A Pig In A Poke...

Have you ever heard the phrase, "I'm not buying a pig in a poke," and wondered what that meant?  I know I have.  The idiom 'pig in a poke' stems from the Middle Ages.  See, meat was scarce.  In fact, up until the 18th century, most meals were primarily vegetable based, with only small servings of meat.  Why was this?

Well, spoiling for one!  When animals were slaughtered for consumption, they either were consumed completely as soon as possible, smoked for preservation purposes, or cured in a salt cure.  Then, small pieces would be cut off and soaked, cooked and served.  What you and I think of as a portion of meat today is much bigger than what would have been a portion prior to the 18th century.  Soups with bread were popular, like this ox tongue (yes, tongue) soup.

Most people got their proteins from beans, and corn, potatoes, cabbage and other things grown in their gardens, coupled with bread, made up most of their meals, because secondly, animals were income.  You didn't want to go eating your year's wages!

So, when people in the middle ages would go to buy a suckling pig (a pretty cheap thing to raise at that point as you only had to feed the mom, not the piglets), they would be given a bag with the animal inside.  However, cats and dogs were plentiful at the time, so sometimes, instead of a suckling pig in the bag, you'd have a cat instead!

Hence, pig in a poke.  A poke is a sack.  Buying something unseen, or getting something else instead of a pig.  The truth was easily discovered though when the sack was opened, and the cat was literally 'let out of the bag', another popular idiom!

But, that brings me to the 'meat' of my post today.  Over the weekend, we attended the A.I. (Artificial Insemination) school at Lean Value Sires (http://www.leanvaluesires.com/) in New Carlisle, OH.  You see, we had been fortunate to have a friend A.I. our sow last year, but this year, we wanted to learn how to do it ourselves.  A friend recommended Lean Value's program which they had attended previously, and we very quickly took their advice and signed up for the 2013 session.

We own a garage, and unfortunately the night we were supposed to leave, we had a pressing job that just had to be completed.  At 1 a.m.  the day of the school, we left southern West Virginia, driving north to Ohio. 

I'll be honest, I had already decided we weren't going.  We were tired.  It's not unusual for us to plan something and then have our plans fall apart due to something going wrong at the shop.  Kevin insisted he was wide awake and wanted to go, so we piled into the car, and hit the road.  We got 2 exits down on the interstate before he was pleading with me to take over driving.

And so, I did.  I drove and drove and drove.  I  made it to Chillicothe before I was doing the math and was able to determine we could sleep for a few hours before hitting the road again to make it to New Carlisle just in time for class.  So, we paid 100 dollars for a hotel room for 3 hours of sleep.  It was the best 3 hours I've had in a long time.

And, we got there just in time for class to start, so we didn't miss anything.

The next several hours were an in depth lecture on swine reproduction, with slides and demonstrations.  They crammed a college course into a single day's instruction, so I was just taking notes like mad, as I knew I was going to be transcribing them for friends here at home that didn't get to go.  After lunch, and some more lecture time, we went into the field to do some actual practical application of artificial insemination procedures.  We were shocked at how easy it actually was.

We also tried the new Intra-uterine rods that they have been promoting, and it was surprisingly simple to use as well.

Apparently with the Intra-uterine rods, you can use half the semen for the same amount of results.  Saves money.

Then, we got to see some of the boars in house, to which I apply the 'pig in a poke' idiom.  Most stud houses distribute semen catalogues through the postal service.  You get these great books, filled with amazing pictures of the best boars these places have to offer.  Then, you can order from those books.  They all look amazing.  When LVS brought out their boars, and walked them around, I got to see things that the pictures didn't show.  Movement, carriage, soundness.  A picture may be worth 1000 words, but to see a boar move is priceless.  There were things I liked on some boars, and things I did not like on others, and I couldn't have told them from a picture.  Buying semen from a catalog is just like buying a pig in a poke.  You really don't know what you're going to get, unless you go look at that boar, or talk to someone who has seen that boar and how it moves.

Anyway, for those of you curious or interested in doing your own A.I. I highly recommend going to Lean Value's AI School next year.  We learned a lot, and they are a very honest, straight-forward group of folks that will tell you the truth about their pigs, what they like and don't like, what they're good for and what they're not.   And remember, Students get in half price! :)