A tale of many buckets and a cannibal

Well, I've made it through the first week and I'm still in one piece, although a bit exhausted. I was going to run through a typical day's chores but every day is different, the only constant being the feeding of the pigs every morning. David, the German student, sort of showed me what we did on Monday although he shrugged his shoulders quite a bit if I asked a question!


The pigs are fed on watered down cider sludge mixed with barley meal and from what I could gather from David it works out at one bucketful per 2 pigs (roughly). The sow with the litter has pig nuts (a concentrate in pellet form) and barley meal mixed with water. If you can imagine the layout of the yard, the cider sludge is kept in big blue barrels close to the cottage and the water tap and container of barley meal are about 20 yards further away. Firstly, the cider sludge is decanted into each bucket until they are about half full and then they are carried down the yard to the tap where they are topped up to about two thirds with water and then one and a half scoops of barley meal are added and the whole lot stirred with a spade. The full buckets are then carried back through the yard, past the cottage, across the driveway, through the entrance gates and down the lane (a distance of approximately 150 yards). Then they are carried uphill across the sheep field to the pig paddock (a distance of a further 50 yards or so) where 9 very hungry 'ciderheads' have been watching your laborious approach with growing excitement. You then have to lift the full buckets to the height of the top of the stock fencing (which has a strand of barbed wire across it) and tip the mixture into the metal pig trough. If pigs would only stand back and let you do this the job would be tricky enough, but when you have 9 very hungry cider addicts pushing against the fence, standing in the trough and trying to get at the food whilst it is still in the bucket you begin to see why it is advisable to wear the overalls provided! Bear in mind that there are nine pigs so that is 5 buckets that have to be transported in this way. Once the food has been delivered you then have to top up their water trough from the large water container that is located next to their paddock - 5 buckets is enough to fill it to a suitable depth although I suspect that David only ever put a couple of buckets in each day.

Back in the yard there are two further in-pig gilts (young sows who have been to the boar but have not yet had their first litter) in a shed and two smaller pigs in another shed. These also have a bucket of cider plus meal between each shed, and then fresh water too.

By the time we had finished this performance it had taken an hour, my arm, shoulder and back muscles were screaming and I just wanted to go and have a long cold drink and a lie down, but no, now we have to water the newly planted trees and shrubs on the bank by the house - more buckets of water to carry, this time from the tap outside the cottage.

On Monday, I was given the task of wild flower seed planting down the driveway, which involved digging out little pockets in the bank, putting in some compost, sprinkling on the seeds and then watering them with........yes, more buckets of water carried from the cottage! At 10.30 we were taken down to breakfast which was a large cooked breakfast, fruit juice, tea and toast and very welcome it was, too. I had already had a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea before we started work, which was just as well.

On Tuesday morning mother pig had decided to have a little snack during the night and was just polishing off a piglet when Howard arrived to check on them (some of them had seemed unwell and semi-paralysed over the weekend and the vet had suggested a Vitamin E deficiency could cause this so they had all had an injection)! This caused a bit of a flap but David and I left Howard to it and did the rest of the pigs and then David went off to pack his stuff as he is leaving today - was it something I said?

Woke early on Wednesday morning, dreading having to do all the pigs by myself, but then I had a brainwave - if I left the addition of water to the buckets until I got them up to the pig paddock and used the water from the container up there I would only be carrying half the liquid weight! and I could commandeer the wheelbarrow to at least push them along the driveway so the only carrying would be up across the field. I am so glad that I'm the daughter of an engineer - my mind constantly looks at jobs and tries to find a better way of doing them; annoying in the early hours of the morning when you're trying to go back to sleep, but brilliant the rest of the time!
Mother pig was just finishing off a hearty snack of piglet when I got there - luckily there wasn't much left of the carnage apart from a small bloodstain and only 8 piglets. After breakfast I was assigned to the builders in the new cookery school and spent the day oiling oak door frames and helping to lay floor insulation prior to the concrete screed being laid.

On Thursday I went out to feed the sow but felt I needn't really have bothered as she was just finishing her protein fix of the day - and then there were 7! Today I spent on my own down at the pheasant pens putting up three strands of electric fencing around the perimeter to deter foxes, and picking up the blue baler twine that had been criss-crossed across the area to deter the goshawks (unsuccessfully it would seem as they can see it too readily and weave their way through it). I was given the use of the farm truck for the day which was bliss as it meant very little walking up and down hill.

On Friday mother pig was just finishing off piglet number 7 when I got there. I was so fed up that I just opened the door and let her out in the yard while I fed the other pigs. Only three of the remaining piglets can get up the others seem semi-paralysed. Howard called the vet when he saw them and we took them away and put them in another shed close to the cottage leaving mum with the three lively ones. After breakfast I did some gardening down at the old farmhouse until 3.30 when I went back up to see to the little piglets. The vet had been and said it was a virus and gave them penicillin which they have to have for the next three days, so they are being kept away from the others. The trouble is they are only just three weeks old and not weaned so I had to try and get them drinking milk from a little trough. I didn't have much success so mixed a little barley meal with it to make a gruel and lay in the straw with a piglet tucked under my arm spoon-feeding it. The things I do!

Saturday and Sunday are my days off but only after I've fed the pigs so it was with some relief that I counted three piglets with mum, and the three poorly pigs were able to get up and walk about albeit a little bit wobbily, but best of all I got them all feeding out of the trough by themselves!

I will leave you with a little poem:

Ten little piglets lying in a line,
Mum got peckish and then there were nine.

Nine little piglets wondering about their fate
Mum wanted a night-time snack and then there were eight.

Eight little piglets dreaming of piggy heaven
Mum 's stomach rumbled and then there were seven.

Seven little piglets in a bit of a fix
Snap went mum's jaws and then there were six.

Hopefully, there will be no further verses to add to this little ditty!