I have had it with the pigs, stealing my ripe tomatoes crosses the line!
The pigs have been around for months, but the damage had previously been minor. A mother and a litter of piglets caught on camera.
As the piglets grew in size so has the damage. Thus I find myself in the pig trapping business and learning the art of baiting pigs. It is not easy, pigs are wary critters.
The trap comes from a local guy who works for the village association, the result of a few emails to put us in touch. He stopped by a morning later with a very nicely made pig trap. Every few mornings I send him a text with an update, and occasionally a pic of the latest catch.
The first deployments proved unsuccessful. As the trap was hard to move, even somewhat dangerous if loaded with a hundred pounds of angry pig, we set up near the house in an open area with a clear shot to move it.
This did not work, no pigs.
The pigs were coming by, they were checking out the compost pile most nights. They just did not come near the trap, probably too near the house. They do occasionally come between the house, but not routinely.
How do I know? Pig cam! One of the household WiFi security cameras redeployed to monitor the trap. Pig alerts on my phone, midnight movie sessions as the pigs came by.
Some ingenuity was required. This resulted in rigging wheels on the trap using some wheels I had on hand, normally used for moving a large telescope. I bolted these to the trap by means of a some scrap lumber sandwiching the wire. This made the trap into a large wheelbarrow that one person can safely move even when loaded with pig.
This morning I got mama! Actually I got two pigs, one of the kids had led mama into the trap… A two-fer!
She was big, mean, and seriously not happy.
She lunged at the wire, trying to attack me, squealing the whole time. Alerted by the commotion our neighbors came out to watch the removal process, just as happy as I to see the pigs leaving the neighborhood.
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