INDEED, hog cholera struck the swine industry in our province, particularly at LGU Pilar last week.
Short Cuts had to treat it only as a tsismis in his last week’s column. He had no way of ascertaining the truth of that particular item considering that he was already on his way home to the capital city when he heard the news.
It was in the late morning of Monday last week when local radio stations in the city had a “fiesta” on the issue. Reports had it that almost a hundred heads of pigs had been slaughtered and buried in the same locality if only to avert the spread of the disease.
Further, the public was ably informed that within a radius of one hundred meters from a an infested hog, all pigs are to be slaughtered – whether infected with hog cholera or not. And worse, the families whose hogs were even NOT affected with cholera had no option.
The hog has to be slaughtered and buried! That is, if the pig pen is located within a one hundred meter radius.
Government authorities mandated it to be so .
As a consequence, affected families had no recourse but only to shed tears in remembering the worth of money having been spent in rearing the animal.
However, if only to lighten the issue on the part of hog owners, both national and local government units had a way in facing the issue for the financial benefit of the hog growers. For the loss of a piglet, the hog farmer is paid one thousand pesos; not fully grown pigs, four thousand pesos ; and five thousand pesos is given for sows and boars.
Short Cuts is never an alien to the feelings suffered by these affected hog growers. He has been a livestock farmer for almost forty years already. And the experience suffered by our brother Boholanos from LGU Pilar was felt by Short Cuts some ten years ago.
In 2013, out of Short Cuts’ twenty sows ten died for an unknwn cause, and out of his six boars, three also died. All of these pigs were buried even before it was reported to the local veterinarian.
With the loss of thirteen heads of pigs in a single occasion, Short Cuts had to stop visiting his farm at LGU Carmen for amost three months. He was so down-hearted that Short Cuts’ love in rearing livestock, most esspecially pigs, almost disappeared.
And, now with the upsurge of hog cholera at the neighboring town of Pilar, Short Cuts had to visit his farm almost daily. Foremost, he reminded his farm caretaker at LGU Carmen NOT to allow anybody to get inside the piggery, except himself.
