A pig in a post from Ashly

Hello! Its Ashly!! For those of you reading this that are not aware, I have been raising a show hog since the end of December 2010. Where? Springville High School (other high schools with the FFA do this as well). Why? The students in the FFA have the opportunity to buy and raise a hog every year, and then take to a stock show to sell.

Raising a hog is a lot of hard work, and it takes dedication. Once every week, I cleaned out 1 of the 7 pig pens that we keep the 48ish hogs in. That includes filling the feeder with buckets of hog chow, shoveling out a ton of poop, and replacing any wet, nasty straw. My hog was really fat and had to be put on a diet during the month of April. That involved feeding him 2 times a day. Once at 7 in the morning, once at 5 in the evening. That added a lot more hours to my time hanging out with pigs. And a ton more complaints from my Mom that I smelled like pigs.


This is my hog. His name is Remmus (Summer backwards :] ). At the time this picture was taken, he weighed about 280 lbs. His ear tag number is 1279. He is a Hampshire. Together, we participated in the 2011 Spanish Fork Stock Show. It was so fun to be there with all of my FFA friends! We pretty much just showed, missed school, and hung out for 3 days!!

Thursday was the market competition and Friday was the showmanship competition. To prepare for competitions, I gave Remmus a bath so that he would look clean, and smell good! I think I got just as wet as he did during all of his baths!

During the market competition, the judge looks at your hogs' muscles, height, fat, length, etc. and decides on a 1st place blue ribbon hog, and a 2nd place red ribbon hog, based on how well the hog looks as far as meat goes. Remmus won a red ribbon in his class!

The showmanship competition is the one that I was excited for. I have worked really hard with Remmus, walking him, and getting to be his friend. He is very obedient, and I managed to somehow get him trained to the point where he would come to me when I whistled and called his name!! My FFA teacher had no clue how I did it! Honestly, neither did I. We didn't win anything though, because another persons' hog bit Remmus, and started a fight. I was a little disappointed because I could see the judge watching me, and following Remmus, but better luck next year!!


On Saturday, I sold Remmus for $500. I paid $300, including him, vaccinations, and feed. I am going to miss him, but.... not his poop. Or cleaning up his poop. Or how funny he smelled.