Have you ever had to make a hard decision? Not just what color underwear you will put on in the morning or do you let your kids have cereal for dinner three nights in a row, I mean really hard decisions that you may end up regretting?

Ok, so maybe our decision on the farm wasn’t as hard as considering ordering a “wife” on russianbrides.com (please don’t stop reading in order to look at that site) or quitting your job as a financial planner to be a carnival barker for the Yak Woman,  but it was still a tough decision for us.

We have two sows on our farm that were part of our original group of three. The boys named them. I bred them (facilitated not fathered). We all became attached to them. Each of us knew that one day it would be time for them to make the ultimate sacrifice for our family, but we didn’t see that on the horizon for a while.

Unfortunately, Molly, our Landrace sow, started showing mobility issues during the winter last year. At first, I thought it could just be the side effects of an unnaturally cold winter. We had minus 20 degrees several times and the rough frozen ground made Molly move akwardly like a 400 pound drunk cocktail waitress in high heels.  As warmer weather approached, however, she still didn’t move around as fast as she used to. She didn’t appear to be in pain, nor did she favor a limb when walking, she just moved slowly much like I do after moving 6000 pounds of feed into the barn in 100 pound sacks one at a time by hand (maybe I should be retired).

Molly also failed at breeding last winter. Again, I thought it could have been the side effects of our brutal winter since she missed her first heat cycle (proof she was pregnant) but then went into heat 21 days later after the coldest days of the winter. I tried to breed her again in the spring and she didn’t take at all.

Her demeanor appeared to change as well. She was always a little cranky with the other pigs, but she was a great mom and really cared for her piglets, but lately she just seemed to complain a lot. Not complaining in the sense of throwing feed buckets at me as I passed by, but more of a general whine when she made eye contact with me. It was so consistent that Liam even recorded it so he could make it the most annoying ring tone ever.

Now, I know what you may be thinking, “Maybe she was sick, you moron”. First, my response to that would be, “Why do I have such an aggressive blog audience?” Secondly, she showed no other symptoms of illness. She had no cloudiness in her eyes, she had no unusual discharge, and no loss of appetite. She was like this for almost a full year. With my luck in animal husbandry, if an animal displays any signs of illness on my farm it usually dies right in front of me the same day.

So here we were, at an intersection – a veritable farm fork in the road. Do we butcher one of our matriarchs or do we keep a 611 pound sow that eats quite a bit and won’t produce any litters? Hmmm, I must confess that as I would walk by her lately, I found myself admiring her ample pork belly and swaying hams. She would produce a great deal of tasty, glistening pork products.

We decided to make the obvious choice and schedule her for processing. Interestingly, she knew her time had come as well. We tried several times to get her loaded on the the livestock trailer and she just wouldn’t go. She would even avoid eating just to stay away from the trailer. It’s not like I could just pick her up and toss her in the trailer. I ended up having to construct a corral just for her to coax her into the wagon of death.

Don’t worry, the story has a happy ending. Her daughter is quickly taking her place as a quality sow. They even have the same whine (although Mercy doesn’t do it nearly as much). Her fine genetics and legacy will live on in generations of pork chops. She also fits quite nicely into the freezer now (without whining).

Seriously, she will be missed. Our family was blessed to have her on our farm. The boys even asked me to wake them up early so they could walk down and say goodbye to her while she was in the trailer. So, here’s to good farm animals that bless our lives.