HELP stubborn pigs

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allyfichter
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HELP stubborn pigs

Post by allyfichter » Sun Nov 24, 2019 10:46 pm

Hi! This year I have four pigs and 2 out of 4 are just horrible to work with. They are a duroc barrow and a york gilt. Neither of them respond to whips at all and refuse to walk away from their pens. I work hours with these pigs every single day but nothing is helping. I feel as if I’ve tried almost everything. I’ve tried different whips, different feeds, essential oils, vitamins/ supplements and even trails of treats but they both do not respond to whips and have bad attitudes when it comes to walking. My ag teacher’s aren’t sure of what to do because they agree that they are getting worse. I hope y’all could shed some light on my problem! Thank you for your time.

mjw1980
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Re: HELP stubborn pigs

Post by mjw1980 » Wed Dec 04, 2019 3:58 pm

I hope that you have been able to get some results. I would say just open their pens and walk away. Let them come out on their own and explore. Maybe start feeding them some of their meal away from the pen where they have to walk to it.

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Phoenix-Rising
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Re: HELP stubborn pigs

Post by Phoenix-Rising » Sun Mar 29, 2020 6:40 pm

allyfichter wrote:
Sun Nov 24, 2019 10:46 pm
Hi! This year I have four pigs and 2 out of 4 are just horrible to work with. They are a duroc barrow and a york gilt. Neither of them respond to whips at all and refuse to walk away from their pens. I work hours with these pigs every single day but nothing is helping. I feel as if I’ve tried almost everything. I’ve tried different whips, different feeds, essential oils, vitamins/ supplements and even trails of treats but they both do not respond to whips and have bad attitudes when it comes to walking. My ag teacher’s aren’t sure of what to do because they agree that they are getting worse. I hope y’all could shed some light on my problem! Thank you for your time.
I know it is way late to respond... but I will say this...
I have experienced this before (it sucks) and was able to change my gilt with this attitude into my showmanship gilt... she placed 2nd in a big class.
I was super frustrated so one day I just threw down my whip and stomped off to work my other gilt. Well that was the best thing I ever did... she ran around for 15 minutes then I put her away, a hour later I tried again and she was really calm and happy. The other thing that worked with her was mild reward training. Every time I touched her with the whip and she was calm and quite the made a marker noise and gave her a little marshmallow. Finally all I had to do was click my tongue and she would know she was doing a good job. It worked. So maybe let them run their jitters off and teach them that the whip is fun. Also look at your whip work... maybe your too heavy on the whip in that case try walking them with a cane and just use pressure. Then do the same with the whip. Some pigs just can't handle the whip the same others can.
Phoenix__rising :D :mrgreen:

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