Babe(s) Go for a Walk P. 1
Let’s talk pigs. What it’s like to raise them out of confinement where they get to express their utter pigness and live as wild and free as we let them. Fun fact, pigs are beasts. There have been days where I (Macayla) spanked and socked those hams until my hands hurt without being given a second glance. “I’m the farmer, obeyyyyy me!!!” I often feel like yelling, except I don’t because then I’d look like an idiot, even though there’s no one around. I’d only look like an idiot to the pigs, and they probably already think that after my exasperated thumps on their butts. To be clear, the only way pigs will be moved is if you go into beast mode yourself (or carry a bucket of tasty treats), and even then it’s a crapshoot.
One night we had to load up the pigs to go to market. “Oh, that’s so sad,” you may think. Yes, it is the circle of life, which includes death, but our pigs lived life with permanent smiles on their faces. Not joking. When treated with the ear scratches, hard work, and respect they deserve, “That’s so sad,” shouldn’t apply, especially when conventional pork production produces 24 billion pounds of confined and abused pork every year. While of course it’s an emotional thing to see our animals go, not for one second will we stop what we’re doing in the name of sadness. The principles run wayyy deeper than that. I take my leave from the soap box to bring you a glimpse into what the pig-loading endeavor entailed.
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Two weeks prior to loading, I was making breakfast when Joshua yelled at me “MACAYLA, THE PIGS ARE IN THE BACK YARD.” Sure enough, all of our pigs trekked over a half mile through the pastures, around the lake, up the hill, and stopped outside our window (thankfully grandmother’s house wasn’t on their GPS). Let me pause for a second and say, “Guys, escaped pigs are the worst.” Though fleeing turkeys give them a run for their money.
What could have been a ton of work was made easy by our 300 lb pigs voluntarily walking back to their loading pen. During the next two weeks, the pigs lived like pigs should and ate plenty of pumpkins in the name of fall spirit. Josh, also in the festive spirit, sat on one and yes, a bucking pig is a lot funnier than a bucking bronco.
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The day of loading arrived and we opened up a closable barn pen for the pigs to sleep in and tucked them in for the night, closing the door behind them. The plan was laid out: back up the trailer to that sliding pen door, open the door, herd the pigs inside, close the trailer door. How hard can it be? Joke’s on us. First problem was the impassible sludge from recent rains. Cue plan B. And then C. D. E,F, and G.
So the sliding pen door had been closed with the intention of keeping the pigs calm, however, since plan A didn’t work, there was a lot of ruckus caused by backup plans, and the pigs wanted out. While Josh created a new loading spot, my sister-in-law Julia and I had to use our full body weight to hold back the barn door to keep the pigs from tearing it off. After the trailer was backed up to the only maneuverable area, the flood gates were opened, and thus began the herding attempt to toward the tiny trailer door.
Side note: Pigs don’t have knees like you and I would expect an animal to have. They pretty much run straight legged as the flexibility of a pig is essentially nonexistent, and what knees they do have bend opposite of human knees. This was obviously not thought through as the trailer the pigs were supposed to enter was a good foot off the ground.
Joshua was stationed in the trailer with a lamp (since it was now well past dark). Julia and I started herding the pigs from their pen using PVC poles (like a plastic pole ever stopped a pig…). For anyone who is contemplating raising pigs, this method does not work, as one might expect. Hogs go wherever they darn well please and if they don’t like a trailer, they ain’t going in it. Lights, camera, mayhem.
An hour later, as pigs were finally less wary of the trailer and slowly checking out the feed inside, we attempted to encourage the stragglers with a couple smacks on their behinds. One pig, we’ll call him Hank, was having none of it. None. Hank was so cantankerous that he turned on Julia. A full 180 turn, mind you, and he chased her, oinking at her as I’ve heard no pig oink before. She was outta there. One less human to deal with, Hank zeroed in on yours truly. The lumbering beast barreled straight toward me. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and stood my ground, not yet understanding Hank had developed a taste for kneecaps and tootsies. Hank was so impressed by my spontaneous pig-avoiding dance moves, that he changed tactics and began to wrestle the PVC pole from my hands. I’m not making this stuff up. Successfully unarming his opponent and chasing her out of the pen, Hank won the round.
Since the pigs needed to calm themselves down after witnessing their fellow champ Hank, we three humans settled in to wait, watching the stunning harvest moon rise. Finally, FINALLY, the hogs had neared the trailer enough that Josh and I were able to take a wire pig panel and start closing in on them from behind. Julia stood by the door and somehow “pig whispered” quite a few through. Eight down, two to go when a rattling chain startled the trailer posse, and out they all poured. Poured, I tell you. Into a tiny pen that Josh and I were holding together. With only our hands and feet. There’s a farmer’s law of motion somewhere that states “if a pig is in motion, move.” Well we hadn’t read that part of Farmer’s Almanac yet. The now tiny makeshift pen was bursting at the seams - AKA at our hand and foot seams - with 5 pigs, and (if you’ve been following along with the math) that means there were 5 still in the process of tumbling out. The trailer poured forth the remaining hogs into non-existent pen space. I could hardly believe my eyes when the unstoppable flow of animals caused a pig to be nosed into the air by the grunting mass beneath him and effectively crowd surfed. With fifteen hundred pounds pushing against a hand-held panel, I was caught between laughing at the absurdity and panicking at the very real threat of being trampled. Holding on like our dear lives depended on it (which they very well could have), the pen was held fast, and only hands and feet suffered.
Another agonizing 30 minutes later and only Hank remained in the ever-enclosing pen (he’d be great at Fortnite). Unlike his buddies who were ready to call it a night, Hank did NOT want to get in that trailer. As stunning as harvest moons are, when it goes from horizon to directly above, and you’re still in a battle of wills with a doggone pig, impatience gets her way. Joshua got impatient in particular, and went beast mode. (Remember that’s 1 of only 2 ways to get a pig to move.) He had had enough and hopped in the pen with Hank, wrapped his arms around the hog’s chest and completely dragged its front half into the trailer. It was a serious stroke of fortune that instead of going berserk, Hank went rigor mortis on us (like a screaming child who goes ramrod straight when you pick him up). There’s another farmer’s physics law that states “a stubborn live animal is 3x as heavy as dead weight.” It was like trying to move a small car. I made the decision to leave the handheld fence behind and hopped in behind as Josh lifted Hank’s rump just a little closer. This is when Hank refused to bend whatever knee he had and let his legs hang off the back of the trailer, effectively creating a wedge. We had had it with the smart, stupid, loveable, dumb, feisty, friendly beast and as Josh made one last lift, I knelt in Lord knows what, grabbed the heavy, mud-caked hocks also covered in Lord knows what, and we hoghandled that begrudging creature into the trailer. Farmers for the (not very quick but still significant) win.
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Üfda. Raising and eating properly cared for animals is a beautiful, messy, and sometimes exhausting thing. It’s not always happy, almost never is easy, but it’s right. It’s right for the animals, for the land, for the farmers, and for the consumers. Joshua and I believe whole heartedly that raising / buying / eating pastured meat is not just a vote for clean food, but a vote for how each of us believes we should treat the animals we’ve been entrusted with responsibly caretaking. We vote with our lifestyle, and you vote every time you purchase meat.
