Avoid the Danger of Being Associated with the Feed Bucket

It is an easy routine to get into, especially in the winter when the animals tend to be in the same spot most of the time and you are in a hurry to get to the barn and then back to the house to get warm and eat breakfast. Your typical morning probably goes something like this. You get up, start the coffee, put on your boots and find that you have left one of your gloves out in the mudroom where it has frozen solid overnight. So you borrow your daughter's my little pony glove and head into the barn. As you enter the barn, the pigs are startled and jump up with a snort. Then the yelling begins. To the uninitiated it sounds as though you are murdering the pigs but in reality you have just filled the feed bucket and are making your way over to the pen to fill up the trough. The squealing is annoying but it is the jostling and fighting that can be really dangerous to farmers and visitors alike. These are animals and are not familiar with the concepts of patience and taking turns. Eating is life and life says that the bigger and meaner you are the quicker and more that you are able to eat (with pigs anyway). When it gets dangerous is when the farmer enters the pen during feeding time. These animals are going to attempt to use the same physical behaviors that they use with their peers to get you to give them feed.   It is not uncommon for some farmers to