Saturday, June 14, 2008

Pork Chop

I was all set to drive to Barnesville today and buy a pig at the auction. However, last night I finally found a source for feeder pigs that was only a few miles away. It was a bit more than I would have paid at the auction, but when you figure in the cost of gas, the waste of an entire day, and the pig's potential exposure to disease at the auction...I was more than willing to pay what they wanted.

They delivered the pig to us this evening, but I still had to hook up the charger for the electric fence. I didn't realize that the opposite end of the fence was touching the woven wire and was grounding out, so the pig escaped into the garden. She was NOT amused at being caught, and squealed like, well, a stuck pig. Paul finally figured out the problem with the fence, and we put her back in the pen. She promptly got zapped on the nose (squeal!), and then she went over to the place where she'd gotten out before. Zap! Squeal! Zap! Squeal! Escape! Wait, that part wasn't supposed to happen. She charged through and was still small enough to fit through the fence, despite being zapped. Again I caught her and put her back in the pen, this time guarding the end that she liked to escape through.

After one final zap and squeal, she sat down and regarded the fence with a thoroughly bewildered expression on her face. Over the next few hours she napped and then rooted around a bit, but did no further escaping. I hope that when I check tomorrow morning, I'll find her still in her pen. Pigs are smart enough that electric fence is supposed to be extremely effective with them, so I hope she's figured it out by now.

The people who brought the pig were very interested in the electric netting. They'd never seen it before, but they could immediately imagine the possibilities.

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