Let me tell you a little story. I hope you will find it amusing and educational, at the least.
We raise hogs. American Guinea Hogs to be exact. And one of our gilts, Cheyenne, had her first litter of little cute piglets and graduated to the term, sow. A sow hog. Now, we were a little worried because her mother, Ebony, had just farrowed her litter about a week or so before. That meant that her larger and stronger piglets could potentially nurse off the new mom and steal the important first milk, collostrum, from the second litter of piglets. So, we moved Cheyenne to our feed room to farrow there. And she did well! Seven adorable little piglets!
However, she couldn’t stay there forever, it’s really not set up for hogs and frankly, they were escaping and making it a mess and it was time to reunite them all with the family herd. It had been almost a week and they were strong and ready to make the short journey.
We thought it would be easy. After all, Cheyenne is trained to the bucket and would follow Maggie to the next county if that bucket had the right goodies in it. Like cracked corn? Mmmmm….
But we didn’t count on the fact that she was a new mom and she had embraced that title and responsibility fully and completely. So this is our story on how NOT to move a hog. Out of concideration to those of our reading audience with tender sensaibilities, we have left out the sailor speak and colorful exclaimations. You can imagine what might have actually happened and I for one, am very happy that we do not have security cameras on our little homestead!
First of all, we thought, the bucket! Why yes, this will be easy. I went and opened the hard latch on the pig pen gate and was at the ready. With camera of course. Afterall, this was going to be easy, just let the hog and her piglets out, lead her to the pen with the bucket and then everyone would have a big family reunion!
Well, sure, Cheyenne was very excited to be out of the feed room, finally, and her little piglets were perplexed about this stuff called grass. And the big sky and the trees and the sheep and such. Wow… what a big new world! Cheyenne gobbled a bite of corn and then began to follow Maggie across the grass towards the pig pen. Until she got about 20 yards away from her children and stopped. Grunting. Looking back at her babies and then to the bucket and then to her babies. She grunted again, calling the little pork nuggets. Of course, they ignored her. Way too many new things to check out. She grunted one more time. Afterall, corn was in the magic bucket and she loves corns. But she couldn’t ignore the call of duty and she reluctantly turned back to her little babies.
Darn. We called again. She stopped, she looked at the bucket, drooling a bit, but, bless her little heart, she went back to her babies.
Maggie went back over and gave her a little handful of the corn. Lovely, cracked corn, sweet and delisious. Cheyenne began to follow again… but once she hit about a third of the way to the pig pen, she would stop, grunt and return to her brood.
Hmmm. Okay. I latched up the pig pen and came around to walk behind the litter, hopefully to push the little boogers towards the pig pen and with their mom, who wanted the corn bucket. That made sense. They just needed a little herding.
Of course, they scattered and half ran back into the barn through the pony paddock! How did they know that? I went in and scooted them out and shut that door. They ran over and hoovered around their mom.
Of course, until Ratchet got loose from the dog yard and comes running over, barking and acting the fool. He loves to make pigs run. It’s his favorite naughty farm dog thing. Maggie starts yelling at him to stop, and he does, sort of. Of course, then Cheyenne decides he is a danger and she goes after him, intent to kill. Normally, American Guinea Hogs are very docile and sweet. Apparently, not when a dumb dog is bothering a new mom.
And just about this time, Buttercup, the goat, decides that if the hog doesn’t want that bucket of corn Maggie is offering, she’ll take it and she leaps out of the paddock and runs over to offer her help. Which makes us humans even more frustrated.
At this point, I’m no longer taking pictures, if you can imagine. So you will have to just imagine the rest of this story.
Well, I grab the goat and tie her to the paddock gate. We chase the dog away. We decide, stupidly, that maybe if we take a piglet over to the pen, she will follow, because we know they will sequel and make a lot of noise! So Maggie catches one and starts to walk towards the pig pen. Of course, the piglet begins to sequel bloody murder and Cheyenne runs over and starts to bite at Maggie’s pants! Maggie is now trying to stop the hog from making her pantless and she’s very mad at me for suggesting this foolish idea. She finally sets the piglet down and runs.
We give Cheyenne a few moments to chill, gather her brood and eat a little corn as a gift of truce. Of course, she is fine now, and let Maggie scratch and rub her, like she enjoys. Just don’t move towards her babies, she let us know.
So I get this thought. How about we move her like I’ve seen in the hog books. You know, with a lead rope and a bucket over her head. After all, in the books and pictures, it looks so easy. I’m sure it will work. Maggie is not thrilled with the idea but she isn’t talking to me anymore, so I go and get a lead rope from the pony paddock fence and a bucket.
I walk right up to her, like a pro, and I slip the lead around her middle and she is fine with it, until I snug it up and bit and she goes nuts. I didn’t even get a chance to put my bucket over her head! She was off and running. I tried to hold on but she yanked that big soft rope right out of my hands and was running around the yard.
Well, Ratchet sees this from his spot in the shade and decides this looks like fun! Maggie is yelling at me, the dog and the hog in succession, I’m chasing the pig and trying to loosen the rope and Cheyenne is just mad.
Next thing you know, she runs over to the pig pen, presumably to be with her MOM! Maggie hollars at me and I happened to be near the pen gate, so I open it up and thankfully, Cheyenne runs in and then stops at the pile of corn, which we had dumped in for the other hogs to enjoy!!! She is now content to eat corn, has forgotten the lead around her tummy and her piglets! So Maggie slips in and loosens the lead and we stand there a minute, thanking our amazing good luck. Dog is still barking and the goat has managed to get loose, but we don’t care. Our main objective has been accomplished!
Or has it? The piglets are still loose!
Well, it would be hard to catch them all, carry them over and separate them to get them here. I can only imagine the squeal fest that would ensue. But we need to get them over to the pen quickly, before Cheyenne fully grasps the situation and becomes a mess.
So I tell Maggie, lets use the bucket again. She gives me a look of pure daggers but can’t think of a better idea. So we let the piglets back into the feed room, because they REALLY wanted to go back in there… (Maybe seeing their mom being chased by some blue snake and a dog and the food ladies was unsettling to them…) And once there, we could catch them, a bit easier than out in the open.
One by one, we catch them, squealing at first but quite content once they are in the bucket! It works! Because they are still very small, and together in the close quarters, they settled right down. We used two big buckets. And then we carefully walked them over to the pig pen and gently let them loose in there.
Immediately, Cheyenne came over to claim her little loved ones. Sniffing and licking them all, and telling them in her momma hog language to stay close to her. Remarkably, they obey. All the while looking over their little piglet shoulders as us like we had offered them candy and a van ride. I suspect they will never trust us again.
Now, we had another issue. How was Ebony going to accept this new litter of piglets in HER domain? We were ready, just in case of difficulty, to dash in and upset any meanness. After all, this was big uncharted territory for us. Two sows with fresh litters… how would they react? Of course, Ebony had no problems with her daughter, Cheyenne. But these new little things? She strolled over and get them all a good sniff. I swear she looked at them, then looked at Cheyenne and then looked at the babies as if she was puzzled. Where did she get these babies? Why do they look like her hubby, Onyx’s piglets that she just had. Hmmm…. I suspect Onyx had a little ‘splaining to do to his beloved Ebby. But like we had been told, AGH hogs love big families and big family groups and she just snuffled past them and went to wallow a few minutes in the mud hole.
She was fine. They were just more piglets for her to fuss over. She is a very good mom and she loves her little babies! Now she has eleven to tend to! And Cheyenne gets a little break!
Just to make sure, we spent some time watching and taking a few pictures. Also catching our breath. Thank goodness, by total luck, we had achieved our goal. Hopefully, we will never have to use this amazing pig moving skill of ours again! But if we do, we will surely be more prepared! I’m not sure how, but you can bet we will figure something out that is a lot easier and less stressful! I don’t think Maggie talked to me for most of the rest of the day. She hates for her piggies to be upset. But I think she understood that I didn’t want that either. It’s just that sometimes, you get into a project and you just can’t back out! You are stuck till the end!
It was so cool to watch Ebony call her four babies and they dutifully followed her into the hut for lunch. They knew who was who and there was no confusion. Cheyenne called her brood out for a mud wallow lesson and they learned very quickly how enjoyable that was. Everyone was fine and in fact, a few days later, they were all one big happy hog family. The babies will nurse off whomever is willing and they are all growing big and strong with two sows to feed and care for them! We are so happy! Everyone is doing fine. Maggie and I have even recovered as well!
Just another day in homesteading paradise!!!
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