A pig with PMT leads the Great Escape

I briefly mentioned in 2 earlier posts here and here (scroll down this post a bit) that we have a pig who rather suffers with PMT.  Basically when-ever Coco Chanel is is season she gets really bad tempered and the ONLY thing that will ease her grumpiness is some X-rated action with our boar, Boris Johnson.

Coco (left) looking as if butter wouldn't melt ...

On Sunday I noticed she was stomping round the field and guessed it was THAT time again.  Fast forward to Monday morning and at 6am the dogs were uncharacteristically unsettled, hanging round the front door and whimpering.  Simon got up and quickly ascertained the problem - Coco had broken out of her pen and presumably having failed to get in with Boris (thank goodness as it is not the right time for her to get pregnant) was now chomping grass out the front.  Luckily for us, whilst sex may be high on Coco's mind, food comes a close second. One bucket of pig food in hand and she was soon back in her pen and Simon made some hasty pig-proofing repairs.

In the afternoon the two of headed up to Caen and by the time we got back we were greeted with Coco once again in the wrong place.  She had escaped again and having wandered into the ex-goat pen, quick witted Ben who was back from school, had shut the gate.  Another bucket of food was got and she was soon back in her pen.  This time she had really trashed the fence so no quick mend was not going to keep her in until major repairs can be undertaken and for now she is confined to a smaller pen with less grass. 

All was well ... or so we thought ...

I then went to feed the remaining pigs.  Boris was still safe in his pen the piglets were NOWHERE TO BE SEEN.  Not in the veg patch (the first place I checked), not in any of the paddocks, not down with Boris.  NOWHERE.  GONE.  DISAPPEARED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH.  Would this picture be all we would have to remember the piglets by?

Ginger and Toggle - master escape artists

The boys quickly jumped on their bikes to search around whilst Simon and I tried to work out how they had escaped and which way they might have gone.  Damaged fencing close to Boris's pen indicated their escape must have been due to the excitement of Coco once again visiting her sex slave love interest but that meant they should have been on the property which they clearly weren't ... which was when we saw that the gate onto the front drive was open.  At that point there may well have been some rude words uttered as this meant they could get out to everywhere and anywhere.  Determined obviously to track them down some Sherlock Holmes style sleuthing revealed a fresh dollop of pig poo on the edge of our neighbouring field that is currently thigh high in long grass.  But if they were in there we could be for ever trying to find them even if they were still in there. Frankly Lenault and beyond could well become their playground.

We called.

We rattled pig food.

We listened.

Nothing.

We called again.

We rattled pig food again.

We listened again.

 ... and then all of a sudden we heard a clatter of activity on the front drive and 2 piglets were being herded along by Tom at full speed (piglets are surprisingly fast).  He had found them coming out of the field on the far side and they had chosen to head back this way.  Once again we were grateful for their greediness which meant they followed a bucket of food I had and were soon banged up in temporary barn quarters until we can fix the fencing tomorrow.

So in summary all I can say is Thank You Coco - your desire to make babies has caused us all sorts of headaches, extra work and stress wondering if Toggle and Ginger might well turn into the Kune Kune equivalent of the Tamworth Two.  I am also hoping the farmer doesn't notice that some of the grass in the field I know he is planning to cut for silage this week is a bit trampled in places, by 2 humans and 2 piglets in what might well be described as the remake of that famous film, The Great Escape.

For other great animal blog posts click on the Animal Tales picture below and scroll down to find links to other stories.