We raised our own hogs when I were a sprout.
I was the oldest son so I got to do a lot of the dumb labor, like scooping feed into the feeder, etc.
But when we sold hogs I got paid, and my first big purchase was a Marlin Mountie when I was 10. Think I paid $85 for rifle, scope and sling. Many a jack rabbit made the last mistake of stopping to look at me when he thought he was far enough away😁
Anyway, back to the hogs. I was in school for this, but dad told me the story.
One day we had a truckload of hogs ready to go to market. Slaughter house was 28 miles north but first stop was our butcher, 7 miles away.
Dad backed the truck up to the loading chute and all but one of the hogs went in easily. But there was one that wasn't going.
Dad started poking him and twisting his tail, pushing and shoving 180-pound hog to get him up the chute. Graduated to a bigger stick and whacking gently, then a BIG stick and seriously whacking him. Finally got him up chute.
Got to the butcher and backed into his unloading chute, got in amongst hogs and picked one for our freezer. Got him out and headed to slaughter house, unloaded, got good price for them, came back to see butcher.
Butcher told dad he could pick good hogs -- that one was one of the best carcasses he'd seen in a long time, but something had happened to it's hams, they were so bloodshot and bruised he had to make sausage out of them.
You'd think after all that time working on getting that stubborn hog into the truck he'd have recognized it!
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It sure can be tough to get them to do things they don't want to do.
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Been there & done that. It was a 2 year old Holstein steer and some notknows kid whacked him a couple of times getting him out of the corral and down to the 'hangin tree'. There was a steep learning curve after the butchering was finished.
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