Actually there were lots of FLAWS but the main oversight was the fact that the piglets were not used to coming down into the building and would not follow me under any circumstances, not even for the yummiest of apples!!!!. So the plan failed at the first hurdle. Caroline you were right about it being the piglets but you weren't very specific so no prize for you. And Zinnia would probably have been right aswell if we had got as far as the Oak door!!!!
So that attempt was abandonned, our friends went home pigletless. We never did find out what the two townies intended to do with the huge gloves as they had returned to England before we made another attempt to remove the piglets.
I spent several days coaxing the little dears into the building so that when we tried again they were quite happy to follow me. The rest of the CUNNING PLAN went quite well. The OH had modified the door so that it had a handle he could hang onto and it was wedged against the outer wall of the building so that Daisy was pushing against the wall not just the OH!!!!. The piglets went into the horsebox with a bit of prompting and our friends duly drove off with them all.
Daisy calmed down in a few hours and stopped calling for her little ones. She was happy to eat that evening and two days later we brought our two piglets back and kept them out of earshot as planned.
However it had all been pretty traumatic and we weren't sure if we were prepared to keep animals that could do us considerable harm if they felt like it. At that time we made one of the few big mistakes in our farming life. We decided to get rid of Daisy. If we had thought about it more rationally we would have realised that her behaviour would have improved with time. It had been her first farrowing and she was learning as much as we were. But we didn't give ourselves enough time to reflect and not long after we had taken the piglets away we sold Daisy.
I am sorry to say that she went for slaughter. As I say it was a big mistake. We reared the piglets as planned and had them slaughtered at the farm by our friendly retired butcher.
It was 6 years before we decided to keep pigs again. All our friends were encouraging us because of the truly wonderful taste of home grown pork. So we took the plunge again and made another big mistake but that's another story.
I think it's time to get back to the sheep as I seem to have been neglecting their story. So the next post will be a footy tale!
3 comments:
The first pig we raised was simply for slaughter and even he was a handful!
We now have 7 Jacob sheep, are getting a small fold of Highland cattle and a handful of Tamworth hogs.
I guess I'll be returning to your site more often... :-) Anyone who thinks farming and shepherding is simple or uneventful needs to be educated :-)
Take care!
~Saoirse
I love pigs. Especially piglets. The way they mince around, looking as if they're wearing stilettos. Sorry they didn't work out for you - third time lucky, maybe?
I hope Stuart and Gabrielle read of your adventures as they too have just invested in a couple of pigs. And I am hoping to go and stay with them sometime soon. I shall I have to pick my moment to avoid wrestling with oak doors!
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