The Long Goodbye - pigs off for haircuts

Its a sad time when it comes to saying goodbye to our porcine friends. This last week has been about preparing them for their departure and this can be a gloomy set of tasks.

On Tuesday evening I began their trailer-entry training programme. It is quite basic. Position the trailer in its departure point and stabilise it with bricks and both ends. Then for a few days feed them from the trailer. This was learnt from experience. The first couple of batches of pigs weren't so well drilled. I had to practically carry one of them up the ramp and into the trailer. By the second batch I had worked out that a week long feeding routine was probably the answer. However, 6 days in and they still wouldn't go up the ramp. It took me a while to work out that while the trailer felt stable to me, the considerable weight of 4 pigs made it behave like a seesaw. I learnt this by finding myself at the wrong end of the seesaw one morning before work. It was much like the closing scene from the Italian Job with me at one end and pigs at the other.

Then there is the tattooing. Another melancholic task but one I'm getting closing to mastering or at least competency. Back in 2007, the first few pigs I tattooed were a massive inky mess. I had tried to apply large amounts of the ink to each pig and then slap with the spiked slap-marker. Keeping track of which pig had been labelled was a joke as they jostled each other for position at the feeding trough.

I have advanced my skills in two ways. Firstly, don't apply ink to the pig, only to the slap marker. Fingers crossed that works well enough for the meat inspector to read. Looking at my hands now, it appears that even small quantities of ink go a long way and last well.

Secondly, identify the pigs before hand with two clothes pegs clipped to the wiry hair on the back of their necks. (kiwi's refers to this hair style as a mudflap) Then as each pig it slap-marked, remove the clothes pegs, one for the right shoulder and one for the left. Bingo. The job was complete in less than 20 minutes. A great improvement on the first tattooing experience which was an all morning affair with more than a hint of farce.

With only days left, rations have gone up to 12kg per feed. They seem blissfully happy rooting among the leaf litter and under the turf and they are certainly enjoying this exceptional spring weather. Two more days sunshine and then we'll pack-up our snouts and go. They'll be missed.