Aspiring to Simplicity

Alas, Poor Zeke!
What an embarrassing post. More so for Zeke than I, if he was cognizant of it. I keep pretty close watch on a great blog dealing with pasturing pigs and other things, and the blogger himself has been very generous with his time and experience and has answered many of my piggy questions. I began to notice that boars on his blog looked.. shall we say, different? than my Zeke. Now, his pigs are primarily the white kind, and mine are not, but boars are boars are boars when it comes to their... boarhood. So I posed a question to him, regarding the difference between our boars. To see a wonderful selection of healthy male boar parts, check his blog. :) Zeke does not have the same robust profile, and it is looking like he is "cryptorchidic", that is, having the condition of undescended testicles. Of course, the reason most mammals testicles descend is to keep the temperature just right for producing sperm. Too hot and you're sterile. It looks like Zeke's are too hot, as they must still be inside him somewhere. This is very bad. Zeke was no cheap bacon, and I drove 10 hours 1 way to acquire him.

Now, in my mind, pigs are good for 2 things; eating them, and making more pigs. It's great if you can do both with the same pig (be careful of the sequence, however). Boars, especially those of dark breeds, can have an apparently nasty carcass odor and taste. So for my purposes, I must balance the pros of a boar (reproductive capability) with the cons (risk of boar taint). Now I'm faced with all the cons, and none of the pros, making him a very poor investment and likely a very poor meal.

I called a local vet to gain his opinion, and his recommendation was to... palpate? dear Zeke to ascertain if he is indeed cryptorchidic. Now, laying aside my thoughts and expectations in life, and how I never saw this chore coming, it still poses some challenge. What exactly am I palpating for? Golf balls? Jelly beans? I'm sure if there's baseballs in there they're well hidden. Aside from my lack of knowledge, there is also the consideration of whether or not Zeke wishes to be 'palpated'. Zeke seems pretty tame, but then I'm usually only around to feed him and rebuild his house while he's eating. Yesterday, though, I was down to just whey to feed them (also the day I was trying to photograph his scrotum for Walter to check out - another unforeseen task), and when I stepped into their pen to accomplish my task, he and Trudy let me know how unimpressed they were with their breakfast. Usually they squeal and grunt and holler when they're waiting for me, or if they're fighting each other for command of the trough, but this time their back was to the trough and my back was to the electric fence. Thankfully it was near a corner I could get to and hop out, because I'm not sure how to deal with a disgruntled grunter.

So my to-do list now includes molesting a pig, calling a butcher, taste-testing for boar taint, and finding out if the breeder carries a manufacturer's warranty to cover this defect.

What is life coming to?