George Goes to Town

This posting starts last night, when we spent at least two hours trying to load George the pig into the trailer.

J had to work this morning, so it was going to be up to me to get George to the butcher before 8am today.  We decided to load him into the trailer last night so that I was sure to get him there on time without any trouble.  Good call.

I borrowed our friend's trailer (the one we always borrow) and backed it up to the pig pen gate.  J shoved a couple of tires up against the trailer and put a plywood ramp on them so that the pig would be able to simply walk up and into the trailer without a large step.  It looked good.

I got some grain for the pigs and began shaking it in the trailer.  Hammy began her normal snorting and slowly made her way up the ramp and into the trailer.  I shook a little out onto the floor for her, but we really needed George.  He was almost into the trailer when J tried to shut the gate and he spooked and took off into the pen.

We tried awhile with a carrot stick (stick and rope, not vegetable).  But that didn't seem to do anything but get both George and Ruby (our very pregnant sow) very upset.  J went out to make some pig boards for us to use while I tried to make a trail of food into the trailer for George to follow.  Of course, Ruby thought that she deserved all of the food, so every time George went anywhere near the entrance of the trailer, Ruby would bark and chase him away.  Great.  Hammy is in the trailer, eating her fill.  Ruby is blocking the entrance to the trailer, eating her fill.  George has given up and is lying in the corner of the pen, looking forlorn.

So we get the two pig boards made (about 2x3 sheets of plywood with handles cut in them).  J and I start to push George toward the trailer, but Ruby is in the way.  Every time we get him over there, she scares him off.  Once we get her out of the way, we can't seem to get him over to the entrance.  Time and time again, we get him within feet of the trailer and he turns and runs (usually over me).

J decided to try the snare.  This is a mean tool that you use to control a pig when you have to.  It is a metal braided rope loop that is attached to a pole.  You pull the handle to retract the loop around the snout of the pig, thus snaring him.  We used this snare when we needed to trim Jaws' tusks.  And he bent the thing quite a bit.

George was panting, so it wasn't hard to get the snare around the top of his snout, but for some reason, no matter how precise we were, the snare wouldn't hold when J tightened it.  Over and over again, we would catch him by the snout.  Over and over again, the snare would release and George would run.  Finally, we got the snare over his snout and J, determined by now not to let a pig get the best of him, didn't let any slack out on his grip.  He just started dragging the pig to the trailer.  I began pushing from behind, although I'm not sure the pushing helped much more than him just knowing there was someone behind him.  We dragged and pushed him up the ramp and into the trailer, shutting the door with a finality that even he could understand.  He was quiet all the way to the butcher in the morning.  So quiet, I actually feared that he may be dead from exhaustion when we opened the trailer to unload.  But he was fine.

The butcher called in the afternoon with his hanging weight...222lbs.  We won't know what his live weight was, but you can guess it was close to 75lbs of insides...so somewhere around 300 pounds.  Not a bad pig!  We will get the meat back in about a month, after the hams and bacon have had time to cure.  Can't wait.