BY ALLISON LEE
When our three little pigs were big enough that they wouldn’t be considered prime prey for foxes or birds, we moved them outside into a paddock of their own. It must have been a little piggy heaven for them. I decided initially to put them in a small pen, and when they had become accustomed to being outside permanently, I would move them to a bigger paddock. As they were still quite small at this stage, the best method of transporting them was in a dog cage. Despite their size, they were still extremely heavy, so the dog cage was heaved up into a wheelbarrow, and the pigs were transported in this way, one by one, from the barn out into their little pen. Once in the grass, they ran around like excited children in a sweet shop. They spent hours exploring their little enclosure, and it was wonderful watching them rooting for food and generally enjoying using their natural instincts. Although the pigs were small, they could still do a lot of rummaging, and it wasn’t long before the small pen they were in had been turned completely upside down. It looked like we had an infestation of moles rather than three little inquisitive piggies! It was time to move them to a bigger paddock. The paddock I had made for them would allow them access to a large area of grass, a water hole to wallow in the summer and an area of woodland providing shade and many opportunities for them to forage. Pigs love their food, so this was a fantastic way of life for them. They enjoy a range of different foods and even like to eat insects. I will never understand how anyone can keep a pig on a concrete base and pretend it is in the animal’s best interests. This has been described on countless farming programmes, and, in all honesty, the only people that this suits are the farmers who don’t have to clean up after them; they can simply hose the concrete down. Now, I understand commercial farmers don’t have the time to spend caring for their animals like I do, but it makes me angry when they try to justify their actions by saying the pig enjoys it. This is no life for a pig. A pig is happy when they are able to forage in grass and woodland. They are very smart animals and have a considerably better sense of smell than dogs.
Everything in the paddock was ready for them, and I had even commissioned a carpenter friend to make them a house with a little verandah – I couldn’t wait for them to see it!
We decided to move the pigs the next day. It was a nice, bright, dry day with little wind. Perfect for moving three little pigs without any problems, or so I thought. Pigs are not just inquisitive. They are also intelligent, and I think these three had been planning the day’s fun and games for some time as they ran us ragged. The pen we were moving them to was adjacent to the one they were currently in. However, there was a gap between the two pens, which allowed access to the gate to the top paddock, so it meant walking the pigs from one pen to the other along the fence. It sounded easy but turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. Armed with my trusty feed bucket and some boards, these are used to encourage pigs to face forward and not turn around, we opened the gate and allowed Dotty out first. I walked ahead, shaking the feed bucket whilst Mark prevented Dotty from legging it across the field using the boards. Pigs have poor eyesight but a great sense of smell, and once out of the small paddock and in a four-acre field, this was not lost on Dotty. She ignored the feed bucket, ducked past the boards and ran across the field as quickly as her little trotters would take her. I screamed and ran after her; however, all this did was make her run even faster, and she was fast becoming a tiny ‘dot’ on the horizon – no pun intended. I looked at Mark, and his face said it all. Bloody hell, this little pig was heading for the nearest village, and we didn’t have a clue how to stop her. It’s time for quick thinking. We stood completely still, and I shook the bucket as loudly as possible. Although the foraging was aplenty in the field, the novelty soon wore off, and the thought of food on tap in the bucket, rather than having to be sniffed out, began to become more appealing and slowly, Dotty started heading back towards us. I breathed a sigh of relief. However, as soon as she was within touching distance and I started to relax, she legged it again. She did this three or four times, and we were getting more and more fraught. She was playing a game and loving it. Huxley and Dolly were at the other side of the fence, still safely in their pen spectating, and they seemed to be enjoying Dotty’s escapades just as much as she was. Eventually, after about an hour and a half, Dotty began to get tired, and we somehow managed to lure her back into the pen with Huxley and Dolly. Back to square one. The feed bucket and boards idea wasn’t going to work. Mark decided he would get the pickup and trailer, and we would get them in the trailer using feed and then transport them all together to the next paddock. Perfect, what could go wrong?
I ushered the pigs to the far corner of the pen. They were happy to move away from the gate when they saw the pickup and trailer heading their way, and Mark inched the trailer through the gate. We put boards on either side to prevent the pigs from squeezing through any gaps in the gate, and I tried to lure them into the trailer. They were having none of it. I shook the bucket until it felt like my arms would fall off. I climbed into the trailer myself and sat down, hoping their inquisitiveness would get the better of them and they would eventually come to see what I was doing. Nope, not a hope. By this time, Dotty was no longer hungry, having already devoured breakfast, lunch and tea, being enticed back to the pen, and Huxley and Dolly were now astute enough to know that we were trying to catch them and they didn’t want to play the game. They stayed as far away from the trailer as they possibly could. Time for a new plan. We put some straw in the trailer and made it into a cosy bed; Dotty loves her bed. I put a small amount of food in the trailer and climbed out. Mark and I then pretended not to be interested in the pigs, hoping they would meander to the trailer and we could shut them in when they climbed inside. We figured if one pig was brave enough to go inside, the others would follow, and my money was on Dotty as she is the more dominant, unfortunately, though she wasn’t hungry at this point.
Forty-five minutes later, we realised this wasn’t going to work either, so Mark eased the trailer into the pen completely, unhitched it and left it in the pen. We thought that if we left the trailer in the pen and fed them their evening meal in there, they would eventually wander inside. Once inside, we could close the door. It would be fine if it were late at night as there was straw in there, and I could put a bucket of water in, and we could transport them to their new paddock the next morning. Throughout the day, we kept popping outside to see how the pigs were getting on, but they still hadn’t gone near the trailer. It was less than ten yards from their small pen to the larger paddock, and we could not get them from one to the other. I waited later than usual before serving them their tea, as I needed them to be hungry if there was any hope of getting them into the trailer. As they could forage in the pen, they would never get to a desperation stage; that was fine; I didn’t want to starve them. I made a fruit salad with all their favourite fruits and boiled some eggs; they love boiled eggs, and I set out to feed them. They were still on red alert, and instead of running up to see what I had as they usually did, they eased their way forward cautiously. Without hesitating, I climbed right into the back of the trailer and emptied the bucket of fruit and eggs into the feed tray I had left in there, and, one by one, each little pig followed me in! We had a result! Mark quickly closed the trailer doors before they realised they had been duped and tried to make a run for it. The only problem was I was still in the trailer with them, and it took quite a bit of nifty manoeuvring to extricate myself from the trailer without allowing a little pig to escape. It was now quite late, and I didn’t want to unsettle the pigs by moving them into a new paddock in the dark, so we decided to let them bed down for the night in the trailer, and we would move them the next day.
We were up bright and early the next morning, eager to get the pigs to their new paddock and out of the trailer. The sound of squeals coming from the trailer urged us on. Mark hitched the trailer to the back of the pickup, and we moved the squealing pigs a few yards to the larger paddock. Once at the gate, I opened the trailer expecting a stampede of little trotters to come running out. Nothing. I peered inside; six beady little eyes were staring at me from the back of the trailer, but no one made an attempt to move. I couldn’t believe it. Yesterday, they didn’t want to go in; today, they didn’t want to come out. I shook my bucket and wandered over to the feed bowl, where I emptied the feed and waited. I must have waited the best part of an hour before; slowly but surely, Dotty decided to brave it and wander down the little ramp into the paddock. A few minutes later, Huxley tiptoed down the ramp, looking absolutely disgusted at being shut in the trailer overnight, closely followed by Dolly, who was keen not to be left behind. It didn’t take long before all three happily foraged in their new, larger paddock, their little tails swishing from side to side in a frenzy.
This piece is taken from my book, All The Gear, No Idea, Book One, published by Blossom Spring Publishers and available on their website or from Amazon.
Allison Lee is a smallholder from North Yorkshire who has written for the Yorkshire Times and other publications. Her website can be accessed here.