Animal attractions

Another activity of the Centro is personal development and the running of university courses. The guru, Paolo, a florid middle aged man, has arrived from Milan and is surrounded at dinner by six women acolytes who literally dote on his words which pour from him without interruption. The volunteers leave dinner early somewhat embarrassed by the scene.

Animals are kept but not integrated into the farm. There are 14 chickens kept permanently in one location. They produce about 5 eggs a day. There were six fat pigs, again in an enclosure, but one died of a suspected heart attack being morbidly obese: they were all around the 200 kg mark I'd say. There is no swineherd and a different person refills the feed container whenever required. Consequently the pigs are frightened of people and difficult to manage as I discovered when sent to read the 5 eartags. Getting close was next to impossible but I managed to get a shot of each, which as you can see was entirely useless. This operation was necessary because the person responsible for this side of the business had buried the dead pig with its identity tag, they had no record of the numbers, and the vet wouldnt issue a disease clearance certificate for the Dept of Agriculture without it.

Later we started training the pigs to enter the wagon which would take them to slaughter by laying feed in the entrance laneway.

Also in the menagerie is a donkey, two geese and two peacocks.Read more