Aux Continued
Aug. 31st, 2020 08:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormOkay. Well. There's more to the Aux saga but it ends well for him.
So Aux broke back into the field with the other pigs the first time I got him out.
He's smart and a fast learner, so the second time it was much harder to get the bucket over his head and walk him out backwards past the electric, but I got it done. We alternated bucket moments where he went in the wrong direction with ear and belly scratches so he didn't seem to be holding it against me.
So I got him out, though I didn't get Friendly out at the same time. Then I walked around to the woodshed and when he saw me on the driveway he came running towards me, probably because the day before we'd given him apples and treats. So I put the grain in the door to the woodshed and he went right in.
Sounds good, right?
The woodshed is actually a big solid building with a sliding barn door and a gravel floor. The sliding door is normally held closed by a piece of rebar sliding through a loop on the door and a loop on the building. The door opens into a lean-to greenhouse that has its own door, functioning essentially like an airlock.
So when Aux went into the woodshed there was plenty of food in there but no water. I closed the door behind him, got some water, and heard him trying to get out: he would stand up fully to look out the window, nose the door up hard, try to dig, all sorts of things. So I closed the greenhouse door behind me when I went in and sure enough, despite my efforts to keep him in he forced his way into the greenhouse. I put the water in his bowl in the woodshed and got him (reluctantly) back in there and closed the door up before I opened the greenhouse and left.
Well, he was still trying to get out real hard. I added reinforcing screws to the door, to the part of the wall that held the latch, and I was pretty sure he'd be able to get through the door somehow by the time someone came for him. Also he'd spilled his water trying to get out. So I went in one more time with a piece of roofing tin with the goal of putting it on the inside of the door so he couldn't push at it so hard. Again I went in, closed the greenhouse door behind me.
Well, this time when I opened the door I was trying extra hard to keep him in the woodshed but it wasn't happening. I barely got the door unlocked when I'm fully in the air, the sliding door is wrenched sideways, and he's out in the greenhouse. And just like he'd been pushing at the inside of the woodshed he was pushing at the inside of the greenhouse which was not meant to hold pigs. I'd put plywood along the walls in prep -- pigs tend to push where there's light -- but things were just not going as I'd hoped. And at this point he'd learned not to go back into the woodshed.
At one point -- I'm pretty ashamed of this -- I rapped him on the snout with the piece of rebar in my hand because he was pushing through the polycarbonate window of the greenhouse. He completely didn't respond to that. Mostly I put my body between him and anywhere he wanted to go, mostly he respected that, and finally he put his nose back in the woodshed and I pushed him in/closed the door/got the latch wired shut with eight or so loops of wire.
At several points over that evening and the next day I tossed eggs and apples over the woodshed wall into his space to give him something to do. I also squirted water into the water dish through a crack in the wall-- I wasn't going to open it again!
In the end I got the trailer backed right up to the door of the greenhouse and he walked right into it, then I got him delivered no problem.
I still feel bad about the whole thing. Anytime an animal is causing an issue with handling, it's a failure of the handler to properly set up and incentivize the animal. Aux wanted out of there because he wanted to be with his family, he'd never been alone before, and he was scared and worried. And I couldn't even figure out a way to go in and give him belly rubs in the evening, let alone keep him in there with someone. And to hit an animal in an attempt to control them-- that's not how it's done.
I'm still not entirely sure what to do about something like that next time: if he's going to keep breaking back into the main pen I'm not sure how I'd get him used to loading or going into the woodshed without the whole herd going in. I could probably get him used to going out through that point in the fence and getting a snack in the woodshed over time, maybe.
On the other hand, it was pretty easy catching the piglets; feeding them in their carriers makes them basically self-loading. And I am not planning to be selling adult pigs off the farm anymore, this was just a way of getting two more breeding herds going in the area with Ossabaw genetics so the breed doesn't get lost.
Well, that's the last-but-one of my firstborn piglets. I'm glad he's off to a good home.
So Aux broke back into the field with the other pigs the first time I got him out.
He's smart and a fast learner, so the second time it was much harder to get the bucket over his head and walk him out backwards past the electric, but I got it done. We alternated bucket moments where he went in the wrong direction with ear and belly scratches so he didn't seem to be holding it against me.
So I got him out, though I didn't get Friendly out at the same time. Then I walked around to the woodshed and when he saw me on the driveway he came running towards me, probably because the day before we'd given him apples and treats. So I put the grain in the door to the woodshed and he went right in.
Sounds good, right?
The woodshed is actually a big solid building with a sliding barn door and a gravel floor. The sliding door is normally held closed by a piece of rebar sliding through a loop on the door and a loop on the building. The door opens into a lean-to greenhouse that has its own door, functioning essentially like an airlock.
So when Aux went into the woodshed there was plenty of food in there but no water. I closed the door behind him, got some water, and heard him trying to get out: he would stand up fully to look out the window, nose the door up hard, try to dig, all sorts of things. So I closed the greenhouse door behind me when I went in and sure enough, despite my efforts to keep him in he forced his way into the greenhouse. I put the water in his bowl in the woodshed and got him (reluctantly) back in there and closed the door up before I opened the greenhouse and left.
Well, he was still trying to get out real hard. I added reinforcing screws to the door, to the part of the wall that held the latch, and I was pretty sure he'd be able to get through the door somehow by the time someone came for him. Also he'd spilled his water trying to get out. So I went in one more time with a piece of roofing tin with the goal of putting it on the inside of the door so he couldn't push at it so hard. Again I went in, closed the greenhouse door behind me.
Well, this time when I opened the door I was trying extra hard to keep him in the woodshed but it wasn't happening. I barely got the door unlocked when I'm fully in the air, the sliding door is wrenched sideways, and he's out in the greenhouse. And just like he'd been pushing at the inside of the woodshed he was pushing at the inside of the greenhouse which was not meant to hold pigs. I'd put plywood along the walls in prep -- pigs tend to push where there's light -- but things were just not going as I'd hoped. And at this point he'd learned not to go back into the woodshed.
At one point -- I'm pretty ashamed of this -- I rapped him on the snout with the piece of rebar in my hand because he was pushing through the polycarbonate window of the greenhouse. He completely didn't respond to that. Mostly I put my body between him and anywhere he wanted to go, mostly he respected that, and finally he put his nose back in the woodshed and I pushed him in/closed the door/got the latch wired shut with eight or so loops of wire.
At several points over that evening and the next day I tossed eggs and apples over the woodshed wall into his space to give him something to do. I also squirted water into the water dish through a crack in the wall-- I wasn't going to open it again!
In the end I got the trailer backed right up to the door of the greenhouse and he walked right into it, then I got him delivered no problem.
I still feel bad about the whole thing. Anytime an animal is causing an issue with handling, it's a failure of the handler to properly set up and incentivize the animal. Aux wanted out of there because he wanted to be with his family, he'd never been alone before, and he was scared and worried. And I couldn't even figure out a way to go in and give him belly rubs in the evening, let alone keep him in there with someone. And to hit an animal in an attempt to control them-- that's not how it's done.
I'm still not entirely sure what to do about something like that next time: if he's going to keep breaking back into the main pen I'm not sure how I'd get him used to loading or going into the woodshed without the whole herd going in. I could probably get him used to going out through that point in the fence and getting a snack in the woodshed over time, maybe.
On the other hand, it was pretty easy catching the piglets; feeding them in their carriers makes them basically self-loading. And I am not planning to be selling adult pigs off the farm anymore, this was just a way of getting two more breeding herds going in the area with Ossabaw genetics so the breed doesn't get lost.
Well, that's the last-but-one of my firstborn piglets. I'm glad he's off to a good home.
