PIGS ESCAPED! 🐷

The pigs got out.  What else can I say?  Is there anything more pleasant than to be awakened in the early morning by a beautiful woman simply stating, “Um, Jason.  The pigs are out.”  How could such a thing happen?!?

Now I did my research before we got the pigs.  People told me, “Pigs are tough to contain.”  “Pigs are all muscle.”  “Keep an eye on the pigs.  They’re hard to keep in.”  One farmer even told me he poured concrete 2-feet deep around the perimeter of his fence to keep the pigs from digging under!  I took some precautions but not that to that extent. 

The kids and I rounded up all the extra building material around the yard.  Old wire fencing, chicken wire, steel posts, wood posts, old barn board, telephone poles, and a bunch of railway ties we found in the long grass out by the trees.  Surely this stock of supplies would build a pig-proof pen.

We were converting a small section of the cow pasture into the pigsty.  We had that to start with. We also had old steel fencing and barbed wire pinned up to some wood posts. But the little porkers will wiggle and squirm through any opening “pig” enough for their head to get through.  On top of the barbed wire and steel fencing we added…more steel fencing - with spaces only big enough for a pig snout to squeeze through.  “But what about the digging?” You ask.

Cue the telephone pole and railway ties.  My son had expertly manoeuvred a 20-foot telephone pole across the yard with the tractor a few days earlier.  Then the tractor keys mysteriously disappeared.  Whie waiting for new keys to arrive, instead of simply lifting the telephone pole into the pigpen with the tractor, we manually lifted it over the fence using manly dad-strength and an untold number of small, yet powerful children.  Could a pig ever escape from this stronghold?  Could anyone ever escape from Alcatraz?

When the pigs were next spotted running around outside of their pen I called for an immediate investigation.  I meandered around the pen to see where they broke through.  Maybe a gate had opened?  Nope.  Was there a hole in my impenetrable fencing?  Nope.  One of the kids must have let them out. 

Shaking a can of dog food brings the pigs-a-runnin’ and we had them contained.  A few minutes later…THEY WERE OUT AGAIN!  By cranking my C.S.I. skills up to ten I was finally able to find the spot where they broke through the fence.  A couple pieces of wood later and it was good as new. Now we’re one week out and no escapes.  Time flies, dad!  Make every moment count!  Even the prisoners-escaping moments.