Friday, October 22, 2010

Pigs escaped again!

Once again I found not so baby pigs rooting in my back yard. Three of them had slipped out of the pasture gate. I had removed the posts blocking the space under the gate in order to drive the tractor with disc through and apparently they took advantage of the situation.

I also discovered two broken fence boards on the side of the pig pen. These weren't small light boards, we are talking 2x6 behind a thick hog panel.  These guys are so strong.

After a small chase we got them back in the pen. Two of them decided to get back in by climbing over a foot tall stump i had placed to block the back pen corner. They both got stuck on top of the stump and went to squealing like a "stuck pig". Of course this draws a crowd and within seconds we had every pig in the pen coming to see what was up. No one got hurt and finally everyone is back in their places.

The lesson learned here is that the pigs are strong. When they choose to, they can walk right out of their pen. They only stay in the pen when they want to, not because they have to. Its our job to make sure their pen and pasture is the happiest place on earth for them.

Today they escaped because I had not filled the feeders in time. Silly me was trying to stretch them until Saturday on the 10 bags they were fed last Saturday. I should have known better when yesterday there were only 2 feeders with food left. Sure enough all were empty by this afternoon and the pigs went looking for greener pastures.   In fact, every time the pigs have escaped, they were hungry for one reason or another.  common sense dictates that.... pigs should not be left hungry for any amount of time!

one last note.... we are sure now that penny is pregnant again. She is showing signs of being about half way along!

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