The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Sudanpan on July 17, 2011, 06:02:17 pm

Title: Loading
Post by: Sudanpan on July 17, 2011, 06:02:17 pm
It must be me...... (this happened last year as well) D Day is tomorrow am
The girls are EXTREMELY suspicious of the trailer  :o and its proving a bit of a task getting them in!

We've got the ramp as low an incline as poss, the ramp itself is covered in a mat with loads of straw on it.

We've got titbits on the ramp and up in the trailer -  but they just won't venture in  >:(

Luckily I can watch them on CCTV and if they all go in sometime this evening  think I'll just quietly go and shut the door!
Fingers crossed!
Tish
Title: Re: Loading
Post by: robert waddell on July 17, 2011, 06:13:02 pm
if pigs are used to being in a pen or fenced area esp with electric fence it take a good while for them to overcome there fear
ours are used to getting weighed and going in to small areas :farmer:
Title: Re: Loading
Post by: chickenfeed on July 17, 2011, 06:37:49 pm
make sure you straw down the trailer ramp.
Title: Re: Loading
Post by: Collie26 on July 17, 2011, 07:24:42 pm
Where abouts are they in a paddock? Stable?/

Either one, confine them to the trailer area so they have no choise but to go up the ramp we normally help them in with a gate behind them
Title: Re: Loading
Post by: Sudanpan on July 17, 2011, 07:57:37 pm
Well they have spent the last few hours nosing around the ramp but eventually the stomach prevailed  ;D ;D
First of all the most inquisitive of the three finally managed the transition from ramp into the belly of the trailer where I'd put the food in the trough along the back wall.  :pig: The sounds of her scoffing then enticed the next one so I had 2  :pig: :pig: in there and eating  :) , but the 3rd one was plaintively mewling at the bottom of the map - very pathetic sounding! She finally plucked up courage and was rewarded with food in the trough so all good  ;D ;D.  :pig: :pig: :pig:
Now that they have been in and out of the trailer several times under their own steam, without anything nasty happening to them (!) hopefully tomorrow am should be relatively easier.
We situated the trailer at the end of a narrow part of their paddock so that we can close off the area behind.

Thanks for the support  :wave: :wave:
Tish