They Worked It Out!!!
After two years (at least) our feral sow and our domestic boar have finally worked “things” out…
I almost think it was the same subconscious pressure that we put on the rabbits to reproduce that caused the pigs to decide that now was the time to have babies.
We had already talked to a new butcher…
Our original plan was to have reproducing hogs so that we could raise our own suckling pigs.
But it never happened…
We were in the process of setting a date to take the pigs up to the butcher’s for processing…
I guess Mr. & Mrs. Pig caught wind of their looming demise and decided that they’d better make some changes to their platonic relationship.
So a couple of days ago, while I’m hosing horses and irrigating/lavaging abscesses, my younger daughter went out to do the barn chores in the back……….
And when she was done, she came back to announce that——-We Had Piglets!!!
Eight of them!!!
*****Pig Breed Descriptions*****
Some look like Hampshire…
Some look like Berkshire…
The father looks like a Duroc..
But the mother is a scary, shaggy-looking wild pig.
I was told she looks a lot like a Russian Iron Back…………….but I don’t know…
I know I don’t turn my back on her……………..no I don’t.
……….and when I’m dumping their slop over the top of the welded-metal panel siding in their enclosure……….I make real sure that my fingers aren’t anywhere within snapping-range…
……and I still have all ten………………so far…
6 thoughts on “They Worked It Out!!!”
If she has any Russian Boar it is from the Boar that the real rich folks imported for their hunting/fishing camps, circa 1880-1920, which were all over the SE and the Appalachians, including Fla. Yeah,a very good idea to watch that one. Any feral hog ,of any lineage, is dangerous. But now she has young uns, that increases the danger factor significantly. Hell, domestic hogs are a lot more dangerous than the avg person realizes. Have fun with the neutering of the males, I would suggest looking for some help with experience if you do that, which I would recommend if you plan to make tasty pieces out of them or sell them. You have excess pork.
In addition, a couple years ago I was told that some hunters released a couple “Russian Boars” onto the wellfields (which are right behind us)…so the likelihood of her being a cross is definitely a possibility. I had to remove one of the babies yesterday who didn’t make it (one of the larger males(?)—not crushed, no broken bones—I checked). And while I “gingerly” climbed into her cage, she rolled an eye at me when I was picking up the dead piglet…….my “gingerly” went into warp-overdrive…….she didn’t charge me/I was expecting her to. I hope the rest make it. I don’t want to have to go in there again…….but I don’t want her eating carcasses either and then getting used to cannibalizing her young…….
…….so if you don’t get a Christmas card this year, you’ll know where to look for me…
I think I’ll look for and invest in an extra long show stick…….the ones with the hook and the point at the end…….then I can reach through the panels and snag what I need to and not actually climb into the enclosure…..that’s a smarter idea, isn’t it?…….see, not just a pretty face.
I’d also have the highest powered cattle prod available with me, although a Taser gun would be ideal
But her name’s “Sweetie”………………
HA!
That’s possible, it’s not like every freaking animal in the world hasn’t been dumped in Fla. Those stinking canned hunt ranches in Texas, etc. often times sell excess stock, and pigs usually become excess. So some Fla. fools thought, ok, they did not think, but decided that dumping Russian Boar into an already nasty feral hog population was the thing to do.