Always such a Ham


An interesting thing happened yesterday (ok a few yesterdays ago). The pig managed to get out of the pen. He tore the field fencing away from the post near the gate.

Fortunately he went into the goat yard. The other animals were not happy about it. Laura and Joshua had been throwing up in the mean time. So Laura/Sam/Zech went out to catch the pig. After chasing it around they gave up and Sam took off his gloves. Just then the pig came by and Sam grab his rear legs. Before he could let go the pig promptly drug him under one of the goat platforms, through the manure/rocks/wood. When Sam was able to let go the pigs rear hoof cut open his index finger, this required some stitches. His clothes and body were both torn up.
Now Laura being sick takes him to the hospital. I have the car so she had to take the truck. Promptly getting it stuck backing out of the driveway. Now Jason from the trout farm had come up to look at Sam's hand and the pig. He had to get the truck unstuck and then Laura drove onto the hospital with her bowl in hand. In the meantime Jason and Joshua lasso the pig with one of my extension cords (no longer usable) and get it hauled back into the dog pen. The pig just about pulled Jason and Joshua over in the process.
By the time I get home and get the entire story, I'm thinking this is going to be a fun evening and I wish they could have recorded the event. After changing clothes I went outside to assess the situation.
Both older boys are encompaciteted leaving myself and Zech to deal with the devil pig. I decided that there was no safe way for me to get the pig back into the pen, so we got ready for an unplanned processing.
Joshua got my rifle and the pig knew what was up. He went to the corner and hid his head from me. I finally got him to turn around and dropped him. Now we had to get him from the goat yard to the gambrel. I could pull him only a short distance by myself. He had to be near 190 lbs based on the carcass. I had Zech bring the lawn tractor around and drag it over to the processing area. Then I proceeded to skin and gut the hog. This took about 2 hours from start to finish. And yes this pig's eye popped out as well. I split the carcass so it was manageable to get it in the cooler. The bullet had entered the skull blew through the teeth and jaw bone. Exited the head and re-eneterd lower on the neck and broke the shoulder. Maybe a little overkill but the pig never knew what hit him and didn't get back up.
And yes I am still going to get some more pigs, but I may shell out the money for an added electrical deterrence.

So how was your yesterday!

These pictures are from our first hog. Due to circumstances being what they were we didn't have time to chronicle the last one 8^)