One Way to Avoid the Butcher

Well.....I lied.

I spread the word to all my customers that early fall would be the time to order your pork for the winter because we had two last giant gilts (females) headed into the Oakland butcher.

This morning, when doing chores, Simon stumbled upon these:

I'm in Maine so I can't confirm, but I'm told she gave birth to 10, but only 6 are alive.  Every picture I have seen shows 5. Maybe they're counting one twice.  I do that with my kids all the time...."Why do I keep counting 17???"

Now THAT is one way to avoid going to the butcher.  Oldest trick in the book!!

Many of you know I have been PUSHING Joel to butcher these pigs.  It had gotten to this point:

"Hi, Honey, how was your day?  Butcher the pigs."

"What time do you want dinner...before or after you butcher the pigs?"

"It's raining...a perfect time to butcher the pigs."

"It's clear and sunny...a perfect time to butcher the pigs."

"The Oakland butcher called.  He wants you to butcher the pigs."

"Your MOTHER called.  She wants you to butcher the pigs."

Why the persistence?  Well, besides having a naturally nagging personality, I run the finances and once pigs reach optimal weight, they are worth WAY more money dead than alive.

Why the "dragging of feet?"  He really loves his pigs.  He constantly plays this card:

"Honey, we can't butcher THAT one, I think she's pregnant.  THAT one is also pregnant.  There's a pretty good chance THAT last one is also pregnant."

Ugh.  My weak spot.  My answer...butcher the boar (male).  We did.  Not soon enough!!!

Here's what I'm SURE you don't know.  NOBODY ever knows if a gilt is pregnant.  I've read every blog with pig and pregnancy in the title and they all swear it's a "wait and see" game.  It takes 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days gestation for a batch of piglets.  

Meet Farmer Chunk:

Chunk says he can tell--and I quote:

"There's this pointy thing in a pigs bottom.  Right under the tail.  If it points up, she's pregnant.  If it points down, she's not pregnant. If it is in the middle, she hasn't decided yet."

He called it on this one.  

This shows 5 of the 6....see??

People told us from the beginning to NOT name the animals we intend to eat. Hard on the kids.  We solved that in our own style...we label the pigs with names of people we don't like!!  HA!!!  Yes, I take requests without asking any questions as long as the name isn't Kathy or Joel.

If you are worried about getting that last batch of pork from my one remaining gilt, Chunk, the swineOB, has visited the pigpen:

"The remaining sow", he reports, "is in the "undecided" position."

Good as gold.