Pigs load calmly when the route does the persuading. A pig pushed from behind braces, turns, or sits; a pig following a feed bucket along a route it already knows walks because walking is its own idea. The groundwork has four parts: a solid-sided, non-slip race, the bucket moving ahead, board-walking practiced on ordinary days, and a route cleared of the things pigs balk at. Put together, loading day becomes a walk the pig has already done many times, with a trailer at the end of it.
Build a Race the Pig Trusts
Make the race solid-sided, with boards or panels it cannot see through, because a pig that can see a gap, a dog, or open yard through the side will aim for it. Keep the floor non-slip from pen to ramp: straw, rubber matting or roughened boards underfoot, with no polished concrete, loose gravel or wet slope anywhere along the route. Width matters — wide enough for the pig to walk without brushing both sides, narrow enough that it cannot turn around. The board itself, the hurdle a handler carries to guide from the side or behind, should be a familiar object the pig has seen leaning by the pen for weeks, not a strange wall produced only on loading day.
The Bucket Goes Ahead, Never a Push From Behind
Carry the feed bucket moving ahead of the pig, a few steps in front of its nose, shaken lightly so sound and smell lead the way. The handler's job is pacing, not pressure: stop when the pig stops, let it look, then move the bucket on. Pushing from behind teaches a pig that the race is a trap and that people at its back mean force; it will remember that lesson at the next loading and refuse earlier and harder. Boards guide the pig — a board held at an angle closes a wrong turning and keeps the route obvious — and that is their whole job. Electric prods are never used: they panic pigs, damage trust, and make every future move slower.
Practice on Ordinary Days, Not Only Loading Day
Board-walking practiced on ordinary days is what makes loading day unremarkable. A few times a week, walk the pig from its pen along the race to the board, feed it there, and walk it back — no trailer, no journey, nothing to learn except that this route ends in food. Shorten or lengthen the walk as confidence grows, and practice at the time of day you would actually load, so light and shadows match the real thing. When loading day comes, park the trailer at the end of the same race, let the pig walk the same route, and give it time on the ramp; a pig that has practiced will usually step up for the bucket it trusts.
Clear the Route of Balking Causes
Walk the route at pig height before every practice and remove the causes of balking: shadows falling in hard stripes across the floor, drafts blowing through gaps in the boards, and shiny surfaces — puddles, wet metal, bright patches — that look like holes or water to a pig. Pigs see contrast sharply and hesitate at edges between dark and light, so even a hose lying across the race can stop one. Dev checks the race for shadows, drafts and shiny patches before each practice and clears what he finds. Practice days are pinned in the Care Teams calendar on KinsLe, with finished walk-throughs marked so the next handler follows the identical calm routine.