The Arrival of 3 Pigs And A Puppy ....Goes Pear Shaped

On Friday there were 4 new arrivals at Nunnery Farm

Dolyhir Ikkle Elf at Luddenden ("Elf") the Bernese Mountain Dog Puppy
and
3 Mangalitza Piglets (Spanish Woolly pigs)

The journey although long was pretty straight forward without any mishaps and I almost had the job done and dusted when it all started to go wrong.

First of all I lost a piglet ....

Then I lost the puppy!

I backed the van into the area in the drive where I unload animals. I fed the two Saddlebacks so they would be distracted in another part of the field and this meant I would be able to open the gates for the pigs to run straight into the pen from the back of the van without any problem. Two of the piglets did as exactly what they were supposed to do and the other saw a gap under the fence and ran straight through it and joined the sheep in the middle of the field. "Oh Fantastic" I cried ... this is just great!!

Luckily Jean and Nat were on hand to help me capture the piglet. Jean stood guard at the pig gate, Nat started to give chase and I joined in (appropriately dressed in flip flops). Another Nunnery Farm Nightmare was unfolding before my very eyes! Luckily for us Meg was on hand to make matters worse and every time we got within a few feet of the piglet she would appear from behind the shed and charge it so it fled in the opposite direction and further away towards the bottom of the field. Not dissimilar to a scene from Tom and Jerry the pig chasing lasted about 15 minutes before we managed to corner and capture the escaped piglet and get it into the field with the others.

Sweating, stressed and not even nearly amused we walked back to the van to get the puppy out and you can imagine my surprise when I opened the door and couldn't see her - she was gone! We ran round the garden trying to find where she had gone searching high and low, in the chicken shed, under all the bushes, behind the house, I eventually heard a faint cry and ran over to find that she had sniffed out a dead rabbit in the corner of the garden and obviously drawn to it by the awful smell had took a step too many any tumbled into the brambles. She was now completely hidden by the thorny bushes and the nettles! Jean scrambled through the brambles and rescued Elf who was quickly taken indoors and out of harms way!!

A few days on and Elf is a fully fledged member of the Nunnery Farm Pack taking it all in her stride. The piglets are also all settled in to their new home and all seems well ..... for now anyway!