Bringing Home the Bacon

Finally the house is ready and we are able to pick up our new pigs, an easy enough task you would think. Not so! Last year we had a relatively easy time of it and everything went smoothly enough. Let me explain why this was not the case this time around!

First of all we had to pick the pigs up in Dublin and not 20 minutes down the road in Kilkenny like last time. We decided on a Gloucester old spot cross breed and plumped for three male weaners. Last year we had two saddlebacks which were a brother and sister. We went for the all male route this time in order to avoid any worries about a romance starting!

When we arrived at our destination Graham backed up the horse box close to the door of the stable where the piglets were housed. All we had to do now was entice the weaners up the ramp with a bucket of feed. They went everywhere except up the bloody ramp and then were joined by an escapee who wanted to come to Carlow with her three brothers. Eventually after a lot of pushing, shoving and squealing we had the correct three pigs in the back of the horsebox and were on our way.

Just as we were on our way out we were told that the pigs are not trained to an electric fence. Now to the uninitiated this may not seem like a big deal but believe me it can cause huge headaches. The thing is that pigs are born escapologists and ordinarily from very early on you keep them in a secure run which has a strand of electric wire inside the fence. The idea behind it is that the piglets learn to respect the wire while having a solid fence the other side of it to stop them running through the wire when they get a belt from it. Anyways we were not in a position to let our new pigs out into their run this evening or any evening until we trained them to the wire.

We got home at around 9pm having decided to call our three weaners Sausage, Bacon and Salami. It was also decided that we put the piglets into a stable for the night until we figure out the best way to introduce them to their run.

We built a run from old pallets around the house and tied a strand of electric wire around the inside of it. After two days of being in this the pigs were ready to be set free into their run and none of them have escaped so far touch wood!

They are starting to settle in now after a few days. I think they were pretty miserable for the first few days what with being away from their brothers and sisters and getting used to their new environment.