i like the sheep well enough, but theyre not overly bright, only a few stand out as individuals and their enthusiasm for acquiring any passing ailment does make it slightly easier to accept their fate…the pigs are entirely the opposite
lively, characterful and very individual in personality, theyre low maintenance, high fun creatures, who, given the space, diet and nosing room they like make the holding something quite different
with the 7 month old boar booked into the abattoir this week, i started wondering whether he couldnt go another while, live a little longer, put on a few pounds more…but just as i was weakening i saw the confirmation i needed…no doubt about it, he was trying to get it on with his sisters
they werent having any of it, but he had to go…a happy, outdoor life reaching its conclusion
getting back from the abattoir this morning, still early, i cant help but feel flat…unlike our first pig, he’d squealed the place down as he strolled out of the trailer into the unloading area, and unlikely as it is, i imagine hes sensing the end, smelling the blood, anticipating the bolt
i walk down past the enclosure and, feeling guilty, i think about apologising to his mother as i throw the sows their breakfast…ludicrous and wrongheadedly sentimental, but this sense of wanting to find another way, or making everything alright when i get back to the farm doesnt seem to lessen no matter that this is the third time ive made that journey
some friends wonder why i dont avoid getting attached to them, or think that i should depersonalise them in some way, make them all ‘pigs’ in general rather than individuals in particular, but thats missing the point i think…it should be tough, i should be grateful for his life and death, and to dodge that is to deny the deal we have struck, and it feels a fraud to go that way