Mary the pig moved out last night. A nice family from Oregon City came and took her off my hands. I think I’ve learned my lesson about pigs – unless I have a purpose built pen and an electric fence, I would not try pigs again. Nice pig, but man could she get under a fence effortlessly!
_
Mary did fine the first two days, but at 8:30 this morning as we were rolling out of bed, the dogs alerted us to a problem – Mary out wandering in the pasture. Turns out she had got her nose under the fence and pushed it up. Pig owners may laugh at me now, they all are going ‘of course she did!’ We tightened the fence and put her back in it. Five minutes later she was out again. I put her in the garden, the most secure place we have. It is the former llama paddock, and has successfully contained goats and sheep and lambs. She was out in ten minutes after stopping for a nap. And once out she walked around the pasture trying to find the place to make a hole in that fence. I kept calling her back. I decided I would fence her into the shelter area with wood rails, but I was having trouble finding rails the right size, and I broke a screw bit, and I saw her working on the fence out by the road so I had to go get her. It was one thing after another, and Dave was already at work. As I tried to fix a place to contain her she was off testing and poking at every weak spot on my fenceline, and I had to keep distracting her. I was really starting to panic a bit – there was no place I could put her, even temporarily, while I made a safe place for her. Not like a dog you can shut in the house or in a crate for a few minutes.
Hmm, a crate? I took an apple and lured her up to the calf igloo, and when she went in I grabbed a metal gate and held it in front of the entrance. Finally, she was caught, but there was no way to fasten the gate, so I had to hold it. But what good was that doing me, except giving me a little time to think? I stood there holding the gate, while she grunted and whined about her situation, for a good ten minutes, while I thought about my next move. I had planned to enclose the entire shelter, but I didn’t have enough wood. But I could do just a small portion of the shelter. She wouldn’t have a gate, but we could climb in and out, and hopefully it would hold her. I let her out of the igloo and ran inside to call Dave at work to come help me.
I came back out and she was out testing the pasture fence again. I gathered up my wood, checked out my plan, and started to assemble it, when I saw her nosing around the fence by the road! I ran and got an apple and used it to lure her back to the calf igloo again and gated her in. I stood there holding the gate while she grunted and tried to figure a way out for a good half hour waiting for Dave to show up. Finally he did. He got the rails up and screwed into place. I let her out, and she flopped over for a rest, exhausted as I was, apparently! So we’ll see how this goes. She has significantly less space, but is less likely to get hit by a car anytime soon. Meanwhile I’ll see if I can find her a new home with more adequate pig facilities.
Last night the dogs only saw Mary trotting around the field, and they completely lost their little minds! Barclay has no excuse, because he has been around sheep, goats and llamas since he was a baby. Navi has every excuse, because livestock is a new concept for her. Jack was the one that really went nuts, and he should know better by now too. His running around baying did nothing to help the other dogs realize the new critter was not a threat. So this morning I took them out one by one with a clicker and super yummy treats to introduce them to the pig.
The last time the dogs were in the pasture there was no pigpen there, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that as I brought Barclay out through the pasture gate, he turned and saw the pig ten feet away (behind the pigpen fence, but he didn’t notice that) and he reacted by RUNNING as fast and far away as he could go! He went about 50 yards out into the pasture before he even slowed down to look behind him and see if the monster was following. So much for hanging around to protect me!
Once he noticed the fence (and that I was still in the area), he got up the guts to come back and face his fears. So he came back and barked at the MONSTER. I ‘clicked for calm’ – whenever he’d stop for a breath, or look at me, I’d click and give him a bit of lunchmeat.
After a bit he started to relax, and there was less barking and more sniffing. Mary did not seem to be bothered at all. By the time we’d been out there a few minutes, he got up the guts to meet her nose to nose at the fence. I watched closely to make sure the interaction was good, and he got lots of praise and treats for being nice.
I took him in and waited a bit, then brought Navi out. I did the same thing, but this time Mary wasn’t up by the fence, she had gone back to bed and was sitting in her hay pile, still as a stone. Navi was sniffing around the outside of the pigpen, then Mary turned her head a bit (she was about 15 feet away) and Navi spotted her – and LOST HER FREAKING MIND! But with a few minutes of clicking and treating, she started to settle down. She’ll need more work with Mary up moving around though. I was actually glad Mary was setting still for this lesson.
For Jack’s turn, Mary had gone back to sleep buried in the hay, so he didn’t even see her. He just ran around sniffing the fenceline. I clicked him a lot for quiet or looking at me. He had a great time, and didn’t even see a pig. Again, more work for later, but a good start.
Working with the dogs individually was the way to go, there’s no way to settle down three dogs who are all going insane at once, they just build on each other. They all did very well one-on-one. Mary, for her part, was perfectly calm. Even after all that barking, I came out and she came right up to the fence for a scratch. 🙂
_
Yesterday we spent a second day trying to get an area set up for the pigs. I finally gave up my pasture shelter (I love sitting in my chair under the shelter on rainy days and watching the dogs play in the pasture) and we put a fence around it to make a little paddock area. A friend gave me the extra roll of wire fencing to fence her in with, and another friend gave me the plastic calf igloo for a little house for her. I stole the t-posts out of the garden. We shoveled a bunch of straw into the igloo, and made a nice little pigpen. She even has a tree to sit under.
When we got to the lady’s house to pick Mary and Gilbert up (with a friend’s borrowed horse trailer – don’t I have the best friends in the world?) Mary loaded right up with a bucket of grain, but Gilbert would have nothing to do with it. We tried to keep Mary occupied in the trailer with grain while we rounded Gilbert up, but he just kept getting more and more frantic. Eventually Mary escaped the trailer, and I used a trick I read on the net – put a bucket over her head, and as she tries to back out of it, steer her rear where you want it to go. That got her back in the trailer and we closed the ramp, but then how could we get Gilbert in?
So we tried wrangling Gilbert for a bit longer, but finally he disappeared into the brush and nobody could find him, even when the lady sent her herding dog in to look for him, so we had to leave him there. She said she had someone who had wanted just one of the pigs, so she might call the guy back, or she might just keep the little guy. Either way, we had Mary loaded up and ready to go. She stood up and peeked over the back door of the trailer as we finished loading up.
So we headed for the long drive home (she was on a farm in Camas, which is a neighboring town), and she did fine, but at a stoplight I felt the van moving from her walking around in the trailer, then in the rear view I could see her standing up and peeking over the door at the cars behind us! I was a bit nervous she might jump out – I don’t know if she could jump that high. The trailer was the same one we used to move our llamas in, but they were always tied. Eventually she got down and rode fine the rest of the way home.
At home we backed the trailer up to the pasture and opened the gate and she stood there looking at her new home, then carefully came down the ramp and trotted out into the grass. She just kept going straight until she got to the fence at the far end, then she followed the fenceline around. We took the trailer back and when we got home it was almost dark. She was hanging out by the gate. I let the dogs out, and they saw her in the pasture and went absolutely bonkers! Jack was baying, and had all his hair up. The other two were barking like mad and racing up and down the fenceline. Poor Mary heard the commotion and ran for the hills! She ran all the way down to the far corner of the pasture by the road!
I got the dogs back in and waited a bit, until it was just about dark, and went out to check on her with an apple. I found her in the pasture by the chicken run, and she grunted when she saw me and walked towards me. I offered her an apple piece and she took it. Then another. Then she walked calmly with me towards the pen. I sat down on the steps (a leftover toy for our goats to climb on) and she walked up to the pig pen, looked inside, and went in to check it out. I fed her and gave her the rest of the apple and closed her in, and she seemed perfectly happy. Good pig.
_
Well, my newest crazy scheme involves pigs – potbelly pigs to be exact. I saw an ad on CL for a couple free pigs, and I figured, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and there’s no time like the present, especially where FREE is concerned!
Steff Does Stuff! 