Destructo-Pig

Mama Pig is not on my "nice" list today. She is quite firmly on the "naughty" list for the time being.

Everyday, I let her and the gilts out for some much needed roaming. It is how I keep them from tearing the barn down out of boredom. The girls go foraging all over the yard and Mama Pig has run of the horse pasture...complete with a buffet of horse apples that usually keep her well occupied. Usually after 2 or 3 hours outside, everyone is ready to go back in their pen and take a long snooze.

I don't know if picked the wrong time or she was just in a bad mood, but today Mama Pig only wanted to be out for 20 minutes or so before she asked to come back in (she stands at the front gate and stares at the house between the boards---the message is pretty unmistakeable). So I let her back in her pen.

A few hours later, I go out to let the rest of the pigs in and when I walk past Mama's pen, it looks like a bomb went off. She has dug a hole that is probably 3 feet deep and 4 feet in diameter (our barn floors are dirt). Her rubber mats are folded up, in complete disrray (which if you have ever had to move or handle a 4x6 thick rubber mat, you know that is a feat in and of it self!). All of her straw is covered in dirt and it's just a huge mess. I don't know what got her going but man, did she make a complete job of it.

Needless to say, we have some cleanup and rearranging ahead of us. I am letting her sit in that dirt pile tonight--Pigs are smart, hopefully she will decide that destroying her bed is not worth the fun of digging a giant hole.