Frogwell Fings - December 2008 Hi fans, tis Fred here again. There is so much happening down ere on the farm, lots of new births and new stock. One of them yippy yappy terriers has just had seven - they are a cross between Parsons Jack Russell and Sporting Lucas. Mistress has just bought a Sporting Lucas puppy to use as a stud - he is quite cute if you like dogs. I like Titch, she comes up every night with boss and despatches those evil rats that have set up home under my floor. She has this knack of flicking them four foot into the air and then catches them as they come down snapping their necks.
Dave the plumb is coming out next week with his terriers and ferrets - bye bye rats !!!
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Boss sighed with relief over this dog’s litter cuz there’s some sort of crunching going on with his credit and he keeps saying every time there’s a litter of anything “That’s the mortgage paid”.
I do my best. Spot one of my special wives just had seventeen. Boss is babbling about it being in the genes - nonsense I don’t wear any !! I reckon it’s because I’m so handsome that those sows won’t leave me alone and the fact that he makes me a wallow so my doo dahs don’t get too hot and stop me producing wrigglers to fertilise my ladies. |
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There are two more sows due this week - Best Gilt and Stump - so roll on eight weeks and the girls will be back in my pen for some grunty hunty.
I heard boss talking about dogs to a customer buying some of my babies back. In the past, when they first took over the farm, they didn’t have a septic tank, the drains were all in ready and the bathroom in the workers rest room was all connected. Boss had dug a huge hole ready for the tank but his cash had flowed and he was skint. So they started using the system, like a big old fashioned cess pit. Boss covered it with planks and carpet hoping to trap a few burglars - he didn’t trap a burglar.
Instead at midnight, they heard a yelping coming from this disgusting pit –Tess, the original grandmother of all the farms terriers, had chased a rat into this stinking hole and she was stuck. So boss said “oh dear” (Not True), got his marigold gloves on and tried to reach down about four foot to get her out. He was laying down and he finally managed to grab her scruff. He got to his knees but she shook herself spraying him with this disgusting gunge. The shock of this caused him to lurch backwards straight into a shallow freshwater pond.
The air was blue. After hosing off the dog, Boss immersed himself in a Dettol laced bath for three hours - needless to say he said sod the bank balance and within two days the hole was pumped out and a brand new septic tank installed. He was still banned from the matrimonial bed for a further two weeks - evidently missus doesn’t like Dettol !! Boss forgave Tess the next day. How was she to know humans would dig such gigantic dog traps.
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Back to now and Missus is going to be really busy in January. Not only has she got the seven Jack puppies but two of the three Golden Retrievers are going to whelp.
They have got a proper kennel for this with a television, armchairs heaters and her dear friend Penny, a pucker retriever breeder always comes over to help - Keweras Golden Retrievers
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They don’t make this much fuss with us pigs, us British Saddleback pigs just get on with it and, if it’s cold boss rigs up a heat lamp and a creep area.
My wives just do what comes naturally, the nests they make are amazing.
Last time Spot managed to reach a hosepipe through the wire - she entwined a 30 foot length of it into her nest, together with the old carpet boss had put up as a windbreak plus anything else she could find to drag in !!! |
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Boss has sort of invented a new farrowing ark for outside litters. It has one open door at one end and a fitted door the other - he then puts a hurdle inside, about 2ft away from the hinged door and then fits an ad lib feeding hopper to back of the door. The sow can’t get to it so he can start the babies off creep feeding at a really young age. Rightly or wrongly, boss doesn’t buy expensive creep food, he starts them on the sow pellets straight away and touch wood has always had good results. |
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| This system works a treat because all the books say that you should start feeding solid food to piglets as soon as possible and normally, if you just have a plain ark with the sow and litter in it, this is impossible. Boss reckons he is on to a winner but then he is the eternal optimist !!!! |
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Boss is on his campaign trail again this time it’s about food waste - he is even writing to the papers. He read this article that said nationally over 6 billion pounds worth of food is wasted in the UK every year. He reckons this is disgusting as there is a creature (Me and all my pig friends) that would cheaply convert this waste into delicious pork and bacon. He knows that the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in 2001 was blamed on a swill feeder, who did not correctly sterilise the product. But if local authorities became involved, collected the billions of tons of food waste from hospitals and schools wherever and took it to a plant, where the sterilisation takes place, the incinerators to power this would use the paper waste that we are being encouraged to re-cycle. Boss reckons this is true recycling on a grand scale - I reckon this ere swill stuff sounds much tastier than these ere pig nuts I get !!.
(Boss would like to say to all those farmers who lost their herds and flocks in that awful outbreak of 2001 that he is really sorry and he is not being flippant on a very serious subject. But the fact remains that we in the west are living well and actually burying this perfectly good food, when people are starving in Asia and Africa. He reckons we have enough beaurocrats who could make sure this swill process ran smoothly. Finally what the hell are we doing importing meat from countries where foot and mouth is endemic and its better to burn our paper waste here than shipping it to China and then burning it. It’s all a joke !!!)
Most of all that went over my head, you humans are a strange lot but I’m really looking forward to the New Year because I’m going to get a lot more attention. Boss is going into partnership with Dawn and Ashley and I’m going to be surrounded by allsorts of weird and wonderful rare breed pigs from all over the world. I like the sound of this, the more scratches I get behind my ears the better and I’m sure people will come from far and wide to see me my wives and babies because lets face it, I have been on the telly before so I’m no stranger to fame !! Autographs might be a problem but I’m sure Boss will think of something. Anyway, evidently I’m a rare breed so they are going to let everybody come and see us all.
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Evidently they are going to do pig training courses and Boss is going to try to teach people how to keep us properly - that should be funny !!
Boss is going to have to moderate his language when he gets upturned by a pen of hungry porkers when he is knee deep in mud - the air is blue.
They have started already - that Bert has two Tamworth sows in with him, that should keep him amused. I have not been allowed to see them as Boss reckons I will kick off and he is right - I will have that Bert one day !! |
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This is me missus, destressing with a fag cuz she lives with boss (old grumpy). He does mean well !! He treats us pigs good - we have a life of reilly except for the porkers of course - they have a short happy life.
He did bed us all down last night with 2ft of barley straw because it was really freezing - he means well dear old chap !! |
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That’s all from the funny farm this time. Boss won’t type in any more of my words. He says he is busy assembling a whole new range of brilliant poultry house, going on sale next year but I reckon he is in the office with the fire on !! |
