I've posted this before, but it helps to show how I ended up with my view of animals and farming. It's also a good warning about getting pigs because you think they are cute.
It's something to read over coffee.
"I spent a large portion of my youth on a farm owned by an Uncle. I remember being taken around the farm by the farm manager Mr Young, a taciturn man with a shy smile. on the instructions of my Uncle to be shown where I could and couldn’t play. At each animal enclosure we would stop and I would get my instruction.
There were two large sheds in which battery chickens were housed; the smell and the noise were something to be believed. These sheds were surrounded by rough fields and it was in these fields the free range chickens were kept.
Mr Young and I walked through the fields and he would tell me about the cock fights he had seen and which hen laid the most perfect eggs. I can’t recall how many different groups of chickens there were, maybe four or five, each with a cock and a handful of hens. At each group we would stop and Mr Young would tell me a bit of history about the group members. At one particular group we stopped an unusually long distance away and Mr Young took hold of my ear as he had with many earlier warnings of danger and gave my ear a good twist, saying, ‘don’t you be going near that cock boy, he’s mean and he’ll rake you if so much as look at him sideways. Him and me have an arrangement and I’ll get his hens eggs if I’m quick but he don’t take to no strangers.’
Frankly, I had no intention of going anywhere near the cocks in the fields. I had seen them fighting and this particular cock looked as mean and proud as they come.
I asked Mr Young why there were some chickens kept in the sheds and others in the fields.
‘Them hens in that shed ain’t proper chickens boy’ is the answer I got and there was no further elaboration. I watched Mr Young collect the eggs from the free range chickens some days and for a large man he was surprisingly nimble and the mean cock and he were equally wary of each other.
Between the chickens sheds and the river that run through the farm, effectively dividing it in half, the pigs and mink were kept. The pig sty's were occupied by sows kept for breeding. They were built with reinforced concrete, each one having a small run and an enclosed shelter. The doors to each space were constructed from three inch planking with steel sheeting covering both sides. I had watched on a few occasions the farm hands with Mr Young taking the lead removing the piglets from the sows. It took three burly men to handle this task. As soon as the door to the run was approached the sow would appear at the enclosure door; to me then, she looked enormous, dirty and smelly with the meanest eyes that stared at you filled with malice. Nobody opened the gate, all three men stood on the wall at the front of the run and Mr young would jump down into the run. The second Mr Young’s feet touched the ground the sow charged. The speed she managed to attain over such a short distance was astonishing and the shudder as the sow hammered into the steel clad gate as Mr Young leapt to one side could be felt through the concrete wall. This was the moment, and the two men on the wall dived onto the sow who twisted and squealed between their legs as Mr young ran into the enclosure and hurried back out with an arm full of piglets. As Mr Young and I stood at the pig styies my ear got a particularly hard twist and he leant over me, his face a few inches from mine and said ‘don’t you ever go in them stys boy, not even at feeding time. Them sows will knock you down and trample you to death and then eat you for dinner’.
I’ve kept the memory of those days for fifty something years and I left my childhood, and Mr Young, with some distinct memories; Mr Young liked twisting ears to make his point, he loved his free range chickens and respected the cocks and accepted that animals will defend their young, social group and families and that as a farmer it was his responsibility to ensure he didn’t get injured dealing with them."
Thanks for sharing Dave, she's too cute.
) and she came running to me with that wet snout.
They sure are cute tho!
I know what you mean about the pig hair kdog. Old pigs kinda remind me of elephants in a weird sorta way.
I do think they go for way more though. Depends who it is and how reputable they are aha but I haven’t looked into it really much at all but I was shocked when I saw the 4 digit price tag lol 
