The circus came to town yesterday. It wasn't your usual circus, but a circus of two people trying to get three pigs into a trailer and they absolutely did not want to go!
At first two of the pigs walked right up the ramp and into the trailer with no problem. But we just couldn't get the third pig to take that short walk. Then the first two decided that the third pig had the right idea and they didn't want to be in there anymore. We tried blocking one of the pigs in and getting the others to go after. Did you know pigs can fly? They are excellent jumpers!
Our frustration level climbed and finally we called our friend, Jim, who had pigs while he was growing up and had experience with loading them. After lots of messing around with blocking pigs and the pigs jumping through or over our blocks (screaming the whole time) and after hours of work, three people who were determined to get those darn pigs in the trailer - and three pigs who were equally determined to not go in the trailer - got the pigs loaded.
We finished by putting a tarp over our homemade, redneck trailer to keep the pigs from getting too cold or wind scalded on our one hour trip to the butcher.
Job finished.
Thanks Jim!
Welcome to the "club" -your initiation was tough - then again - everyone in this club had a tough initiation - the "yes, I've loaded pigs to go to market club" One can't explain it - you must live it to understand! Blessings from Wisconsin
ReplyDeleteOh...this makes me feel so much better..sorry! I can see the pig flying!! LOL Glad you got them in. Ham dinner here we come.....
ReplyDeleteSharon...I hopped over here to get your blog address for the caption today; saw which post was up, and started laughing all over again! Pigs!! (I hope you are laughing by now :-)
ReplyDeleteOh we are! It has been quite and experience!
ReplyDeleteMy sister always poured out a case of beer into a bucket and lured them in that way...they were drunk when slaughtered and didn't have stress hormones in their bodies.
ReplyDeleteI love that idea! I'll have to try it next year. My dad tells me of a woman who gives her turkeys whiskey a little while before they're butchered.
ReplyDeleteI've been contemplating pigs as a new addition to our homestead...maybe I'll keep contemplating a while. :) Sounds like they're worse than sheep! Great post title, by the way. :)
ReplyDeleteOur pig loading problem was solved by butchering them ourselves! It's a lot of work but I'd hate to have tried to load the last one. She was 450lbs.! Sometimes you can feed them in the trailer for a few days before you plan to take them and they'll load up. Great post. We also have some good pig tales!
ReplyDeleteI imagine sheep are equally as difficult to load as pigs except there's fleece to hold onto! We wanted to put the trailer in and feed the pigs, but they started chewing on the taillights and wires!
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