Pig Hauling... Lester the boar goes home!!

The Travelall with it's International pickup bed trailer we use for everything.

Lester the boar pig is in a crate in the back in this picture.

Our 3 girls in the crate while poor Lester, who is supposed to be in it, tries to get in!!

All 3 of our girls fit no problem but only one would have fit with Lester!! He's a big pig!!

Lester beside one of our 'girls'. He weighs in at 550lbs and makes her look small. She's over 200lbs. Probably closer to 250lbs.

Papa and Lester (who didn't have a name until he got home and his owners wife told us what she named him.) He is a great pet pig and super friendly and loves a good scratch.

Lester's owner only has Sundays off these days as log truck driving is a 6 day a week while you can get it job up here. So we made plans to drop Lester off one Sunday afternoon.. if we could get him in the trailer. Hungry pigs are better movers then full pigs so Lester and our girls went without Saturday in hopes that we could convince him to climb up into the trailer. As you can see from the pictures that was not a problem. It went really smooth. In fact the biggest problem we faced was to get our girls OUT of the crate so Mr. Lester could get in. Papa pushed and prodded and slapped a few noses and finally they did get out of the crate and Lester got in!! It was amusing to watch. Those girls of ours REALLY thought that crate was REALLY SOMETHING!!!

When we told the kids what they had done J said 'while maybe they can go for a ride some day." Not at all likely and after I explained to him that they were going to stay forever on our farm first with their babies and then in our freezer he understood and felt sorry for them. They did get to ride in the travelall when we got them and that's the only ride they get! (This fact helped J to feel much better :)

On our way to Lester's home we stopped for fuel at our local stop and a lady in a car next to us had a bit of a scare. She saw the big black thing in the crate on the trailer and told Papa "I thought it was a BEAR!!" Black pigs are quite rare around here still.

Well we got to Lester's home place with no troubles and after finding out where to drop him off Papa backed the trailer in and got ready to unload him. How we unloaded him when we got him was simple. Drop the hitch off the travelall and jack the front of the trailer up and open the back of the crate. The crate is held down with a strap and stays in the trailer. Worked great. So instead of getting a tractor to pick up the crate and then unloading the pig and then reloading the crate we figured we would do what we did at home.

At our place Lester had a bit of a problem going backwards down the tailgate into the pen but with 3 girls encouraging him he figured it out in about 2 minutes. When we brought him home they wanted him in a boar pen, alone, out quite a way away from his women and their new piglets. He wasn't too keen on it. It took 3 guys, 2 poles (to go thru the crate so he couldn't go forward), a bucket of grain, and about 10 minutes of 'fuss' before they got him out. Papa was at one point IN the crate with him and at the end had a hold of Lester's back leg and helped to PULL him out!! Lester was NOT impressed!! But as soon as his head was out he stuck it in a pile of grain and promptly forgot why he was mad!! What a great pig!!

After the fuss getting him out we all headed inside for coffee and a visit. The kids had a great time reading books with the teenage girls of a friend who happened to be visiting Lester's owners when we got there and we all enjoyed a nice visit, coffee and goodies before packing up and heading to drop the crate off and my uncle Joe's place.

When we got there Uncle Joe came out and helped Papa unload the pig crate (but not without getting his Sunday pants dirty.) then he and I walked over to see his pigs and feed them before we headed to the house for more coffee and another great visit with him and his wife.. Tanta Susan. Hours, and faspa, later we headed home with a great feeling of friends and family. But the day wasn't done yet.

We were now pulling an empty trailer so we stopped off at our grain pickup place and picked up a mini bag of pig grain. Thankfully they have a self serve system and we were able to load it at 11pm with out any problems. R sang at the top of her lungs all the whole way home, happy as a lark and no one even fell asleep even though it was quarter to 12 when they finally climbed into bed.