Big October Homestead LLC

Little Bo Peep was right.

Well, sort of.

That whole part about "leave them alone and they'll come home" is partially true. These 7 hogs went missing between Sunday night and Monday afternoon. They thought we didn't already have enough to do, so they busted out of their paddocks and high tailed it into hundreds of acres of woods behind the farm.

I spent hours out there yesterday looking, saw them briefly last night at dusk, but they ran some more. We came home defeated, worried that all our pork chops had run away for good. But we couldn't just "leave them alone" as the poem goes. Our family and lots of customers are depending on this pork, and we didn't want them getting into surrounding crop lands or into the road, so we had to keep going.

Todd, bless his heart, took off from work and was out at the farm before dawn today. He spent the whole day in the woods looking, driving along hunting paths, calling hogs, with no sight or sound of them. So, he turned to YouTube and found a simple DIY hog trap and got to work. With a few hog panels, some t-posts, a bag of corn, and a lot of prayers, he put this thing together and headed back to the farm to wait.

I came over with reinforcements (our lil farm helpers), a shovel, and some snacks and kept hoping for the best. Things were kind of at a stand still, so I went back up to the house to work on a few admin things.

Then he sent this picture. He'd gone back down through the woods to adjust something on the trap and ALL 7 of those hogs were circling around it trying to get to the corn. Ollie helped get them into it and we've gotten the 4 little ones back to the farm and locked them up tight. The 3 bigguns will spend the night in the trap and get moved later.

We are so thankful for everybody that has been praying for these silly pigs and everyone far and wide that has been willing to help. We've had people as far as Jacksonville, NC, up in Warren county, Vance county, all across Franklin county, FC deputies, FC animal control, neighbors, and family that we appreciate so much!

We are praising the Lord that all our bacon has returned and that at least part of Bo Peep's poem was correct! We couldn't leave them alone, but are happy that they came home (tired as we may be)! 🐖