Goats have previously escaped from Mr Armiger’s farm, according to Mr Smerdon, but the first pigs did not get loose until August, when five had to be rescued after straying on to the main road in the village.
Only in the past two weeks have they started digging up lawns, but villager Colin Williams, whose garden has been targeted four times, said they had already caused more than £1,000 of damage.
Mr Williams, who set up a CCTV system to record the pigs’ visits, said: “We came here to live in this lovely village but now the first thing you see when you cross the railway is mullered grass.
“Our garden is no longer a garden. It now looks like the Battle of the Somme.”
The worst offender, he said, was a large mottled pig that had visited his garden several times.
“We just want this to stop”, he said.
Pigs, like other animals, do learn. Also, like other animals, they only pass on their learnings thourgh direct demonstration. They have no libraries of past findings that new generations can catch up upon.
So, round up those who know how to escpae, know the way to the garden in question, and turn them into bacon. That’s the cure. Obviously.
Mullered.
Not seen that word for yonks.
That’s the cure.
If you weren’t the host we’d be offering you your coat for that pun 😉
I know, I know, just came to me as a flash in the pan that one. Can’t slice or dice it any other way. Been smoked out….
“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” – Winston Churchill
I agree with Winston btw. Not sure why people think pigs are dirty animals, they’re as friendly as dogs and more intelligent. I always say hello to the pigs when I’m passing the farm, and they always run to greet me. Because they know their own, I suppose.
You couldn’t be sure which pigs had the knowledge, so you’d have to slaughter the lot. Also, pigs are smart: if a pig knows that another pig has escaped from a pen or got double-rations from the hopper but doesn’t know how, it will try to work it out.
“Rather than being a one-off incident, the swine have escaped roughly 10 times…”
OK, but there’s no need to be offensive.
“We came here to live in this lovely village but now the first thing you see when you cross the railway is mullered grass.”
City boy moves to country & doesn’t like it.
Rural is an industrial complex produces food. How long is it since villages actually had gardens? Doubt they date back to more than WW2. Gardens are decorative & farming people don’t do decorative.
What our host says…
It’s : “Fix your bloody fence already, or we’ll be having Pork!” that works a treat.
Not that the wet towel that is complaining in the article would know how to deal with a pig to begin with, but….
I hate to be a boar, but how are you going to kill a stray pig?
When you look into Oinky’s beautiful eyes, you won’t have the heart to kill him with a shovel.
“Pigs treat us as equals.”
But some are more equal than others.
@Steve That’s because you don’t use a shovel. You use a proper axe. Should be readily available in a rural area…
Although I don’t wish to encourage the free ranging vibrancy to help themselves to any more goats/sheep for pleasure or food, in this case the law on who owns game fowl should be considered.
AFAIK a pheasant etc belongs to whoever owns the land it is on, no whoever bred & released it.
“City boy moves to country & doesn’t like it.”
I think thats a little unfair. Living in the countryside does not necessarily include having to put up with your lawn being dug up by escaped pigs.
I’d put money on the issue being someone other than the protagonists here, who dislikes the pigs when they are in their proper location, and is trying to get the owner into trouble (and thus force him to give up keeping pigs) by constantly letting them out. A lot of passive aggressive types move out to the country (and coincidentally a lot of ex-public employees, just throwing that out there) and undertake very underhand behaviours to try and get what they want.
Grik – so that’s what I’ve been doing wrong
Ness – AFAIK a pheasant etc belongs to whoever owns the land it is on
Danny, the Champion of the World
Strangest remark by a schoolteacher contest: “I like people with clever little piggy eyes, not large, stupid cow eyes.” My English teacher, ‘Corkie’.
Excellent teacher, mind. And exquisitely tactful when alluding to dirty puns in Shakespeare.
I think thats a little unfair. Living in the countryside does not necessarily include having to put up with your lawn being dug up by escaped pigs.
No doubt true Jim. And I suspect you may be onto something why the pigs are escaping. One suspects someone who’s moved to the “country” but doesn’t like the authentic smell of it.
But also the complainant. No front wall whatsoever. Suburban mindset. I’ve lived in rural France where you have a responsibility to keep livestock out as well as in. You put decent fences or walls up to protect what you don’t want getting to it. I doubt that old house ever had a front garden. It had an area of land in front of it had a use. The Essex village I lived in for a while. The houses in the original village were straight off the street & with a lot they built out to the plot limits. The Vicky era houses had gone up along the main road all had substantial walls at the front & sides where necessary. It’s only recent development you see unfenced gardens.
Electric fence around the garden.
Stops piggy in his tracks, and if the voltage is mains, gets you the main ingredient for a bacon sarnie.
I like pigs. Prefer them to humans,
@Steve The axe is for Business, the shovel is for *after* . There’s a sequence to these things..
Easy to get wrong, like the correct … hold on.. got to be nice…and some words tend to get flagged.. The Barabarian Progression to Conquest. Also know as the Conan Rule, and cause of many a cartoon in the ways you get that particular oder wrong..
“But also the complainant. No front wall whatsoever. Suburban mindset. I’ve lived in rural France where you have a responsibility to keep livestock out as well as in. You put decent fences or walls up to protect what you don’t want getting to it. ”
As I understand it the law in the the Uk (well England anyway) is that its the responsibility of the livestock owner to fence their animals in, rather than the responsibility of the landowner to fence other people’s animals out. That being said I think there are 2 exceptions to this, a) common land, where its the responsibility of the private land owner to fence animals on the common out, and b) the public highway, where the same applies (as I guess historically livestock were herded along public roads and if you didn’t want them coming into your land you had to erect a fence).
So if these pigs are entering the lawn owners property from the highway (which it looks like they are) then its his own fault for having no roadside barriers. If they are coming in directly from private land then he’s not at fault.
That’s the cure Geddit! Very sweet
Grik – a grave business, to be sure.
The complainant should consider himself lucky. I lodged with a friend in his house in Shrewton, Wiltshire and we woke up one morning to find a dozen cows in his back garden eating his vegetables.
Do these places not have legal accommodations for fencing – either you fence to keep in or fence to keep out? Then you can deal with this in court.
Secondly, where I live, you just shoot them.