Yesterday was the Great Pig Move. Ken and I had made a rectangle around the hoop house with T-posts and cattle panels. My daughter, Amanda, and her husband Jim came over in the afternoon and the game was on.
If you read old accounts, pig herding used to be a common task for the young lads of the village. They would go house to house, collecting pigs as they went, and herd them into the local forest where they would hunt for acorns and stuff (pigs, not lads)... so for three modern, intelligent adults it should be a piece of cake, right?
Wrong. They started out just fine. Came out of the south field, started following me and the feed bucket, everything was hunky-dory. For all of about 10 yards. Then they figured that the grass was more interesting than the sweet feed, and wandered off each in their own direction. We chased, we herded, we shouted, sweet talked, encouraged, disparaged, and pleaded. To little avail.
Eventually Jim managed to get one pig's snout into the feed bucket. That is apparently the magic solution. He kept walking, Pig kept following getting a tiny lick of sweet feed now and then and finally he was in his new home. Repeat x 2 with the two gilts and we were done with that particular chore.
I have to say that they are enjoying their new home. They have already rooter-tilled half of one of the beds. These are raised beds, and they have rooted out some of the soil, so I may have to rethink the whole raised bed thing, but so far the concept of Gardening With Pigs seems to be on track.
If you read old accounts, pig herding used to be a common task for the young lads of the village. They would go house to house, collecting pigs as they went, and herd them into the local forest where they would hunt for acorns and stuff (pigs, not lads)... so for three modern, intelligent adults it should be a piece of cake, right?
Wrong. They started out just fine. Came out of the south field, started following me and the feed bucket, everything was hunky-dory. For all of about 10 yards. Then they figured that the grass was more interesting than the sweet feed, and wandered off each in their own direction. We chased, we herded, we shouted, sweet talked, encouraged, disparaged, and pleaded. To little avail.
Eventually Jim managed to get one pig's snout into the feed bucket. That is apparently the magic solution. He kept walking, Pig kept following getting a tiny lick of sweet feed now and then and finally he was in his new home. Repeat x 2 with the two gilts and we were done with that particular chore.
I have to say that they are enjoying their new home. They have already rooter-tilled half of one of the beds. These are raised beds, and they have rooted out some of the soil, so I may have to rethink the whole raised bed thing, but so far the concept of Gardening With Pigs seems to be on track.
Told you it wouldn't take long!
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