10/27/06 Herding pigs

10/27/06 Herding pigs

Herding Pigs Raising pigs on the ranch provided some unique opportunities. I'm Jeff Keane I'll be back in one minute to talk about herding pigs. My Dad raised his pigs more like he raised his cattle than the way most people would think pigs would be produced. Most hog operations now are confinement oriented, but Dad let his pigs have the run of the ranch. I think it was easier than building hog fences and they really weren't a detriment to the grain crops or the dry land pasture. Now true dyed in the cow hide cattlemen and cowboys might look down their noses at someone who raises pigs, and I can understand that, but when I was growing up, the pigs just gave me another opportunity to ride my horse and roundup what I considered miniature cows. We had pig gathers in the spring to bring the sows into the barn to have their litters, we had gathers to corral the feeders, and we had pig drives to and from the fattening pen. The fat hog drives were always done in the cool of the evening to bring the hogs home to load out the next morning for market. Looking back, I'm pretty impressed the way our horses took to herding pigs, I guess they were used to the hogs, but I think if one of the horses we ride now saw any sized pig, the pig would end up chasing the runaway horse. Two of my good friends also had good pig-herding mountstheir mounts were other pigs. These two brothers used little sticks to guide their riding pigs and could get some pretty good speed out of their porkers. Those boys were the talk of the community. I'm Jeff Keane.
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