We keep our pigs together as a group pretty much from the time they arrive to the day they leave. Sometimes they move to a new paddock but overall they stay together. Over the past few months we’d been loading finished pigs onto the pig trailer to take them to the processor. All we do is lower the pig trailer to the ground, open the gate, put a bit of food in the trailer, and the pigs all rush on to eat the food. We simply close the gate, then get in and sort out who we don’t want. The point is we always have more pigs get on than we need.
However over the past few months we’d notice that one Berkshire was refusing to get onto the trailer. She’d eat the food but she just didn’t want anything to do with the trailer, like she knew it went somewhere bad. We eventually moved all the pigs in her paddock to a new paddock and that’s when we really found out that she was NOT getting on the trailer. We left her by herself for a few days. She refused to get on. We fed her only on the trailer. She refused to get on leaving the food untouched. We tried hiding and tricking her. She refused to get on. This went on for weeks. Finally on July 2nd, Miguel got her onto the trailer by some sort of magic and we quickly transferred her to the stock trailer to take her to the processor. I’d not planned on processing her but with her being this much trouble to handle, she earned herself the trip off of my farm. When I arrived at the processor, I got onto the trailer to shoo her off and that’s when she informed me that she really didn’t like me, or anyone who looked like me. She arched her back and growled, just about to charge. I backed off and let the guy working there move her with a sorting board which finally worked. It was like being in the trailer with a bear who was having a bad day.
But get off she did and that was one less problem to deal with. The best thing about being a farmer is your problems taste like bacon.