Pigs

[ONeill]

Any pig men on the board? If anyone keeps pigs are has kept pigs in the past could you pm me. I'd especially like to hear from those who kept pigs 20-30-40-50 years ago.

[The Gs Man]

   Your feckin wired up

[Puckoon]

You may be *just* outside the time frame O'Neill mentioned Sir.

[tyronefan]

thought this tread was about our local Constabulary  

[carribbear]

thought this tread was about our local Constabulary  

RUC PSNI

Is this a word association thread?

[Family guy]

Had an odd aul pig home on manys a drunken nite dont go down that road oneill

[ONeill]

TYP, did you work directly with the pigs?

[comethekingdom]

PIGS
(Portugal  Ireland  Italy  Greece  Spain)  as our European neighbours have branded us!

[Hardy]

You don't keep the pigs. The whole idea is to fatten them up and get rid of them.

[ONeill]

Yes, but this is specifically about the pig that was kept in the house - the one that had no tit to feed from.

[ONeill]

Would you have remembered occasions when the litter was too big for the sow and so some pigs were given away(or maybe eaten by the mother) but the odd one would have been kept by the hearth?

[ONeill]

Does the phrase 'copney' pig or something like that ring a bell regarding the pig in the box?

Yes, the teeth removal, neutering, and hooking before slaughter was barbaric but I suppose normal practice.

[Orior]

Okay, we had pigs until I was about 10.

We kept the pigs in a sty which had access to a garden. I used to practice gymnastics on the pigging pen.

[Puckoon]

O'Neill whats "hooking"?

[ONeill]

Thanks TYP, that's very useful information.

Hooking was a method of getting the doomed pig into position for blattering. The slaughterer would have the pig in question identified. He'd then hit the pig a boot to get it to open its mouth. At that point he'd insert a large hook into its mouth and trail the bugger out, with the end of the hook protruding out of the pig's cheek. Smash and gut.

I'm sure modern methods have changed!