July 2019 – Berkshire Pig

Once upon a time, there was a farmer and his wife. They were new to farming and very excited to learn all there was to know about taking care of farm animals. One of the first kinds of animals they brought home to their farm was pigs.

One thing everyone should understand about keeping an animal, whether a farmer or just a pet owner, is that preparations should be carefully made before you bring your animal home.

The farmer and his wife had done just that. They purchased all the things the pigs would need—fresh, yummy feed; a good, sturdy watering trough; a nice, cozy shade house; and the fencing to keep the pigs contained in a safe place at the farm.

So off the farmer went to get the pigs, while his wife stayed behind taking care of things at the farm. He came home with a whole truck full of energetic little pigs. They were Berkshire pigs, which are mostly black with a white nose and white feet, perky upright ears, and lively personalities.

The farmer brought the pigs to their new home where awaited their fresh, yummy feed; their good, sturdy watering trough; and their nice, cozy shade house, all arranged comfortably inside their brand-new fence. The part of the land inside the fence is called a paddock. The pigs would live in a Pig Paddock.

The fence was electric for two reasons: First, electric fence is lightweight, inexpensive, and easy to move to new places. This Pig Paddock wasn’t going to be in this one spot forever, after all. Animals need to be moved to new paddocks from time to time in order to let the land rest from animals living there, and to make sure the home the pigs live in is clean, fresh, and healthy.

The other reason the fence is electric is so that the pigs can’t simply dig under it. Pigs are excellent diggers! Their snouts are built just like shovels! But once they learn not to touch an electric fence, they won’t even try to dig under it.

But this farmer and his wife, who were quite new to things, bought pigs from another farm that didn’t know about electric fence. The pigs had never been introduced to this strange, modern invention. They also weren’t used to their new owners or their new home, so you can imagine, they were rather nervous.

When the farmer put the pigs into their new Pig Paddock surrounded by electric fence, the pigs began to run as fast as they could. And pigs are very fast—they can run as fast as a dog!

Those pigs ran as fast as lightning right through that brand new electric fence! The farmer’s jaw dropped as he watched in the quickly approaching dusk a whole parade of little sparks in the dark as each pig pushed his way right through the fence.

The farmer had done all kinds of preparation, but there was one thing he forgot to prepare, and that was the pigs’ understanding of how to stay inside an electric fence!

Epilogue: This is based on real events, but the story was simplified to better mesh with Sticker Story. There is a “right way” to train pigs to electric fence, and it’s a lesson they’ll never forget! It is to set up the electric fence just inside of a permanent fence so that the pigs begin to associate the electric fence with a physical, real barrier. It is much like training a dog to a radio fence using flags. You only make this mistake once, because it took hours to catch all those pigs again, but Farmer Matt did it with help from a friend.

Back to This Month’s Sticker Story