Well, it's done.

I woke up this morning with a headache & eyes that looked like a sheep's fanny. I made the big mistake last night of going in to see E & T (can no longer call them by their full names) after a couple of glasses of wine to say goodbye. It was awful, I just couldn't stop crying & felt physically sick at the thought of what I was going to do today. I gave them lots of cuddles & a good brush until Jeff came and rescued me - I think I would have ended up sleeping with them if I'd been left to my own devices...

So this morning, my eyes were puffy & red & I was absolutely dreading Trevor's arrival at 8. With every minute that passed, my heart was beating faster (literally, even though I know that sounds a bit dramatic). When he turned up, I just went into auto-pilot. I didn't think about what we were doing, it was just all hands on deck to try to get these two fairly huge pigs into the back of Trevor's trailer. I thought that not feeding them this morning would've helped, but to be honest it didn't! They came out of their pen ok, but then wanted to sniff & poke at bloody everything in sight. Trevor was behind them trying to push them along a bit faster with a big piece of board & Jeff was at the side of them guiding them in the direction we wanted them to go & I was in front of them with a feed bucket doing my best to get them to follow me. We got them to the foot of the trailer eventually, but getting them up the ramp was not easy. There was quite a bit of protest squealing & grunting & maybe a little bit of swearing but we finally got them up into the trailer. I've no idea how we could've done it any easier - if anyone out there has any tips, they'd be greatly appreciated...

So off Trevor & I went to the abattoir which is only about a 20 minute drive from here. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, although I was a bit put off by the size of the place. It's apparently a 'medium-sized' abattoir and I understand there are no longer any small ones near here, but I'm going to research that a bit more for my next pigs. There were quite a lot of vehicles pulling in at the same time - not huge trucks, but trailers. Nothing actually happened there which made me worry or believe they were going to be treated badly, nothing like that, but because they had a reasonable amount of livestock to deal with, E & T were left in a holding pen & Trevor & I had to leave them there. I was told they would be there an absolute maximum of 30 minutes, but I wasn't that happy as we drove off. They were actually fine - it's a lovely sunny day here & to be honest, I think they were just wondering what all the fuss was about - they happily trotted off up to the pen & were last seen snuffling around, marveling at the new sights & smells. There were no terrible noises coming from inside the building, I just would have rather them go straight in & be dealt with. Of course I know that nobody was mean to them after I left, but there's always a niggling voice telling you otherwise, isn't there? Especially when you're a worrier like I am! As Trevor said though, it's us who put a human perspective on the whole process - those two pigs were absolutely none the wiser about what was going to happen & I do honestly believe that.

I did get a bit teary after I'd seen their fat bums waddling off up the ramp, but I'm fine now, just a bit shell-shocked I suppose.

I'm still a little bit worried that I wont be able to eat their meat, but I'm sure after a couple of days, I'll feel differently. Trevor will have butchered E for us after they get delivered to him tomorrow & I'm going to pick the meat up on Friday from him. He's going to keep T on ice until the wedding party... So, all being well, we might just be having pork for Sunday lunch this weekend. I'll obviously let you know how that all goes!

So, lessons learned from this experience:

- never go in to say goodbye
- don't get so wound up about the whole thing, it's actually not that bad
- before the day of reckoning, get them used to moving from one area to another!

I'm amazed I've managed to do this, but I'm really proud of myself for doing it. Living in a city, I was so far removed from the food chain & never gave any of this stuff a second thought. This is real life and maybe if everyone got a little closer to it in some small way, we wouldn't have so much animal cruelty in the world, all for the sake of our tummies...

I'll have a drink to my two pigs this evening, I hope you'll all join me.

Speak soon.

VP x