Village Squire, 1976-10, Page 8husband was away of course, twenty or so pigs broke loose from
their pens and came skipping out of the barn. There was nothing
but a shadow of a fence between then and the road. What was I
going to do? They were galloping all over the. place. And I had
only myself to drive those pigs back in.
Here is what I did. By hindsight it seems pretty intelligent so
pay attention because you never know when you might have to
herd pigs.
Approach slowly.
Wave your hands back and forth
Say 'hey, hey' in a singsong voice, the more unintelligible the
better. I've since learned that the more verbal you are, the more
stubborn they get.
Construct a temoorary barricade, say a plank at eye level
(theirs) that hopefully will intimidate them.
Approach again making an effort to get them between yourself
and the door. More 'hey, hey' and they went in nice as pie.
After this episode, the pen was fixed. A bit of wire was added
to the usual hook.
One fine August evening, two weeks later, I was home alone,
and the same twenty or so pigs came skipping out of the barn.
"Oh, no," I said, not all that quietly. This time it was not so easy.
They galloped through the passageway, outside, back in, around
in circles, through the feedroom and under the wheelbarrow.
Those that made it into the pen turned around and came back out
again. Some immediately trotted down and tried to work the boar
loose. Why castrated hogs would want to do that is beyond my
comprehension. Maybe they asked him out for a night of root and
rampage. They got him out by jostling the hook and he raced up
and down after them.
The next time this happens, I fantasized, I'll give them the
address of the abbattoir and let them run to town. And I'll just sit
and watch them.
Finally, red-faced, cursing, yelling and sneezing (I'm allergic
to dust), I managed to squeeze the last of their fat bodies into the
.pen.•
• The pen has now two hooks and a bit of wire and that was that
for the escaping pigs.
In addition to watching the barn from the house and taking care
of emergencies like the one mentioned above, I had to actually
walk into the barn and watch. The dusty, hot, pungent smell of
the barn envelopes me as I go in the door It's in your hair and
clothes afterward and doesn't disappear without washing - airing
is not good enough. I walk down the passageway and find rows of
upturned snouts sniffing and twitching vigourously at me. Not
quite the reception you'd expect at the Royal Hotel, I think. And
if it's near feeding, there's a din of squeals and roars and jostling
and shoving. Pigs have very poor eyesight but very good noses.
All the pigs 1 know sniff their way around the world and depend
on their noses to tell them right from wrong.
They can discriminate the various bodies that walk into the
barn by smell. I rarely go in except to feed, so that the smell of
me, the cue is 'feedbag', results in much shoving and squealing
and barging up to the troughs, even at non -mealtimes. My
husband who is in and out all day for various reasons does not
cause so much as an eyebat as do other 'strangers' who enter the
barn.
On caution. When you enter a pig barn, do not snort yourself.
This ridiculous behaviour causes them to snort a signal of danger
and then rush about in a show of action. After the second or third
trial, however, they wisen up and no amount of snorting will
cause them to move.
Their noses are good for smelling hut they are also good for
feeling. Their noses are tough, rubbery, and malleable. They are
able to work boards loose, lift fences, and plough fields with it.
They manipulate their environment with it. Putting metal rings in
the nose keeps it sensitive and then they are less willing to tear
the place apart. They become a little more docile. One trick in the
control of pigs.
Putting rings in their noses is not the easiest trick in the world
but pigs have several attributes as a race that work to their
disadvantage and to our advantage. Their snout is sensitive and
securing their snout is the best way of holding them fast. Every
last pig backs away from this source of discomfort, the behaviour
that is required to hold them. A wire fits around the top part of
the snout, through the mouth and is attached to a rod and spring.
6, VILLAGE SQUIRE/OCTOBER 1976