Loading the Pig

Do you ever feel as though life is a giant Whack-A-Mole game?  That's what this past week as been for us.  I meant all week to write about loading the pig.  Getting him loaded last Sunday was, of course, a huge production. 

 

He'd been eating, content in his Pig Pallet Palace, all summer long and was HUGE.  We knew it was time to take him to "freezer camp."

 

DH backed the trailer as close as he could to the gate of the pen.

 

 

Then he set about throwing together a ramp and creating a chute.  The ramp he made by setting up large pieces of firewood behind the trailer and leaning a wire mesh trailer gate on top of them.  The ramp had to be able to carry a lot of weight.  He got some extra pallets from the barn and other random pieces of wood and held them in place with t-posts and stakes driven into the ground in order to form a narrow chute.

 

 

The children ran around collecting some of Mr. Pig's favorite foods to use as a lure.

 

 

They collected a bucket each of acorns and apples.  We also got a gallon of milk out of the fridge and set his feed pan at toward the back of the trailer. We tried to coax him up the ramp . . .

 

 

 

But he would have none of it.  It was frustrating.  He was highly interested in the food and the milk but once we drew it away the tiniest bit, he would immediately turn back, away from the trailer, too lazy to follow the food as it moved out of reach.

 

Just like the day we got the pigs, Dear Neighbor, once again, came to the rescue.  He got a large strap from his shop and looped one side around the hog's belly, right behind his front legs, and tied the other to the back of his lawn tractor.  It took a couple of tries because the  strap kept slipping off, but he was able to drag the pig up the makeshift ramp and into the trailer.

 

I wasn't able to get a photos of that process because I was too busy holding up one of the pieces of the chute.  That pig was determined to get out whether he had to go over or through me!  I was very thankful for a heavy strap and the lawn tractor that kept him moving in the right direction.  We're looking forward to some tasty bacon!