Pig Handling: Improvement Starts with a Change of Mind

By Nancy Lidster

In my previous blog I drew parallels between water and pigs.

The second link in that blog was to a site that describes how pollution… and words, and music… can influence water’s ability to form crystals. Some of you found that pretty far fetched.

Some people think our Low Stress Pig Handling methods – LSPH – are far fetched. That doesn’t surprise me.

LSPH didn’t plop into our laps fully formed. It’s been growing and evolving over a span of 20 years. There were times in the early days of working with the late Bud Williams when his teaching went against everything we’d ever believed about moving pigs. We had to set aside our skepticism to even try his ideas. Often our biggest challenge was being able to stifle old habits and beliefs enough to give Bud’s methods an honest try.

Today I’m going to share an early example of that.

BACKGROUND:

Our second barn had group housed sows and ESF with deep straw bedding and a scrape down gutter. Ear tag transponders were just in the early stages of development and we were using collar transponders. Cleaning and bedding were scheduled for after sows were pulled to farrowing. Fresh straw looks nice on video but it made sows harder to move. When sows were preoccupied with fresh bedding they were more indifferent and less responsive to us.

Historically I expected pigs to move away from me and used my position to either drive pigs in the desired direction or to block pigs from going the wrong way.

In this case: I was trying to see if I could use my position:

1. – to draw a pig’s attention
2. – to let the pig both keep track of me and see where I wanted it to go
3. – NOT using my position to block an escape or drive the pig away.

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