It’s the stuff of my worst nightmares. The thing that periodically wakes me up in the middle of the night, hyperalert, listening out the window: animals on the loose.
It’s happened to us before.
Years ago, a sow found her way out of the electric fence – I’m still not sure how – making her way over to our house, where I could hear her gentle grunts through an open window while I was reading early one morning.
Then there was the time a big group of pigs rooted so enthusiastically that they covered up a section of their fence with grass and soil and wandered out of their paddock into our treeline.
I found them happily probing through fallen leaves and branches under the cool, green tree canopy on a hot summer day. Fortunately, I was able to quickly corrall them into a makeshift fence and shuttle them back to the rest of the herd.
Even though we’ve had some brief moments with our pigs being out of their fence, when I got a voicemail last week from a local farmer saying that someone found a dead pig about a mile down the road, my heart almost stopped.
As I started dialing his number to return the call, I beelined it to our herd to see if anything was amiss.
Could the fence have been taken out by a deer? Or maybe a pig spooked and ran through the fence by accident? There are so many iterations of things that could go wrong out there.
Fortunately, we keep VERY detailed records of the animals on the farm and everyone was accounted for, confirming that this poor animal was not one of our own.
It’s a strange situation, though, especially since we’re pretty much the only people raising pastured pigs in town and there certainly haven’t been any wild boar sightings in the area…
Wherever this mystery pig came from, though, it just makes me thankful that we have good fences and happy pigs that are content, staying here on the farm with us.
Your Farmers,
Greg & Jenney
PS – We have a limited supply of pork at the Farm Store right now, and you can peruse our offerings HERE for pickup at the Farm Store on Sundays 9am-12pm or Thursdays 430-6pm. As always, ordering ahead is not required, but it’s the best way to make sure your items are reserved as our inventory keeps getting tighter and tighter this fall.