Sauweide - Geschichten_en_v3

The Pigs’ Meadow

As did most small farms in Bavaria, we kept pigs in addition to our other livestock. Our pig herd usually consisted of two or three fat breeding sows, a yellow tusked, mean tempered old boar whose only job was to sire future generations, two or three sows or hogs raised annually to be butchered for our table or for those of relatives, and eight to fourteen squealing little piglets. The piglets were usually sold at about eight to ten weeks after birth, weighing about 20 pounds. Most of the time, each pig lived in its own small wooden pen where it slept on straw.

Behind the barn was a well fenced area which we called "The Pigs’ Meadow". Once or twice a week the pigs were herded into this "meadow" to wallow. But there was really no need to herd or encourage them. They knew where they were going, and ran to their playground in a Schweinsgalopp (pig’s gallop) ahead of the farm hand for their weekly fun. But – a meadow it was not! It was a mud hole; nothing but mud and bare ground. Not a bit of grass or anything green. They loved to dig and play in the mud, and dig they did! Some of their trenches were six feet wide and a couple of feet deep. After digging they rolled in the mud, and after rolling, they slept in the mud or on the dry, dusty, soil. It was pure pigs’ bliss!

Unfortunately, while the pigs were allowed to relax in the mud, it was my job each Saturday morning to help my grandfather muck out their empty pens. What a terrible job! The odor was terrible, utterly unbearable. Even worse, when I was finished, I stunk as if I had bathed in pig manure! To me, this was the worst job on the farm.

I also had to help my grandfather feed the pigs. The difficulty in this job was that while all the pigs ate a common feed of healthy, organic, meal processed in the mixer, each also had its own individual feed bucket, in which was prepared its own particular food items of preference. Each morning and evening, as their feed was being readied, their keen hearing picked up the rattling of their buckets being wheeled in the cart from the "pigs’ kitchen" across the yard to their pens in the pigsty. What uproar, what a commotion, ensued! Standing upon hind legs, they peered over their enclosures demanding to be fed. Their oinks, grunts, roars, squeals, snarls and snorts were so loud that you could not hear yourself speak. And yet, as soon as the pails were dumped into their troughs, all was calm, except for a very happy and contented slurping and smacking. They loved their food!


Written down on Oct. 12, 2012 by Johann Wiesheu (*1965), Munich
Translation by Johann Wiesheu and Richard Kramer

e21050_WJ_Pigs_Meadow_en_03Jun14_trajar