Date: Fri 28-Mar-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

schools-middle-pigs-Rowland

Full Text:

... And These Little Piggies Went To School

Seventh grader Aaron Johnson seems delighted by Charlie Rowland's brood sow

and nine piglets. The Oxford farmer visited Newtown Middle School March 20.

-Bee Photos, Evans

Elizabeth Rowland gently urges the 400-pound sow forward.

Feeding time is a family affair.

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

It was 9:30 am Thursday, March 20, one hour after the official arrival of

spring, when Oxford pig farmer Charlie Rowland drove into the Newtown Middle

School parking lot.

Mr Rowland came in his pickup truck, pulling an open-backed trailer carrying a

sow and her nine piglets comfortably quartered in clean cedar shavings.

Typically for the first day of spring, the weather wasn't cooperating with Mr

Rowland's scheduled "field trip" visit. It was raining.

But nine squirming, squealing 14-pound piglets and their 400-pound mother

didn't seem to mind the cold, sleety rain that was falling outside.

And the 14 seventh graders, who stood behind the trailer watching the piglets

playing at their mother's feet, didn't seem to notice that the rain was

sprinkling misty droplets on their heads and shoulders.

As students in Karen Kirch's English class, they had been reading the book, A

Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck.

Mrs Kirch had decided that meeting Mr Rowland and watching his pigs would help

her students identify with the story's main character, Rob, a young Shaker boy

living on a pig farm in Vermont. Rob is given a piglet to raise, but knows he

may eventually have to help his father slaughter it.

After observing the pigs, the Newtown students were supposed to pick one out

of the litter (in their minds), take note of its special markings and remember

it.

Then they had to go inside and write about their special pig - what they'd

decided to name it, what it looked like and how they felt about it.

A little background information would be helpful, Mrs Kirch pointed out.

Mr Rowland said the litter had been born February 22 to one of 30 brood sows

"now in various stages of gestation," living on his 40-acre pig farm. The farm

is located not far from the Oxford Airport.

His family had owned the Oxford farm, originally more than 190 acres, for five

generations, he said, and for a long time, they had grazed cattle.

"But I found out we were never going to make any money milking cows," Mr

Rowland said, "and I like pigs."

He explained that piglets like these could be separated from their mother at

five to six weeks, and could be sold at two months to families looking to

raise a pig.

"They're adorable!" the Newtown students agreed.

"Really cute. I like the littlest one," said Morgan Montgomery.

Aaron Johnson thought they were more than merely cute.

"Pretty crazy, wild and, like, silly. They climb all over their mother and

stuff," Aaron said.

Morgan said she was finding Mr Peck's book a bit "too descriptive" and was

afraid the end might turn out to be sad.

Right now, though, the students were thoroughly delighted by the domestic

scene they felt privileged to view that morning in their own school parking

lot.

When Mr Rowland's 10-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, held up one piglet for the

students to stroke, they touched its back and commented upon how soft, yet

bristly, its hair was.

Otherwise, the students refrained from reaching through the wire fencing to

touch the piglets.

"Pigs will bite," Mr Rowland had warned.

They may also carry rabies, he added, though that would be a rare occurrence.

So the students were content to stand a safe distance back and watch.

Obviously, beyond playing and jostling each other, those nine piglets had one

thing on their minds: food.

Also being first in line should the opportunity for lunch arise - or, in this

case, lie down.

With a snort of anticipation, the sow began to lower herself into the sawdust,

front legs down first, then back legs, then whole self.

Slowly, she rolled over to one side and stretched out in the ready position.

The piglets wasted no time zeroing in.

"You can tell she's a good sow because she settles slowly and carefully," Mr

Rowland said, adding this was a Yorkshire pig and "they are usually good

mothers."

An inexperienced sow will sometimes "go down" too quickly, he said, and trap a

piglet underneath her belly. That's when he or his daughter must move fast to

nudge her off before it's too late and the baby is crushed.

Elizabeth stood nearby with her prodding cane ready, in case any piglets

proved wayward.

But you can't always force pigs to do what you want, Mr Rowland added. "If you

try, they just turn around and look at you."

The students wanted to know why the sow kept on grunting while the piglets

nursed.

"Because she's happy and, right now, she's got everything she wants and needs

in the whole world. Sort of like pig heaven. When a pig lies there and

snorts," he said, "it's like purring for a cat."