My Bacon was Lost, but Now She’s Found

On evening chores Saturday night, Bacon never showed up for dinner. I was a little concerned because Bacon always shows up for dinner. She may be slower than the others getting through the forest, but she always makes it to dinner. 

I circled around doing other chores and walked through her paddock twice. I couldn’t find any sign of her, but all of her piglets were present. After they ate their dinner, the entire herd started to settle in to their nest for the night.

When I got back to the house and told Jennie, she was also concerned about one of our favorite sows. So we headed back out to search the paddock. 

After being missing for over two hours, we finally found her with all the other pigs getting snuggled up for bedtime.

My working hypothesis is that she is trying to wean her piglets by avoiding them. She was likely hidden back in some nook in their wallow or thick brush avoiding her kids. What kind of parent would do such a thing? Certainly not Sasquatch.

As you can see, when the weather is nice, the pigs don’t care for shelters. They simply make their beds where they want. In their current paddock, they have two of these nesting spots. All 33 pigs of this herd sleep together in one of the spots each night. They only retreat to the shelters when they need to escape the rain. It looks cozy, but Jennie wouldn’t snuggle up with them for some reason.