Well yesterday was the day of good news. The farm really seemed to be changing into a bare piece of dirt into something! But, today I have less than exciting news … in fact it is news that I didn’t really want to share. I was at the farm yesterday morning at about 6:30 AM to feed the pigs, then again at about 10:00 AM to show the builder where we want the house, and then we went out as a family at around 7:00 PM to see what progress was done. That was when I noticed that the new boar had escaped…
Apparently he got his snout under the fence and just went at it until he was out. Of course it is probably not the first time a boar has broken out of pen, in fact it isn’t even the first time a boar has gotten out of a Book farm pen (our family has hogs off and on for a long time). So, right away Becca jumped in the truck and I jumped on the tractor to begin the search.
I didn’t have to go far because only about 250 yards from the pen I found him laying in the ditch … dead. Becca drove up and down the road for about 30 minutes looking for any sign that he was hit, but didn’t find anything. I followed his tracks up the ditch to the point where he went in (it is about a 6 foot drop at about a 60-70 degree angle), but couldn’t find many tracks through the pasture because the ground was pretty hard.
The first thought is that he got hit, but I couldn’t find any sign of that on the road (no blood, no hoof prints, no breaking marks, nothing). After that I guess there could have been any number of things, but by the time we found him and got him out of the ditch it was so late that I didn’t think we could get him posted and it would be too late today. It really looks like he just laid down and died … maybe?
This certainly is a learning experience and something that I will have to keep with me for the future, but it is also part of living on the farm. I will learn from it and move on…
That’s terrible — I’m sorry for your loss.
Wow. I can only imagine what a bummer this is for you and your family. Is there any chance that he could have fallen down that slope and broken his neck? On the bright side, consider if he was ill or had a congenital defect (such as a deformed heart). At least now he won’t be passing that on to any more of your pigs. In any case – sorry to hear that!