Jun 23, 2020 3 min read

Saturday was a long day of travel with my husband.

Yes, it was related to an equipment and parts purchase. Yes, it also included a short trip into an antiques mall for a few small purchases.

What can I say?

That’s the only way we seem able to schedule time away from the farm.

I had just kicked off my shoes and put my feet up on the couch to unwind for a few minutes before starting a load of clothes and making supper.

Instead of relaxing or cooking, I was soon off on another adventure.

In the door came my son, and I could tell he was a bit worked up, despite his attempt to sound calm.

“How do you get pigs to go back in their pen?” he asked.

“Do you want to know, or do you need to know?” I countered.

He hung his head a little. “I need to know.”

“OK, I’ll get my boots,” I said. “You go get a couple of buckets of grain.”

My husband interjected at this point.

“Laura, you can’t lead them like cattle,” he said.

“We’ll go see if we can get them back in,” I continued, trying to sound more confident that I felt.

The absolute last thing I wanted to have to do was wrestle a 75-pound pig – or as I soon found out, nine 75-pound pigs – if it didn’t work.

I walked out to gauge the situation while my son got the feed. Nine pigs were outside of the pen, looking at the one pig that was left inside. They seemed to want to be back inside, but the gate was closed except where they had squeezed out at the bottom. I opened it the rest of the way, extended it with another gate, and drug a log around and laid it beside the second gate.

It all led to the side of the building where the escaped pigs congregated. I hoped to be able to “funnel” the pigs back inside by walking up behind them. In my mind, when they began to walk, or run, along the building, they would turn and follow the log instead of jumping over it.

By the time I had this all set up, my son had joined us. He put a trail of feed into the funnel path, and then filled up the feed troughs inside the pen. Then, I walked around the building to come up behind the pigs.

To my surprise, they came and walked toward me. I began to walk in their midst, and then they turned around and began trotting toward my funnel.

I shouted ahead, “Stay out of sight, here they come!”

Just as my husband pulled up to assist, eight of the nine loose pigs followed the funnel right into the pen. The last one turned and balked. But my son came around and tried again, and then he, too, went “wee wee wee,” all the way inside.

My husband was incredulous.

He asked repeatedly if I knew how lucky I was, and my attempts to convince him I’m just that good were met with his laughter and shaking head. At any rate, we spent a few minutes securing the gate a bit better before heading home ourselves.

Call it luck, call it skill, call it whatever you like.

I’m so grateful that our animals are tame enough to handle, that none of them got hurt, and that I was back to the couch without breaking a sweat.