Pig Lure = Pizza Rolls

Pizza rolls: the best kept secret in wooing a piggie back into its pen. Who knew? Seriously works though! My hubby and I decided that we'd try our hand at raising our own meat (other than chickens), so we set about learning of pigs. They seemed small enough and easy enough to try as novices. He asked around at the county fair in the swine building. We were not interested in the full-grown show pigs but figured the "pig people" would know where to obtain babies. Sure enough one of the teenagers gave a call home to his dad right there at the fair and we came home with a date of when to pick up our 3 little pigs. My hubby put them in the barn at first. They were still relatively easy to handle while they were little. We later moved them to the spot of the yard that I wanted to turn into my garden and we used them as little rototillers. That worked beautifully! They did in about a week what we would've had to rent expensive equipment to do for this particular patch of ground. We didn't use electric fence to keep them in; just a roll of fencing attached to posts all around. It worked - for awhile! The piggies got big and got VERY interested in the world outside thier pen! They were still young enough at that point to come to my voice when called. They honestly came better than any dog I'd ever had (I'm terrible with dogs mind you!). I hollered out "Here piggy piggies" and they ran right to me grunting happily. That didn't last terribly long, however. We came home one afternoon to a note on our door from a neighbor saying to call him ASAP regarding the pigs. We went out back to their yard and saw only one. We then heard a strange noise from the barn. We called the number and discovered that the 3 little pigs had gone all the way down the street to the neighbor's house via the ditch. I think they even crossed the highway. This other house is at least 1/4 mile from ours! A driver on the road had called the sheriff's department. They were about to cite us with a "Pig at large" ticket or some such thing when the neighbor talked them into just helping get the piggies home (thank heaven it was the same neighbor whose dog we'd helped return a number of times!). Anyway, this neighbor said he spent all afternoon with the deputy trying to corral our pigs in the barn. He then gave my husband some contraption to electrify the fence and swore that THAT would keep them in. He didn't make fun of us or anything (well, at least not to our faces!) for doing it "wrong". Hubby tried the contraption. It did NOT work. The very next day we spent at least 7 hours chasing these piggies through the woods. By this time they no longer came to "Here piggie piggie"! I even rode our 4 wheeler up and down the street 6 months pregnant calling for them at one point! (that doesn't work either!) In exasperation we began pulling items our of our cupboards and freezer that might help lure them into their pen. Apples and potatoes didn't work, various breads and crackers didn't work. Their feed corn was absolutely useless now that they'd been foraging all morning through the woods behind our house. Finally, we tried the pizza rolls, BINGO! They LOVED them! We finally got them all back to where they belonged and eventually boarded them up in the barn to spend the rest of their days until we could haul them to the meat market. Go figure; pigs love pizza rolls! Just don't tell them they were pepperoni!