The silence of the pigs

Exactly as planned.

That’s how taking the pigs to their final destination went, exactly as planned. By the time they were let out of their pig pen they were like a well oiled machine, each a cog knowing exactly what to do, each pig knowing its duty was to get in the van and enjoy the ride.

That was how it went last year. The fear of failure, having heard of all the horror stories other pig keepers had recounted about their efforts to get to the abattoir I was determined I wouldn’t fall victim to insufficient preparation. I spent over a week rehearsing the main event, and when it happened it was so easy, too easy, I forgot the nightmares of what might have been.

Wouldn’t it be nice if things went as well in reality as they do in your head?

Last year we spent a week training the pigs to follow the bucket along a well prepared pig proof route lined with bales and corrugated steel, up a trotter friendly wooden ramp into the safe confines of a waiting Toyota van lined with more bales and baited with the rosiest juiciest apples sliced up and laid out in tempting patterns, just in case the pigs didn’t feel like a full breakfast these offerings were irresistible. If memory serves correct it was a really sunny day and the whole operation took less than ten minutes and we had allowed an hour just to load them. Within the hour they were safely handed over to the nice man with the stun gun and sent to piggy heaven. I felt wretched about it but consoled myself the next day with slow roast organic home grown pork, and the pigs we raised have lasted us all year.

This time, well I know what went wrong, from the outset I was too confident, complacent even, for now I am a seasoned pig keeper what could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot actually and not bothering to get the pigs used to the trailer was just the start and when they were confronted by this instead of their usual trough containing breakfast they were rightly cautious and refused to get in. Then as I was so sure they would go in I didn’t spend a day constructing a huge barrier either side of the trailer to funnel them in, no instead I spent ten minutes putting up a flimsy barricade of bales, a broken gate and a bright green log trolley. You might argue I compounded my difficulties by not ensuring the pigs were very hungry so when faced with me and my bucket of standard pig feed they were more interested in exploring the world and finding much more interesting titbits. It was also raining making the ramp as slippery as an ice rink so when the standard pig feed was replaced by carrots and apples they were loathe to put a trotter on the silver metal ramp as they risked breaking a limb.

The dogs really helped, I must say, anyone trying to coax four nervous pigs into a strange six by ten trailer would find five Bernese Mountain Dogs careering around barking encouragement a real asset. Even more helpful than the canines were the sheep and goats who have no fear of new trailers and spotting an opportunity for another free breakfast pushed the reluctant pigs aside and were only prevented from breeching EU loading and carrying capacity regulations for small trailers by yours truly who by now had lost the plot and was wielding a fencing post like a samurai sword prepared to defend the pile of carrots held within to the death.

Luckily for me and the animal world in general Saint Tracey arrived with a bucket of goodies, disarmed me with a raised eyebrow and patiently sat in the back of the trailer and spoke soothing words to the perplexed Berkshires. These words fell like sugar coated pearls before the befuddled swine who eventually climbed into the back of the trailer with her.

All except one.

Dot is a particularly large Berkshire, massive shoulders and destined to be several hundred dinners. Perhaps aware of this destiny she refused to succumb to the lilting tones that soothed the other porkers and set off in the other direction. Now a word about Berkshires, they are particularly alert for pigs, whereas your Gloucester Old Spot for example has a world that exists in a circle five feet from its nose, head down, it knows its food is there somewhere type of personality suits it fine, the Berkshire on the other hand is a very heads up pig, ears pricked and it has a sense of adventure. Don’t ever think that they cant run either, Dot cleared the bales with the ease of a Grand National winner and ran off towards the stables. By the time I got there she was nowhere to be seen. A whiney of indignation indicated that she had surprised the shitland pony, Trevor, and Dot squeezed under the rails of his enclosure narrowly avoiding the very irate ponies flailing hooves.

Now even with two good arms I wouldn’t take on a nearly full grown pig as obviously agitated as Dot so as I ran away from her I consoled myself that no one could see my cowardice, she wasn’t really chasing me and we were definitely both running in the right direction. By the time we rounded the bend I had let her overtake me so Tracey could see that I was in control and bringing home the potential bacon. With Dot back in the make shift stockade we considered our options. Keeping Dot was not one of them; somehow we had to get her into the trailer.

We discovered another rule of smallholding in the process; usually animals can get through holes half their actual body size, especially if you don’t want them to. The opposite is also true, if you want to get an animal through a hole and it doesn’t want to then it needs to be twice the size of the animal, we discovered this as we tried to get Dot in through the trailer door, as we tried to push her in two could easily walk out through the same hole but it took all our strength to achieve this seemingly simple task. In case you didn’t know all pigs are fitted with a secret weapon, if you try to coerce them to do anything they squeal. This is so loud and so effective it renders those within hearing incapable of further movement. Its effect is similar to the siren fitted to the Stuka dive bomber whose screaming dive paralysed those on the ground with fear. As we attempted to lift the uncooperative pig and post her through the doorway she went off like a demon. Once again Tracey saved the day and somehow managed to shout above the hellish din instructions to place the pigs front legs on the door ledge, somehow I managed this and Tracey with her wonder woman powers picked up the quiet end and shoved the protesting pig inside.

Door shut we leant against the trailer exhausted whilst Dot sat and sulked sucking an apple. It was now half nine, still had plenty of time to make our slot at the abattoir where I planned to totally embarrass myself by jack knifing the trailer across the yard. Fortune smiled on me and I was able to get another driver, a nice man called Brian to do the deed for me, so yes I am still a trailer virgin. The trailer ramp went down and just like soldiers leaving a landing craft the pigs charged down the ramp. Once in the pen they demonstrated how stressful the journey was by eating bits of food they found in their new, if somewhat temporary bed and flirting with a couple of boars the other side of their gate. This is why we take them to this little abattoir, it’s a family run small concern suited to the needs of the small farmer and the animals final moments are free from torment and stress.

We said our goodbyes and left them, by the time we were home we knew they had shuffled off their mortal coils. The smallholding was quieter, and we set about the rest of our chores. This was only the start to a very traumatic day, when we got home all was not well with the sheep, suffice to say they were worried, which has a very different meaning to a sheep than you or I, but that’s another tale.

The last supper

Most of the day has been spent preparing for tomorrow when we take the pigs to their final destination.
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.

Total Commitment!

Here we can see Geisha showing total commitment to stealing more than her fair share of hay.

Having eaten half her body weight she crawled away to a quiet spot in the garden and slept it off.

Its been a quiet day at Rock HQ, the weather was awful this morning, high winds and heavy rain, a typical summers day really. When we dared to go outside the horses took most of our attention, William has chewed his stable so we put up new boards to line the inside walls. This went very well until I demonstrated an extraordinary inability to saw anything like a straight line and pretty soon a straightforward job became an arduous chore that eventually ended when I nearly put a screw through all the wiring waiting to become live once Steve completes the electrical system. Not wanting to cause any more damage I went to see the pigs and fed them some apples and apologised for plotting their demise in 48 hours time.

Beth came back from Canada, obviously she had enjoyed her experience but has decided that there is no place like home.

For once she is absolutely right!

Walking to Jesus

Quite a day.
Yesterday was a gloriously sunny day, today it blew a gale and rain lashed down endlessly, so all in all a very good day for a walk.


We set off from Pandy and it headed towards Hay-on-Wye along the Offas Dyke path.


Just as I was telling Richard and Jim that we were going to cross the path where American Werewolf in London began, and that we would probably see bits of werewolf nailed to pub doors in this are we found this grisly sight welcoming us as we began our 28Km route across the Black Mountains.


It rained non stop, everything got wet, you couldn't hear conversation as the noise from the rain beating on your hood drowned it out, but we were happy.


Even crossing the really desolate lunar landscape we remained cheerful. Right up to the point where we joined the road where the main characters of the AWiL jumped form the sheep lorry and began their epic and doomed trek to The Slaughtered Lamb.


Jim known for his wit had a sense of humour failure following a cheap bar of chocolate, now named the bar of doom. These are similar to the coins of doom, chocolate flavoured money he ate on our walk in February, see MTB girls blog for that one. He is now banned from cheap chocolate. Anyway he harangued the world in general for cheap shoddy goods as his walking sticks failed to deploy properly and promptly collapsed when he put any weight on them. Thus instead of saving him 20% effort he had expended time an energy carrying them across the hills, and now when he needed them most they were useless.

Nothing was going to lift his mood. He fumed as he walked the final leg. Richard and I tried to distract him by pointing and laughing but it was to no avail.

It was then we saw him.

Jesus.

Approaching through the mist, heading straight for us in all his beardy goodness.

Jesus.

He drives a dark green Subaru.

He doesn't give lifts.

The homecoming!

If only I had been able to get the camera operational quicker you would have seen this sheep running from the bottom of the lane faster than Usain Bolt when she saw us.

This is poorly sheep, see stranger from a strange land a few weeks back who turned up at deaths door in the goat house and was then waited on hand and foot by the humans at Rock HQ until she was fit enough to be turned out into the field. Once there she demonstrated how much better she was by vaulting the fence and disappearing into the bracken, only to turn up two days later hiding in the pig pen.

Once again she was fed and watered but vanished and we thought she had long gone to join the other residents of sheep skull lane.

Until this morning when a solitary sheep appeared at the bottom of the lane quite clearly watching the morning routine. I thought she was just another feral sheep looking to gather any scraps left over by the marauding Ryelands, or worse waiting to attack the haystack.

But no, like a scene out of a Lassie movie, but with a sheep as the main character, not a dog, she gave a bleat of joy (or hunger) and ran up the lane to get a breakfast.

The Ryelands didn't mind, they got a second breakfast in the process.

Sucking on a horse sized pill!

You need moments like these sometimes when smallholding, Apollo attacking his new horse lick treat, aniseed flavour this time. I don't know how long they are supposed to last, William's has lasted nearly three weeks, this greedy foal got through his last one overnight! By the looks he intends to finish this one in record time too.

It cheered me up no end watching him, driving away the dark thoughts I have towards the foxes on the hill. At the start of the year we had around 70 poultry, a mixed up bunch of Turkeys, Geese, Ducks, Chickens and Bantams. As I posted last nights episode of life on the rock face I went out to put our birds away and found we were deficit one goose and one hen. That means this week we have lost two cockerels, one hen and a goose, one of the very geese I risked life and limb fetching from the hill in darkness Tuesday night.

We now have 9 hens, 4 ducks, 2 geese and three cockerels, and most are now shut in the goat house where they are safe from predation. They might not be so happy but at least they will live.

Unlike the fox should he ever cross my path.

Wild night for a goose chase!

One of the many pleasures of keeping animals is that they are unpredictable.

Quite what has got into Brandy the big Brecon Buff goose the last two nights is any ones guess and while I like having him around he has nearly provoked his demise and slow roasting with potatoes and seasonal vegetables for running off into the darkness rather than walking serenely into his sleeping quarters.

Two nights ago he provoked a rebellion amongst the geese and led them up the hill to settle down for the night amongst the sheep. Rather than risk the fox taking them, and the wrath of Tracey for not finding them I dutifully trudged through the mud up the steep slope with a torch that cast as much light as a dieing match trying to sort through the assorted white shapes in an effort to find the misbehaving geese.

Finally they were persuaded back to the duck house whereupon Brandy sprinted down the lane in a last bid for freedom. Eventually he was apprehended and suitably chastised for his misdemeanours.

Now once was perhaps understandable, a nice night out under the stars instead of confinement in a stuffy shed but two nights in a row is almost unforgivable, especially as there was fresh clean bedding for them. Not feeling at my best last night after my attempt at running I have to admit to suffering a massive sense of humour failure as Brandy once again shot off as fast as his webbed feet could carry him instead of going to bed in the prescribed manner. I barely managed to catch the brute yet alone have the energy to carry him back up the lane to the duck house.

Slamming the door on my fingers in the darkness I gathered my sense of humour from the floor, brushed it down and after a few deep breaths in the howling gale that had started an hour or so earlier returned to the welcome glow of Rock HQ, fought off the five very attentive Berners and struggled up the stairs to bed.

Despite being very tired I didn't sleep very well, the wind battered the cottage and I lay fretting about the two Ash trees pictured above falling on the house, car or worse still on our horses. We are planning to cut them down but it would be just our luck for them to fall meantime.

Morning dawned and as we went about our rounds in the wind I cleared some branches from the lane that had fallen. Trees were missing leaves, the windfall apples were too many to carry and too many for the pigs to eat in one go. Buckets were blown around and the washing on the line had to be retrieved from the vegetable garden. It had been quite a night.

The Ash trees had survived.

One did look a bit different though.

A large crack has appeared in the one tree, Ash is a very brittle wood.

Felling them now is not a precaution its a necessity.

Busted!

Gerty hastily trying to get to the right side of the fence. The tunnel discovered, their escape thwarted they go back to eating apples.

And plotting.

Six days to go.