On Sunday - these two made a break for freedom.

(Billie at least has the decency to be hiding around the corner.. she knows she's in trouble!)

They pushed their way under the main fence around their paddock (which has held them now for over 12 months) and ran for the Nature Reserve over the road. Over the Road. The main highway at the front of our place. How they didn't end up causing an accident doesn't bear thinking about. How they didn't end up shot as feral pigs was just a matter of luck (they went up to one of the local farmers for a pat which made him realise they probably were somebody's animals - and not just ferals.....)  Anyway after a very tense evening driving around the Nature Reserve with the spotlight, we couldn't find them anywhere - although we could see where they had been in places.

Came home very dispirited and worried - but 10 minutes later the bloke was yelling - he was out shutting duck yard doors and things left in chaos when we went hunting, and 2 little pigs came home down the driveway, looking for their dinner, doing their "who me... routine". Needless to say - they have been in a secure lockdown since then, and we've now gone to Pig Pentridge as Plan B.

This construction has gone up in the main paddock, near the alpaca feeding yards, and the main duck dam so they are in a location where they can be closely monitored.

Of course getting them in there has been a bit of an project in its own right, but as any pig owner will tell you a Pig will only ever do what it wants to do, unless you have food in your hand. We're currently taking them home to their secure yard and house every night until we're feeling a little more confident... but the idea of this pen is that it will have another one attached to it at some stage, and we'll "snake" them along through the paddock doing their ploughing job - which is what they are here for anyway.

This morning's transfer (undertaken in a bit of rain - so there's now an house in there as well) went smoothly ... there's nothing like a bucket of food to concentrate a pig's attention, and luckily I reckon these two would follow you off the edge of a cliff as long as you had their food bucket in your hand at the time.

Looking forward to catching up with the local farmer that came across them in the Reserve though - I'd imagine he was a tad surprised when they wandered up to him for a scratch behind the ears.....