Looking for Pigs on a Lime Green Bicycle

The new pigs are total escape artists.

For a while we had them in an electrified poultry netting enclosure. That kept them in fine, but as they are growing, we are wanting to get them into a bigger space. We moved them to the old happy pig land, which is now overgrown with delicious weeds and grass. We started with a single hot wire. Then it was two. Now, as I type this, Christian is adding a third. These two dorks are masters of the breakout.

Last night I knew they were out, but I decided to let them run around for a little bit while I got ready for chores. Bad idea. Two minutes later, C and I were scouring every inch of the front acreage with no sign of the little hams. For the second time in my life, I swung a leg over my lime green bicycle, rang the bell and pedaled off looking for runaway pigs.

The last time I did this, it was the first two pigs - and they were big. They also never left the barn yard - they were hiding under the trailer.

This time I didn't go as far up and down the road looking, but again -- I looked pretty silly. And found nothing. A magenta haired woman, pedaling what looks to be PeeWee Herman's bike, yelling "Heeeeere pig pig piggies" can appear, to the uninformed, bat-sh*t insane.

I came back, we looked all over again and then Christian took a tour on the bike. A man on that bike looks every bit as weird as I do. The bike is just too rad for a farm. ;)

Anyway, we finally decided they would have to come home on their own, as we had chores to do. Two seconds later we saw them in the neighbor's pasture. They had gone 100 yards down the street, crawled under his gate and were just cruising his fields.

After unsuccessfully trying to get them under the fence in the one spot where there is a small gap, C had to hop the fence with a bucket and lead them home with the promise of whey. Luckily they will do almost anything for food. (This photo is from an earlier bucket-leading. They are about twice as big now.)

He got them out of Tom's field, through his front gate, down the street and back all the way to our driveway when girl pig really started to wilt. Its hot out - and pigs don't do heat well. She looked pathetic. I urged her to come a few hundred feet more and she was rewarded for her efforts by the duck pool, just inside the barn yard. Both pigs collapsed into the little plastic baby pool and just tried not to die of heat stroke. We laughed so hard we almost cried. Stupid cute. Then we took them back to their pasture.

We hoped the near death experience would make them think twice about trying to escape again. It didn't. Now we hope a third strand of hot wire will do the job.