Last fall I was hauling horses in a long goose neck trailer. I was going from the Quarter Horses Congress in Columbus, Ohio to a small town in Texas called Needmore.

I have a CB radio in my truck and I was talking with other's to pass the time. It was pretty much un-eventful. That is untill I got to Oklahoma.

Interstate 44 was closed due to a bad accident. I was able to get off before I got close to the accident. I sure was glad to have had that CB in my truck, other wise I might have sat in a major back up, man that would suck.

I looked at my map and thought I had it all figured out, so off I went. I got to this little town called Chelsee and here the road was under construction the detour sign's were up, so I followed them. Let me tell you it did'nt take me long and I realized I was lost. However being the male that I am I wouldn't conseed to my wife that this was the case. I kept driving, this road had to go somewhere.

The road kept getting narrower and narrower, then it turns into gravel. Great I'm thinking, I'll get out here and find I can't turn around. I come around a bend and a whole heard of pigs run out in front of me, I tried to miss them but I ended up hitting one. I stopped and this sow was dragging herself by her front two legs. She was a squealing. I looked around and seen no fences or farms or anything. My wife says your gonna have to put the pig out of her misery, We didn't have a gun so I grabbed this big pipe out of the trailer and I walk up to that sow, her guts everywhere. It took me two hard blows, and I about cried with every blow she just squealed and squealed. Even some of the other pigs across the road squealed. Horable.

We got in the truck and started down the road, We were looking for a farm or place where these pigs might have come from. About 2 miles farther and we found the Interstate again and were some what relieved. We got to the first service plaza and I thought I should call the police and tell them about the pigs.

I started to tell the officer the story and he got mad. I could sense his anger. He told me there was a 50 dollar fine for running over livestock in Oklahoma. I told him that they should have been fenced in and that it wasn't intentional. He said he didn't care the law is the law. I hung up on him. Hell he didn't know who I was or what I was driving. screw him, I thought we were doing the right thing. I was mad.

My wife and I got in the truck and about 20 miles later 3 patrol cars pulled us over. I asked what was wrong and they said they were gonna give us a ticket for running over a pig. I protested, that didn't do me any good however. This happened well over a year ago I and still can't figure out how the police knew who and what I was driving.

Any Ideas??

-- hillbilly (internethillbilly@hotmail.com), November 27, 2000

Answers

They caller i.d.' you to the gas station and interviewed the attendant in all likelihood.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 27, 2000.

my guess would be cameras,outside would pick up the truck and you.They watched which way you went and then found you....good old big brother Another thought..was there an atm machine around? their cameras also can be used to see what is going on in the background

-- renee oneill{md.} (oneillsr@home.com), November 27, 2000.

I doubt it was Big Brother :) More than likely it was Uncle Bob or Cousin Billy. Not much happens over in my neck of the woods that isn't very well known all over town in minutes! You could come down our dead end dirt road in the middle of the night, buy an animal from me, leave in the dead of night, and still my neighbors on the road will ask the next day, what did you sell to that Houston guy in the Ford, sounds as if he needs a new fan belt........The good and the bad of living in smallville. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), November 27, 2000.

I bet the pigs squealed!

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), November 27, 2000.

Dee, you could have let it run another day anyway. Hee,hee

-- hillbilly (internethillbilly@hotmail.com), November 27, 2000.

Sorry hillbilly, couldn't help myself.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), November 27, 2000.

You arch-criminal you! y'all should have left a note on the pig...."Hey, I hit your un-fenced sow and put her out of her misery. Call me to discuss how much a sow goes for in OK"..I'll bet that as you were leaving, some local saw you, then saw the pig and called the sherrif.....3 cars???????? did you have New york plates or something? Also, if the area is that rural, the cops probably already knew who had a herd of pigs floating around as well as where the nearest phone booth was on the interstate...they are probably still talking about you at the office.."Hey, y'all remember the guy what clubbed Bubbas' pig with a pipe?" God bless....

-- Lesley (martchas@gateway.net), November 28, 2000.

I agree they probably caller ID'd the gas station and then talked to the attendants. Actually OK has had a free range law until Jan. 1,2000, I believe. I know it is up to you not to hit the animals as the animals have had the right of way.

-- (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), November 28, 2000.

One benefit of free-ranging hogs is to keep down the snake population. Hogs love snakes. When I was a teenager I saw a pig take out a rattler. He or she toyed with it to get it to strike repeatedly as it couldn't bite through the skin. After a while the snake became exhausted, the pig killed it and then took it off to bury to age a bit.

When I worked at Robins AFB in GA, I was told they once had a problem with rattlers on the golf course, one of which came uncomfortable close to the general there. Since the course adjoined a wooded area, they turned loose hogs to take care of the snake problem, with a hunting season on the hogs to keep them in check.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), November 29, 2000.

Ken, are you serious??? I might get some pigs to raise for someone else if that is indeed true. Do hogs eat mice, too? I don't mean to offend anyone, but I have always just abhorred pigs. They are cute when they're babies, but they creep me out when they are grown.

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@excite.com), December 01, 2000.

According to all serious accounts I have read about pigs (I have no personal experience), they will eat any hapless creature that they can get. I've read that a few farm kids have lost a limb or life to pigs. Remember in the Wizard of Oz how the farm hand saves Dorothy from falling into the pig pen?

I agree with you Doreen, on pigs. I have never liked them. I think it's because they're too much like people (going into curmudgeon mode here). I think pork is tasty, but I don't like to eat it because I think it's bad for me (even organic). I can usually "talk" myself out of eating it by thinking about what that pig ate . . . Snakes just adds to it.

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), December 01, 2000.

Doreen:

Yep, hogs will eat just about anything. On early homesteads sometimes they didn't have an outhouse. During the day you found a friendly bush or, in the morning, the honey pot was dumped somewhere. Hogs took care to keep the odor down.

In Ohio I knew a guy who raised a couple of hogs. On his way home he would pick up any roadkills he found and toss them in the hog lot. On family farms, dead chickens were often tossed to them also.

On the injuries, in most cases it was because someone tried to mess with a sow's litter. They are extremely protective mothers when the litter is young.

By the way, nature's almost perfect vitamin and mineral supplement for hogs is fresh cow manure.

Enjoy.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 02, 2000.

Sows overly protective of their brood? Ken, ever the master of the understatement!! They go from nuetral to vicious in nanoseconds, especailly when young or territory are involved. Used to hunt wild hog in FL 'way back the (MUCH better than domestic critters, I don't care what you feed 'em) & they can get intereesting in the woods. Do they like snakes? Nope, they LOVE 'em! I do believe hogs would rather eat snakes than anything. They seem to have an instinctual species hatred of them, like lions do for hyenas, and llamas & some donkeys do for canines. Wierd, but it works.

-- K-K-K-Katie (yarnspinnerkt@hotmail.com), December 04, 2000.

Please consider carefully before you get those pigs to do any "favors" for you. The sows can have ten to a litter, at least twice a year. Even our hunters in Texas can't take out or control the feral population (free range, indeed). I have known (locally) of a protective sow (and her companions) taking down a curious fawn and ITS protective mother--in case you think you could run fast enough. They damage the land and habitat of other species. Two legged creatures aren't all you have to worry about--anyone thinks twice about allowing their grandchildren to "explore the frontier" in the backyard these days. Those allowed to run and become feral hang out in packs of twenty or more and they don't need to be provoked.

-- advocate against free ranging pigs (zumende@aol.com), December 04, 2000.