A friends father has lent us a trailer which we collected, my prowess at reversing has yet to be tested, no doubt tomorrow morning at the abattoir I will have to confess to the watching crowd that I am a trailer virgin and have never ever in my driving career successfully reversed a trailer. I predict that after providing much amusement eventually someone will come to my aid and show me what a real man, or woman, can do and reverse the trailer so its precious cargo of Berkshire pigs can be unloaded.
I do feel bad, about the pigs not my inability to reverse, keeping any animal on a smallholding forces you to make a real connection with it. Carrying rucksacks full of apples over the hill for the last few weeks shows a real commitment to ensuring they have an interesting diet, it will also I hope give the meat even more flavour. Its essential any animal you have is tame and used to being handled, otherwise they can become bad tempered, aggressive and a real nuisance and sitting with them while they scoff the apples has proved entertaining and kept them friendly.
I tagged them this morning, they are so used to having me handle their ears while they are at the trough that they didn't even flinch as the tagger did its job. So far, its so good.
Its all in place.
All we have to do tomorrow is get them into the trailer, last years pigs had a weeks training for that, this time we are just going to get them to follow the bucket and a trail of apples to a tempting breakfast at the end of the trailer. It should work and we are not pressed for time as Tracey and I are both on holiday, so tomorrow, unlike the pigs, we have lots of time on our hands.
Poor pigs.
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