How to weigh a pig - In three easy steps

How to weigh a pig...

I get calls from people that want to know how big their pigs are and when they are going to be ready.  I don't have a livestock scale, although if you garage salers out there could keep an eye out for one I'd really appreciate it.  I try to give the best guess thing a try but I really am not all that good at it.  There is a way to measure your pig and calculate the weight but I think that this is meant for pigs that apparently have more training than mine do.

The first thing that the directions tell you to do is to get the pig to stand in a natural stance and relax.  My pigs are pretty laid back, their normal "stance" is on their side in a hole of watery mud.  Once in this position they are not all that inclined to move.  My second option was on all four feet, the only problem there is that if pigs are on their feet they are not usually in a "natural stance" but they are running around digging and, well, moving.  It is hard to convince a pig that is moving to stand still long enough to run a tape measure around their girth (for my dear city friend- the girth is part of the body that is just behind the front legs)   I not only have to run the tape around the girth but it has to be snugged up fairly tight.  Pigs are prey animals.  They don't like anything "snugged up tight" on their bodies. 

My pigs are used to me and they usually just come up to see what I am up to and if I happen to have anything that could be considered a treat.  The second that I go into their field with a string though it is game on.  I found the pig that my customer bought and followed her around until I got her somewhat isolated.  Now pigs are smart...Einstein should have been so smart.  This pig who was named Lucy by my customer knew that something was up and I had to convince her that it wasn't bad and would only take a couple of seconds, 60 at most, of her busy day.  I talked to her, gave her a special treat and pretended that I was just out for a walk.  I scratched her ears and her side and then ever...so...slowly....and...carefully...I gently placed the tape down her side and, still scratching her side, reached for the tape.  With one ear cocked to the side and her eyes slightly squinted with evil thoughts, Lucy was off like a rocket, taking half of the tape with her.  I was left holding the other half of the tape. 

Round two...Hiding the new measuring tape, I isolate Lucy again, and give more treats and scratches.  I try to get her up against the fence in a corner so that it isn't one freakishly smart pig against little old me.  This time I am less sneaky about the tape and as I slowly lean down to grab the end of the tape, Lucy shifts her weight and my arm is now being firmly held between her and the fence...  I am so glad that my pigs are tame.  By the time that I free myself she is very pleased with herself.  After throwing about 12 dozen eggs for her I finally have a girth measurement and a headache. 

The second part of the measurement is the length.  A much easier measurement to get even on the run.  This measurement is from the base of the ears to the base of the tail.  The calculation for the weight is girth squared times the length divided by 400.  

So my dear customer I can tell  you based on my calculations and one hard afternoons work that your pig weighs somewhere between 100 and 400 pounds and will be ready for the freezer sometime between tomorrow and September.   I REALLY need a scale!

The ramifications of selective hearing

I'd like to introduce you to the newest members of the Hindsight Heritage Farm family!   Two of my three does had their first kids.  Penelope had a single doe and Berniece had a nice set of twins, one doeling and one buck.  I like to go with vintage people names for my animals but truth be told, for these guys I was at a loss...nothing seemed to fit.
The day that the first of the three was born, my Granddaughter Audrey, who is "all of her fingers" old (5 to you and me) was visiting.  She was the first to get to see the little bitty goat.  I must have mumbled something out loud about needing to come up with a name for her when Audrey who has the same auto-selective hearing that most kids her age have, heard "Audrey do you want to name the baby goat".  I understand that 5 year old people do not like their creativity stifled by rules of naming or explanations of the word vintage.  Truth be told, vintage to her is not even out of date to me anyway.  This sweet little girl with big blue eyes and soft strawberry blonde hair was so excited at the prospect that in a moment of tenderheartedness I thought to myself...How bad can it be?  My first little doeling was then Christened "Princess Unicorn".  Visions of all things glittery, shimmery and fairy tale like pranced threw my growing headache as I managed to choke out the most obvious of questions "are you sure"?  but by then she had hit the auto-select off button so the name stuck.  
After the other two babies were born, I asked two of my other grand kids for naming ideas.  Hadlee, who has never had a problem with self esteem, decided that there was no better name than hers and so "Hadlee with a Beautiful Dress On" was born...Yup, that is her entire name!  You'd have thought that I would have learned after the Princess Unicorn thing wouldn't you?  Her brother named the little buck Bustard...I wasn't sure if he said Bustard or Bastard but I used my selective hearing to decide what I wanted to hear and so Bustard it is.
I have one goat left to come in and 10 more grand kids.  I brace myself for any number of super heroes and fairy tale creatures.


So with no further ado, I introduce to you (drum roll please)


Hadlee With A Beautiful Dress On - shortened to Hadlee for time and convenience.  She is the little black doe that is on the bottom of picture no. 2.  She won't face the camera but she is just like her brother who is facing the camera.


Bustard - The black one with white ears facing the camera
and 


Princess Unicorn - the little tan one in the back of Bustard in picture no.2  I would like to shorten this name but I am at a loss and NO Princess is NOT an option...maybe Eunice?


The little doe in picture number 1 is an adoptee from an unfortunate home.  I named her Myrna after Myrna Loy...now THAT is vintage!

The life of one misdirected pig

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. 

Saying Good Bye

I had to say good bye yesterday to two of my sows.  Hazel and Ivy, my two half wattles, were born on this farm, had one litter of great looking babies each here and were great pigs to have around.  When I decided to discontinue the breed-up program for my herd, I knew that they didn't fit into my new long range plan and that I would have to part with them.  I didn't realize how hard that it would be.  I miss my old boar Bernard and think of him often, but at about 900lbs, he can pretty much take care of himself.  He has a great new family and as the only boar with a harem, he probably has not much to worry about. 
Hazel and Ivy are different.  I keep wondering if they are doing ok, if they hate me or are upset that they had to go.  Do they wonder, why them?  Ivy is shy but around Hazel she is better.  I told the new owner (a very nice man) all of the important details about them but will he notice that when Ivy is upset she gravitates toward Hazel, her sister?  Will he notice that Hazel eats all of her food and most of Ivys if the bowls are not far enough apart or that at dinner time, sometimes you have to go wake up Hazel or she will sleep right through it?   I am sure that he will take good care of them and I understand that he didn't buy them to put in a shed somewhere just to spit out babies but I have an emotional investment in them.  I held them when they were babies, I threw apples to them when they were little just to watch them chase them, and each other, around their lot.  I doctored the cut that Hazel got scrappin' over a pumpkin. 
I am sure that he will fill in the blanks as he gets to know them.  I, on the other hand, will continue to miss them but I will always have the little things to remember them by...like the rip in my jeans that an impatient Hazel gave me when I just stood around talking to the pigs while I should have been pouring the food in the dish closest to her, the huge, pig sized hole in the barn door that Ivy went through because she heard me in the barn and wanted to for once, be the first for dinner, and the hunt for feed dishes that I went through every night because those two would hide all of the dishes under their bedding.
I still have some of their babies at home.  I won't be keeping any of them but they reminded me of their Mommas as I was doing chores the night that they left.  I caught a glimpse of one of the piglets dragging off a food dish...

A "Red Neck" Christmas

I have a friend who calls me a red neck.  She isn't being mean about it but that is the me that she sees.  She is a small cute little thing that paints her nails, has perfect makeup and always looks (and smells) like a girl.  She buys $15 nail polish and some juicy couture swim suits that cost her more than my car cost me.  I shop for my clothing,  tractor parts and other farm supplies all in the same store and the only paint that my nails see comes from a can labeled semi-gloss. 
I must confess that I secretly give myself a high five when I come to work with what could eventually become some great compost all over my shoes, and she gets all city girl on me. 
This Christmas season she presented her friend who, we have affectionately dubbed "boy toy", with all kinds of manly must haves like clothes that have buttons but no hoods and drinking glasses that are not actually salsa jars.   My husband and I are not huge gift givers.  He buys what he needs and I do the same.  This year, I bought him a new seat for his tractor and he bought me a hoist that I can haul dead animals into the tree to cut up.  Upon hearing the news of this gift giving exchange, my dear city friend was actually rendered semi-speachless.  This, if you knew her, is no small feat.  I, however, am happy as a clam to have something that not only is practical but makes one of my more unpleasant jobs so much easier.  That and I have the bonus of not having to dust it!
I gave her a hand painted ornament with an angel on it...very girly.  She gave me a body care set that smells good.  It isn't a very flowery smell, more like clean laundry...She said that it was a start.  My husband thinks that she has her work cut out for her and she probably does as my heart will always be in my barn and my shoes will always be covered in "compost".

My Leap of Faith

I have thought of starting a blog for some time.  I was encouraged to do this by one of the speakers at the Small Farm Today conference in MO last year.  The talk was titled "herbs" but he chose to speak on the subject of blogging and websites.
I almost left the room. 

Anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that I don't understand technology, use it as little as I can get away with and am reminded everyday that if something has a plug in, chances are it will hate me and treat me accordingly.  I chose to stay in that room that day, took some of the suggestions to heart and thought that the worst thing that could happen is that my ignorance would be entered into the relm of cyberspace and kept there for all eternity to be found by some relative doing research on family history. 

My daughter, who blogs for her photography studio tells me that this is easy.  Things come easy to her...she is like her Dad that way.  Everything that they touch, they do well.  I am the reason that they made duct tape and white out. 
So...at the risk of embarrassing some relative that I will never meet (in addition to the ones who already know that I am clueless) here goes my very first blog entry.

As I was talking on the phone to daughter number 1, the one that does everything well, I looked outside and saw a full grown bald eagle just sitting in my backyard about 30 feet from my deck.  The thing just sat there and stared at me like he owned the place.  I told this to daughter #1 and she yelled at me  "MOM...this is the perfect blog moment GET A PICTURE".  I ran for the camera, couldn't find it where I was so SURE that I left it.  So daughter #1, thinks fast on her feet and tells me to use my cell phone (yes, I have evolved that far).  I can't figure out how to use the camera.  She said that there should be a button on the side.  There are 5 buttons on the side and of course I can't find the one that I need.  I found my volume buttons, one that used to have a flap on it before I ripped it off looking for the camera button and two other buttons that I still don't know what they do.  No camera button.  Bald eagles are amazing birds to see.  They have the most amazing timing too.  The bird took off right as I found the button that I was looking for.  I have wonderful picture of the southern end of a northern bound bird and one semi wonderful picture of my finger.  I think that I am getting the hang of this technology thing!