The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Jonah by nature on February 22, 2020, 04:01:09 pm
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Hi, decided to move my girls back into the dryer half of their enclosure after a few days in the stables due to the awful weather. They all follow the bucket like a dream. Large black girls followed me up and through the gate no problem. Now was the turn of my Gloucester girls both followed the bucket to the gate one went in the other refused point blank refused as if the gate area was electrified, which none of my gate entrances are.
I tried every trick I know bribery with food and favourite treat, playing the game if letting her sister out and then in again , covering the area with straw to disguise any perceived danger . 2 hrs later I gave up and she happily trotted back to the stable with me where she remains on her own. ......am I missing a trick ? I’m sure she not too happy on her own but what else do I do?...Help!
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She's got sense! Lol. How old is she? Can you get her back to the gate? If growing pigs and you can get her to the gate, bucket over head and back her in. Need to be quick. Otherwise withhold food. Or make a secure pen at gate area which you can make smaller around her to get her through. Don't you just love animals! :roflanim:
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There is another way. Trick. Call it what you like.
Do you have a bit of spare turbo rope/electric wire rope?
If so. Get two of you to get the sow to the gate and you and the other person stand behind them/her with the rope extended behind her. Slowly walk towards her (trying not to spook her) so she thinks that if she backs up she'll touch the 'electric fence'. She'll stand and think the next move and hopefully she'll move forward over the gate threshold.
We use ropes all the time to guide and move sows/boars. Give them a route to follow and 99% of the time they will follow it (with food as a helper too lol)
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Cheers for the advice guys! I will try them out on Monday ... working all day tomorrow so she’ll have to stay put for now which I feel quite bad about but she’s warm , fed , watered and safe (wifey feeds and does them on Sundays)
Suggestions are better than wifey’s ... smear myself with the new peanut butter Marmite and dance invitingly inside the gate “she either love it or hate it”????????????
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We did it :excited: ... and I didn’t even have to strip off and smear my carcass in peanut butter Marmite :roflanim:..Wifey leading the pack with her fav treat dangled on the end of a stick ... me rattling the feed bucket...and we were in !!. Not sure how but I don’t care...she’s in :excited. I do hope no one was watching else the men in white coats’ll be calling !