Pigs Farmers Diary

Attentive audience.

Pigs do have an ear for music.


One big surprises with my new piggery enterprise was the discovery of their musical taste. Each morning when I would visit the piggery to feed and clean out the pens,  I would leave the radio  on a high volume, so as to listen to music  while working. The sows would run across the paddock to sit and listen for an hour or so. Much to my amazement, they seemed to be very fond  of J S Bach, and other classical composers. Whether this was due to the mathematical structure of Bach I never ever found out, but one thing was certain, they didn’t like loud hard metal music or music without melody. They would quickly depart from their prime position ,whenever this type of music was played.

 Our first farrowing came and went and I found myself with some one hundred  pigs to feed. Each gilt [ young sow] produced from eight to sixteen baby piglets. I noticed that the sows with well defined udders and nipples, evenly spaced gave birth to the greatest number of offspring. This enabled them to feed a larger litter satisfactory. Often I would have to move one piglet from one mother to another so they received enough milk. The first few days were critical, as antibodies were absorbed from the sow’s milk. Even so, piglets are born with very low iron ,requiring iron shots to boost their metabolism. This had to be done at a few days old to stop scouring. Even so, I would lose piglets over the first few critical weeks.

Piglets receiving their iron shots

Young piglets at supper.

Running a piggery is not unlike being a duty nurse in a hospital or health clinic, every day something needed attention. All the sows were not necessarily good mothers,  one I remember called Lulu ,when ever she felt peckish would simply stand on one of her young and eat them. I did not keep her very long! It was very interesting to observe all the different personalities, no doubt that is why pigs are considered closest to humans in the animal world.

The babies naturally needed toys, I would put stones into empty drink cans that they would roll around the floor with their noses. At times they seemed to be playing a pig version of football! Then I  would have to hang chains in their sleeping quarters , which they would tug on in the way a dog pulls on a rag. The scene often looked like a snapshot of preschool. Another early childhood job was the clipping of the sharp points on their teeth, when feeding  their would bite the sows nipple causing infections and  sometimes causing the mother to reject them altogether. In order to counter bullying the piglets were graded for size on a weekly bases, this made sure each received the correct amount of food, every pig had it food requirement weigh each day. This was critical, as I wanted bacon pigs with minimum amount of fat, prime bacon only allows less than half inch. The piglets were weaned at four weeks, firstly to give mother a break. Secondly they seemed to make better progress on a high protein diet. Like many small things they are very fond of sugar, so this was not a difficult task.

With time I became quite apt at caring for pigs, attending to their various ailments from colds to mastitis. I really enjoyed the work, there was never a dull moment and great satisfaction in producing a first class product. Contrary to popular belief, pigs are very clean, they do the necessary in the same spot ever day ,which is more than can be said for some people I have known! Pigs are really more intelligent than dogs and it is not hard to see why some people like them as pets! There is an old saying that I love.

A cat looks down on you.
A dog looks up to you.
But only a pig treats you as a fellow human being.