how to handle PIGS
(Page 2 of 3)
Another neighbor of mine restrains his four pigs with an
electric fence made of two hot wires, one eight inches off
the ground and the other a foot higher. The charger and a
half mile of the smooth strand he uses cost $29.00 and, he
says, "work real well". One especially desirable feature of
such an arrangement is that it's easily moved . . . so you
can shift the hogs to fresh pasture periodically to
eliminate wallows and help cut the feed bill.
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Once pigs do get out, catching them can be a
frustrating yet rewarding experience . . . but less so with
old hogs than with young. Swine—like
humans—become slaves to habit as they age and prefer
regular meals in familiar surroundings, so their capture is
just a matter of tempting the animals back into their pens
with the feed pan.
Young pigs, though, are a whole different ball game.
They're quick, slick and smart . . . and recovering them is
usually a major undertaking. This is especially true in a
sparsely populated area like ours, where a hog can simply
disappear into the woods with little likelihood of being
spotted by a neighbor.
Our own problem was all the worse because we bought our
feeders from a farmer who had about ninety other hogs . . .
so the young—which had had little if any individual
attention from their keeper—weren't very tame. Then
our pair were made even wilder by a friend's dog, which
would get into their pen and bark furiously at the porkers.
The dog didn't harm the pigs: Apparently he was fascinated
by those strange creatures and wanted them to play with
him. The poor beasts, of course, didn't understand and were
left trembling with terror. Their skittishness, coupled
with our lack of experience in fencing, led to a three-week
period of liberty for the slippery youngsters.
The first rule in catching small pigs is not to
chase them. Running after the animals only makes them
wilder. We didn't know that, however, and when our two got
into the three-acre woods next to our barn we spent the
first week pursuing them back and forth through the brush .
. . with no success at all. Young hogs are quick, and so
low to the ground that there's practically nothing on them
to grab for as they run between your legs (which they will
do). Another of their defenses is to squeal shrilly and
unrelentingly—as if being slaughtered with the
corkscrew of a dull Swiss Army knife-when capture is near.
The sound is so unnerving that it made me let go of the
little fiends several times just as they were within my
grasp.
