Meet Loretta, this is her story...
I should start this post off with a note that I work at a county sheriff's office that has no real animal control officer. If you find or lose an animal you call the local sheriff's office expecting them to deal with it. People call about dogs at large, barking dogs, horses and/or cows in the road etc. Some people are helpful enough to bring them to the sheriff's office to save an officer the trouble of ignoring the call. I got one of my house cats named Elliot that way. A guy just brought him in and left him there. At any rate, one morning I got a call from my boss who told me that a young couple called in to report a baby pig in the road, would I go and get it. I asked for directions and off I went. I arrived at the home of the people that had taken the piglet in and they told me that this poor thing had fallen out of a transport semi onto the highway. This semi was going about 65 mph when it went by their place. I expected the worst when I went to see it but I was not ready for what I saw. This poor little thing was about 10 days old, wrapped in a towel and shaking. She was covered with road rash, bloodied with bruises showing through her white skin. Her entire right side was swollen and her right eye was swelled shut. I took her home and gave her a bath in Epsom salts water. She was in awful shape. I took her out of the bath and gave her a dish of warm milk with a grain mix in it. I was happy to see that her appetite wasn't affected. After eating she settled right into her laundry basket to sleep. She was named Loretta. I had a Grandma named Loretta, I don't think that she would be amused but the name stuck. Loretta lived in my laundry room for the next week. When she regained her strength and I was certain that the other pigs wouldn't hurt her, I moved her to the barn. She still walked pretty stiff but she went off to see the other pigs. I am pretty sure that she figured that she had nothing left in life to fear, so she walked right up to the old boar and laid down beside him. Walter, my boar, grunted and sniffed but didn't bother to get up for such a bold little thing. For the next several days, Loretta gained her strength and started to figure out that she had room to run around in the grass and dirt and she had other little pigs to play with. Over time and for the most part, the scars have healed and she has grown. I was telling someone the other day of her story and mentioned that she was almost ready for market. She was appalled that I would consider butchering her after all she had been through. That is what prompted this blog. I fail to understand people most of the time. How could people be so upset that she was destined for a plate? Sure, Loretta has been through alot. I am more upset that she was ripped away from her Mom at 10 days old only to be transported to a farm untold miles away. The only sunlight or fresh air that these poor things are exposed to in this type of confinement set up is during this transport. She was going to live out her life crammed into a building with hundreds of others, fed a measured amount of medication and chemicals to keep her "healthy" until finally she was to meet the transport truck again for the final ride to a slaughter house that hurries them through in a way that I can't begin to describe to you. All of this in the name of cheap meat.
Loretta is still destined for a plate. What I don't understand is why this person was upset that she got to live the life of a lucky pig. The life that she was supposed to live in a perfect pig world. She experienced mud, bugs, grass, sunshine and fresh air. She got to run. She got to hide in deep bedding and wallow in her pig made pool. The others on that truck weren't as lucky as she.
I often talk about the high cost of cheap meat. These animals pay a high price for our cheap meat. When I talk about this from now on, I will tell them the tale of one lucky little piglet name Loretta.
