Farming Part 2: Pigs

Boisenberries

We started working once we arrived. Laura assigned us neating up the boisenberries. The  twisting branches of the plants were twined around weeds, and we had to straighten them out and tie them to a frame for easier harvesting. We spent that afternoon stabbed by the thorny branches and bitten bloody by flies. (Stephanie advised me to pull the thorns out with my teeth; I never got the hang of this, but trying to bite the thorn hepled because my teeth would depress the skin around the thorn, making it easier to then grasp).

Efficiency

What impressed me about the farm was it’s efficiency. We spent 6 or more hours a day weeding (so much that I have callouses), and all the weeds went to feed the pigs, rabbits, and sheep. The animal’s waste and leftovers from our meals went into compost.

Even our own waste was used. For a bathroom, we had a sort of dry outhouse. After using the toilet, you’d dump woodshavings/sawdust down the hole to trap odors; it was bascially a litter bin for humans.The hole of the toilet emptied into a large metal bin, which Stephanie and I had to empty on our last day. It was a two person task to pull the bin out from under the outhouse and carry it over to the compost pile to dump it. (For some reason human waste always seems grosser than animal waste, though its essentially the same thing).

Pig Food

It had surprised me that pigs could eat grasses, but apparenlty, pigs will eat anything, including each other. When we first arrived we saw one small pig penned off from his fellows. This one was a pig set aside to be killed. The farmers had cut off his gentials because it would sour the meat to kill him while they were still attached. He had to be kept separate for a while because if pigs smell blood on another pig, they will eat him alive.

The genitals and testicles are removed 7 months before killing the pig (they usually kill pigs in winter so the natural cold will help preserve the meat longer). The famer either cuts the genitals off with a knife or fastens an elastic around the genitals and keep it their until they fall off within a few days. Either method sounds intensely painful. (Trying to refer to the pig I accidentally called him “el chancho castigado”, which does not mean “the castrated pig”, but rather “the punished pig”. Laura loved this term).

Escaped Pigs

Sometimes pigs would be lefted in a pen in the fields to eat the weeds and roots there and thus clear the ground for planting. This was actually a dangerous idea, because sometimes the pigs would escape. On my eleventh day at the farm, a piglet got free in the field. Everyone in the field gave chase. I ran over in time to block one path of escape and the pig wheeled around, racing, terrified. Luis was furious and threw a hefty stick at it. He missed, grabbed his stick, and finally closing in on the piglet smacked it in the back until it’s legs gave out. Then Luis kicked it. The piglet tossed it’s mouth open and screamed. Luis grabbed it roughly by the ears,  hoisted it into the air, and carried it back to the pen, where he threw it on its back. For several minutes the piglet still couldn’t stand up. It was horrifying to watch.  

For some reason, loose pigs, unlike loose lambs, are a problem. I think the fear was that it would mess up rows of plants (presumably piglets step harder than lambs), and that it would not return (pigs aren’t exactly loyal to a herd).  Yes, the pig was a threat to their livelihood, but there are other methods of recovery. I’d seen Luis carry another pig back by the arms and legs, not the ears, and they catch large pigs with a collar on a rod that they hook over the pig’s head.

The relationship between a farmer and an animal is intensley disorted by the fact that the animals are meant to be eaten. Pigs are intelligent creatures, and I don’t doubt they could be trained like a dog could. Instead of trying to beat pigs into submission, it occurred to me that Luis could try to train them not to leave the pen. Then I realized that, given that the pigs will be eaten in some years anyway, it’s probably just not worth the effort. When a dog bites, humans try to understand what factors caused this (stress? illness? bad training?) and in some way negotiate with the dog, be it through a punishment-reward system or through removing the stressor. When a pig bites, they just kill it next.

Pigs are Awful

People have tried to tell me that English idioms slight pigs. No, English idioms are right on.  “Being a pig” is a perfect metaphor. Pigs who had just been fed and still had a pile of weeds next to them would try to eat their neighbors food if I placed it too close to the shared wall. Once a little pig even jumped through the gap in a wall to steal food from a bigger one, and pigs paired together to mate would fight for access to the food until one was beaten into submission.