Back behind bars

Berkshire piglet

Finally, after a week on the run, Wiggles is back behind bars! Or  rather, contained within a fence a again. As usual, nothing is ever easy around here. Our big plan for Saturday morning was this, to get Wiggles back into a pen, place all the female piglets in the pen with her and get all the male piglets into the back of the truck so they could be 'cut'. When raising pigs for meat, all the male pigs must be castrated, removal of the testicles, to prevent the production of certain hormones. These hormones "taint" the meat with a horrible flavor, rendering it inedible. I would rather weed eat our 30 acre fence line on the hottest July day than castrate these little pigs. But, it is a necessary task, so I suck it up and do it anyway *pouts*.

Our poor, unsuspecting nephew, Willie, had ventured out of town and driven out to the country for a visit Saturday morning. Around here, when company shows up the farm chores do not stop while we visit, the visitor just joins in. At first, all was going smoothly. Wiggles immediately went inside the  pen where we had been placing her feed all week. Allen quickly shut the gate behind her. I pulled the truck right up to the shed where the ten piglets were hold up. This was about 30 feet from there to were Wiggles was enjoying her breakfast.

Allen instructed my nephew and I to grab the males to place in the truck while he grabbed the females to put in with Wiggles. One little oversight, at one week old, all little pigs still have a protruding navel. There are no obvious "boy parts" glaring at you from the rear view either.  You can't just quickly glance at a distance to discern male from female, a closer look is necessary. When Allen grabbed up the first piglet is when all began to go down hill. Of course, it let loose a deafening squeal and Wiggles went ballistic! Another oversight, Wiggles was back in the pen, the ten babies were not. Upon hearing squeals from the first captured piglet, the other nine took flight, in nine different directions! It looked like a professional billiards player had just broken a game of nine ball!

Wiggles and her babies.

At one week old and 3-5 pounds, those little piggies could move! With no fence to contain them, their escape routes were endless! To add to the stress of the situation, Wiggles had become enraged. She was charging up and down the fence line growling and snorting, plowing into the fence trying to break through it. All in all a pretty terrifying situation. At one point, I had one piglet cornered a few feet from Wiggles fence. A stare down ensued. I inched closer, I was just about to grab it when Wiggles charged our way. The little piggy ran through the fence for its mommy, I ran the OPPOSITE direction! I hope that one was a girl, because it got away!

Wiggles back behind bars.

Once all the little piggy's were either in the truck or in the pen with Wiggles, we drove the boys to our work shop/surgical ward. Since I had only performed this procedure once before on a previous litter, I refreshed my memory on castration techniques while waiting for my adrenaline induced hand trembling to subside. Scalpels and shaky hands don't mix! Seems I've had one too many adrenaline rushes here lately. Maybe we should sell tickets for farming, bill it as "The latest, greatest adrenaline rush, forget skydiving and rock climbing!". As I was reading the article on castration I had to laugh. It warned, "the sow may seem mildly concerned when you separate her piglets from her". MILDLY!! I know Wiggles is an exceptionally protective sow and her reaction is not typical.  I imagine if I were a pig, I'd be the same way. So would most of the other mothers I know ;-)

We got the little boy piggy's all fixed up and back in with Wiggles without incident. After it was all said and done, we sat around and did a little 'Monday morning quarterbacking'. Allen delighted in recreating the expressions on mine and Willie's faces when all those little pigs ran in different directions. We are down to ten little ones now. Number eleven seems to have just disappeared. Sweet little Bonnie, the one I sewed back together, is still alive and doing quite well. It's safe to say she is out of the woods and will be with us for many years to come.