A Boyfriend for Gertrude

Our Meishan gilt, Gertrude, has been lonely since the rest of her herd left for a better place. She has also been getting very vocal about every 18 days or so. So we went on Craigslist and found an IPP boar for her. (That’s a whole saga in itself).

But first, we had to fix the trailer tire. It popped on our last dump run. Then I had to run to the dump and drop off trash, and get the trailer neatened up and ready. Monday we drove down to Olympia and picked up an IPP boar.

Unfortunately for him, Gertrude is over her desire for male company for the next few weeks. She is glad to see him, but not interested in him knocking her over.

So after brief introductions, I put him in the pen and let her out for a forage. She happily ignored big pig and wandered around delicately eating dandelions for the next few hours.

Big pig cooled off in the tub.

Iris was not pleased to see him in her barn, but she is going to have to deal with it, because she is living on pasture, and he is not right now.

Now in early mornings I am pulling a wheelbarrow load of weeds from the garden. This has a dual purpose. For one thing, it adds an incentive to get the garden weeded. For another, it provides snacks for our guest.

Big pig is an Idaho Pasture Pig. I have never before seen a pig that would turn down feed for a meal of grass, but this guy does it. Since I can’t let a boar this size roam around on our little two acre pasture, not trained to electric netting (though he is trained to electric tape) we are going to have to feed him for the duration of his stay.

Hopefully we will reintroduce them around the first of May, and Gertrude will come into heat around the 7th of May, and then we can get some piglets going, and send big pig back to his owners.

I think from here on out we are going to try buying a boarling about 8 months before we want her to get pregnant, raise him to maturity and let him impregnate her, then slaughter him. So roughly when she has her first litter of piglets, God Willing, we’ll start looking for a little boar piglet.