Day One!

Let me start by mentioning my wife and Dad think I have lost my mind. More than likely I will be placed in some type of counseling before all this is said and done. Unfortunately, the damage is done. I bought the pigs before I had the pen built. It is my simple mathematical formula that always rings true in my head. Buy the stuff before you have a home for it then you HAVE to make a home for it. Now that my mental state has been addressed let's move on to the business at hand.



Rule # 1.
Don't buy anything until you have talked with someone who does this for a living or raises a lot of hogs. They can teach you more in 1 hour than you will learn in a month by yourself. Of course I did the opposite. I went to CO-OP which is my favorite store other than Bass Pro Shop and probably ranks as high as the Bucksnort Adult Book Store on Matt Burton's all time favorite stops on the way home from Mississippi. I decided to go ahead and purchase the hog panels, posts, wire and a few other odds and ends. Steel is not cheap. I walked into the CO-OP and could shit in a thimble. I walked out and could not shit in a 5 gallon bucket. Hog fencing is expensive. For a whopping $450.00 I got a few hog panels, nose rings, pliers for the nose rings, Iodine solution, T posts, wire, and a post driver. I was so disgusted I almost drank the Iodine and impaled myself with a T Post. Leaving CO-OP is a sad moment in every man's life. You just really want one more thing right before you leave.

Now were trucking fellas. I am jolly as Saint Nick on some high octane egg nog and elf porn. We headed over to Patrick's farm to gather some intelligence and buy some more hogs. When we arrived at Pat's place the smell was overwhelming. I mean it fills your nostrils like drowning. As I held down the Coke I drank on the way there I realized that another rule was needed.
Rule #2
Don't put your hog pen within the same county that you live.
With that said we ventured off into the hog park. This place is like Disney for Hogs. He has these big pens with mud holes and ponds for hog lounging. They have feed troughs filled with golden nuggets of corn and water troughs with clean fresh water. I was simply amazed. Pat helped me understand that the hog business is based on losing your ass. You will never make a profit nor will you ever raise your hogs for less than you can buy them at the grocery store. HOWEVER, you will get something better than money. You will provide a great food to your friends and family that is much safer than what is out there today with all the Antibiotics and steroids pumped into animals every day. Leaving Pat's place left me wondering if my Dad and the Ole' Lady were indeed right. Maybe I have lost my mind.

We got the fence up and loaded two piggies into the pen I got from another source I had previously committed to buying before I met Patrick. Somehow I have managed to agree with 4 other people to raise a hog for them as well. I thought if you are going to raise 5 then why not 9. I know your thinking I am slowly slipping into insanity, but think of it in another sense. I now have 4 partners in this damn business that will help me feed, water, and for the most part pay some of the bills. The last being the best because by now I am asshole deep to a tall Indian in hogs. Sunday is a new day. Thank God!