Flying Pigs

George, our boar, was escaping every night.  Every night I was finding something to entice him back into his run.  This is more difficult than it sounds.  He cleaned out the pig pellets and I haven’t had a chance to buy more, I’m out of apples and most of the spuds we dug up I’ve now cooked up for the pigs.  If he doesn’t really want to go somewhere, it’s very difficult convincing him to.  I’ve rearranged the electric fencing, we’ve staked down the wire fence, we even tried putting him into another paddock.

Each time, we’d look at each other and say something along the lines of “that’ll fix him” which soon turned into “let’s hope this time it works”.  I became convinced that George really could fly.  Maybe there was some basis to the saying “pigs might fly” that wasn’t entirely sarcastic. 

I’ve known for quite a while that it was really more good manners than good management that stopped my pigs from getting out.  I’ve heard enough stories from sheep farmers that border on forest about how (especially during lambing) the wild pigs just walk through fences and destroy them.  But while I had friendly good mannered pigs, it was something I didn’t have to be too concerned about.  Besides, the fencing all seems to be intact.

The girls stay put.  They’ll pace along the fence line ‘talking’ to me and asking for food, or a scratch or just to say hello.  But George is different.  I don’t know if he’s tired of being kept with the girls, which I do know can’t be a long term prospect anyway, or if this is just his way of pushing boundaries - literally.

I wouldn’t mind so much if he stuck to the lawn, he’s saved us from quite a bit of mowing already, he loves the clover growing there, but our George has found the vege garden.  He hasn’t dug up the roots to the newly sprouted silverbeet and spinach, but the leaves are extremely sparse now.  Fortunately, (frantically touching wood), he hasn’t found the grey water garden (where there are more goodies that pigs love) and doesn’t seem to have much interest in the tomatoes, potatoes, beans or peas that are growing in the garden he has raided.

It’s now been two weeks since his last escape.  I’m cautiously ready to say we’ve got him contained.  Sadly, I need to find or make somewhere else to put the pigs.  As they’re getting bigger (all three are over a year old now) they’ve eaten down all the grass in their paddock and I don’t normally feed them much over summer as there is usually plenty of grass.

The local restaurants and food shops all have people who collect pig buckets, so that’s not going to work for me as a food source.  The last person I spoke to, the owner of the local fruit and vege shop, has his own pigs that he takes the spoiled food home for.  My neighbours were doing a pig bucket for me until their son got pigs.  I don’t begrudge them that at all. 

I was speaking to a friend yesterday who has far too many apples for them to eat on their own and asked for their windfalls and apples that are no good. He turned up shortly after with a large bag for me.

I think I need to seriously look at growing a crop purely for pig food.  I bought swede seeds a while ago, but have yet to remember to put them in anywhere.  I’ll have to hunt it out and find out what time of year I should be planting them, I’m fairly sure it’s not spring like most of the veges I grow.  While we like swedes, we don’t eat a lot of them, so planting them as a crop could work.

With the added bonus of letting the pigs loose in that patch when they’re ready - the pigs could dig them up themselves too.  I remember as a small child, doing a working bee with my Dad’s rugby team.  We pulled up a large paddock of turnips.  The ones that were too small, or whatever was left after we’d all finished was left in that paddock and the pigs were going to be let loose in there.  Turnips and swedes are fairly closely related so it’s worth thinking about.  Actually, thinking about it, turning them loose in a swede patch might not be such a good idea.  I can just see them gorging themselves in the first day or two and then having nothing left.  Perhaps I should dig them up and choose how much to give them.

It’s now nearly a month since I started writing this piece.  Gorgeous George hasn’t escaped in all that time.  I’m still not going to say anything about having it sorted because I’m sure I’ll jinx it.

I have started planning a better piggery though.  One where I can separate them if and when I need to.  Watch this space.