August42009
R.I.P., Curly
Last night, one of our neighbors, a real old-timer, paid us a visit after dinner. He and the farmer and I took a walk over by the pig run.
“Where’s the third one?” asked the old-timer. The farmer’s little boy had named the three pigs Larry, Moe and Curly.
“Well, you know how you always said you can’t make a pig sick?” said the farmer. “I found a way.”
Normally, pigs literally eat like pigs. No matter what you give them, they’ll eat it and be fine—vegetables, fruit, bread, chips, raw meat, cooked meat, fish, eggs, cheese. As the farmer put it, they eat a lot like us. But about a week ago we noticed the smallest pig, Curly, wouldn’t eat. Soon we could see his haunches. After a few days he spent most of his time lying on the ground, panting. The farmer tried to revive him, feeding him gatorade and milk, separating him from the other pigs—who normally bullied him away from the food—but nothing worked. The farmer debated whether to call a vet. We couldn’t let the pig die, because then we wouldn’t be able to kill him. But since a visit from a vet would cost more than the pig did when the farmer bought him in the fall, he decided it wasn’t worth it. Curly would have to determine his own fate. On Friday morning when I went to feed the pigs I found him dead. I wanted to take a picture but it was pouring rain. We tossed his body in the woods. By last night the bugs and vultures had probably taken care of it.
“How’d you make him sick?” the old-timer asked the farmer.
“One day I caught a catfish,” he said , “and after I cleaned it I threw everything in the pig run. The other two pigs didn’t touch the stuff, but Curly ate it right up. And you know how catfish have those barbs on their head? Well he ate that too. And I bet that injured his stomach. So when he tried to eat anything after that it hurt him. After that he just stopped eating.”
“That’s too bad,” said the old-timer.
“Yeah, especially since I’m taking the other two to the butcher this week.”
I guess even pigs should think about where their food comes from.
