water trough

[paul_j]

Good picture/good memory Frank. Pigs like that one make real good pets.

In the late 60's I worked with a guy from Union County, Illinois. The first morning that I dropped by Corky's house to pick him up, a 300-pound Yorkshire sow walked out the front door of his house with him. He said that she had been a runt and that his kids had bottle fed her into a pet. That evening she was lying on the porch waiting for him to come home and she jumped up and ran grunting out to the truck when she saw him. Corky swore that she was housebroke, but I'd been around a lot of hogs, and I was skeptical. Whenever I put a new batch of feeder pigs in a fattening pen I would dump a 5 gallon bucket of water where I wanted them to do their "business". I cleaned the concrete floor with a flat shovel every evening, so I wanted the manure close to the fence to make my job easier. But housebroke??? I just smiled and nodded and let it go, ha.

[Frank S]

After just a couple of months it was plain to see that the pig was not only going to live but thrive. We hauled it up to my uncle's place which was a couple miles from where my grandpa was in the process of purchasing a farm. We left it with my older cousins who raised it and entered it in the 4H program I have no recollection of how it did in competitions but I do know he grew into a 600+ lb boar that was bread to many sows over the years there were probably over 300 pigs born from his seed. Not bad for a penny pig that probably would have died before getting old enough to wean

[paul_j]

Good hog story Frank!

My two sons had FFA and 4H hogs. Most memorable were two Yorkshire sows (sisters) that consistently raised 25 pigs between them from each farrowing. Those two sows were as gentle as a feather. Each would birth 12 - 13 pigs and save them all. The boys won a lot of first place ribbons with those two girls. My average when I had brood sows was 6 surviving pigs - sometimes 8, but never more. The boys treated their FFA sows like they were family, and they responded well to the special treatment.

I have a lot of good memories of raising hogs. Enough time has passed that the bad memories (and there were many) have faded. Life is good - the good memories outweigh the bad memories as we get older, thank God.

[mwmkravchenko]

A determined little guy! Amazing that you have this pic Frank!

[Frank S]

A determined little guy! Amazing that you have this pic Frank!

More than you can imagine. Had it not been for my younger sister shepherding all of the family pictures after our mother passed away while I was in Kuwait. then asking her oldest grandson to scan everyone and save them to a box full of CDs which have now been saved to DVDs and thumb drives and on probably 2 dozen family computer drives, I wouldn't have it.

[neilg4dbn]

That looks almost pig-proof! I used to breed pedigree Berkshires and Gloucester Old Spots back in the 90s. I installed drinking nipples on mains water after the third week of clearing out their water trough. I miss those pigs, especially Tulip, the matriarch of the herd, who lived to a grand old age

[Frank S]

That looks almost pig-proof! I used to breed pedigree Berkshires and Gloucester Old Spots back in the 90s. I installed drinking nipples on mains water after the third week of clearing out their water trough. I miss those pigs, especially Tulip, the matriarch of the herd, who lived to a grand old age

I'm not sure anything is completely pig proof not even larger pigs from smaller pigs.