they all agreed that as we were having them from 8 weeks old we might well lose one. So we decided to have 3, one to eat, one to keep for breeding from and a SPARE!!!!!

We collected our 3 piglets in April and the first thing we learnt about pigs is that they squeal as soon as you look at them, and if you actually touch them it's as if WW3 has started. It's quite unnerving as it sounds like a Slaughter house.

The race we had chosen is a local breed which comes in a variety of colours. Daisy is the spotty one,Maisy the black one and Rosy the pink one.

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These photos were taken when thy were about 3/4 months old. We started with them in an old stone pigsty and as soon as they were used to us we started putting them in a small courtyard outside during the day. As you can see from the photos we had no health problems at all, and very quickly had 3 very hungry mouths to feed

This meant that we would have 2 pigs to eat.

At about 4 months old we fenced off a large enclosure in one of our fields using electric fencing, made a temporary shelter using straw bales and corrugated iron sheets. Then came the tricky problem of how to move them. They still didn't like to be touched so we ended up herding them into a stockbox and driving them into the field. We were then able to drop the ramp over the electric fence and drive them straight into their new home.

And very happy they were too. They spent the whole Summer ploughing the ground up and eating vast amounts of food. With the promise of free range pork all our friends were delivering all their food scraps,at times we felt like Oxfam,but the pigs revelled in their varied diet. And as it got hotter they would have their daily bath3 pigs and a hose pipe is a delight to see.

But all good things must come to an end and the time arrived to call in the BUTCHER. We are lucky in having a retired Butcher who comes to the farm to slaughter for our own consumption. Now the BOOK comes on the scene. Having never dealt with a pig before we did not know what to expect so we read the book.

It appeared that we would need a very large oil drum full of nearly boiling water and the means of lowering a large dead pig into it in order to remove the bristles. This gave me nightmares as I could'nt for the life of me see how it could be done. And how was the Butchter going to kill the pig, the book said with a sharp knife, and I could imagine the noise the pig would make.. I had many sleepless nights until the day came. We had put one of the pigs back in the pigsty and the most difficult part of the whole operation turned out to be putting a rope on the pigs back leg. We then lead her outside with a tempting apple and the Butcher used a Captive Bolt gun to kill her instantly. No pain no squeals just dead.

And to get rid of the bristles he used a gas powered very large blow torch. I had spent days worrying for nothing because of that Book. We ended up with the most delicious pork I have ever tasted from what had been a very happy pig right up to the end. The same fate was reserved for the second pig.

And that left Daisy our spotty pig that we hoped to breed from, but thats another story.