Pigs

[Uwe Neue]

I have many pigs, they are all very close to each other. Some of the pigs are large, and some are very small, and others have all kinds of sizes in between. Most of the little pigs are together with one of the big pigs, and sometimes I can’t see them. I would like to separate all my pigs from each other. Any suggestions? Your ideas are appreciated.

[Bruce Hamilton]

1. You're doomed, pigs are smart.
2. Train them at feeding time - by using a walkway that is passing food-containing pens with different bar spacings, starting with narrowest spacings.
3. Put a mass sensor on the floor of the walkway, that automatically open pen gates according to size.
4. Ask on a commercial pig farming website.
5. Switch to turkey farming.

[bisnettrj2]

An analogue of Bruce's bar spacing trick is "Farmer Johnson's Porker Sorter".

You'll need a long series of fences within a rectangular pen, with each fence having multiple headgates of the same size. Each new line of fence will have progressively smaller headgates. You'll put some really tasty slop before the first line of large headgates, and pool your herd (flock? pride? collection? brood?) of pigs at the first fence. Once they've concentrated around the first fence, you'll put out some even tastier slop at the outlet of the small headgates on the other side of the pen, thus driving your pigs through the fences, until they become stuck in an appropriately-sized headgate, and are thus sorted by size.

Of course, pig size is dynamic, and trends toward hog-status over time, at which point the hog tends toward dissolution, resulting in bacon and chops, so you may need to repeat your sorting on a regular basis...

[Uwe Neue]

I think the last proposal is based on size exclusion. However, I have 7 very little pigs that do not separate from the largest pig, which I call Snow White...
Maybe more drastic measures will help, such as applying pressure with a large whip...

[Don_Hilton]

Well, it would seem that the mobile phase here is pig feet. - Which does not seem to do well with separating small pigs from their mother. A change of mobile phase could help to avoid agrregation - do pigs float/swim? Perhaps the size exclusion process in a stream - where pig feet do not touch bottom would do it?!

[Peter Apps]

Uwe, you've been around this forum long enough to know that we need full details of your hardware and operating conditions

From what you have posted so far I would guess that you need a multidimensional separation - you clearly cannot separate the micropigs from one another in the presence of Snow White. Alternatively, do you have specific chromophores (spots) that would allow you to use a selective detector for the different micropigs ? Perhaps chromatographic separation is not the way to go: micropigs are known to enter into size specific complexing reactions with megapigs - they sort in linear order of size along specific binding sites on one side of the megapig molecules. If the megapigs are immobilied onto a fairly inactive substrate (such as straw) the micropigs repeatably array themselves, and they can then be detected using a detector with a much longer time constant than is required when the micropigs are in free solution, and with greater spatial resolution than when they have precipitated out in the absence of megapigs.

Can you post a chromatogram ? i instructions are in a sticky.

Peter

[DR]

Have Waters buy Smithfield Foods (No. 1 US Pork producer), then you have free consulting from within.

[carl.nott]

Add an aliquot of KCN to your daily feed allotment (2g KCN per 1kg feed, assuming 1kg feed per 100kg of pig).

Feed pigs.

Wait 30 minutes.

Sort pigs.

[tom jupille]

[with apologies to those who are offended by sexist jokes, and/or are unfamiliar with American slang].

Start drinking beer and continue well into the evening while looking at the pigs. They will gradually change into foxes.

[bisnettrj2]

Tom: The test has merits, but what if the degree of inebriation is disproportionate to the rate of swine-fox conversion? Then he might only have half sorted the swine before reaching saturation, and then the rest of the swine will be left all alone at the watering hole...

[Uwe Neue]

Based on some of the suggestions, I will try to use affinity techniques to separate the little pigs from the mother pigs. I will set up a surface with nipples that deliver special milk. The little pigs will get stuck on the nipples, while the larger pigs, including the mother pig, will not be interested, and move away.

Bisnettr, your suggestion is a size exclusion technique.

The suggestion by CN to use KCN does not seem like a good idea. I do not have the means to move dead pigs. I prefer them mobile. Anyway, I thank you for an idea so close to your heart...

Tom, I thought that I had plenty of beer already when I started the question about separating pigs. I did not know that there is an even more advanced stage, but I will try to get there...

[bisnettrj2]

Uwe, I thought of perhaps another way to drive the little pigs away from Snow White - what if you changed the underlying qualities of her milk, maybe added something to her feed to cause the piggies to dissociate from Snow White, causing a de facto weaning, and thus allowing a separate technique to allow size exclusion?

[HW Mueller]

You will get more seperation than you want if you add the right reactor, like a wolf.

[lmh]

(1) Derivatise the pigs with a ferrous side-chain of constant length per pig. Now apply a gradually increasing magnetic field. The pigs should be picked up (or dropped if you prefer the reverse approach) in order of mass.

(2) Put roller-skates on all pigs and line them up in front of a moveable wall equipped with springs. Advance the wall so each pig is pushed by one spring. Time how long it takes for the pigs to reach the other side of the yard. The largest pigs should be accelerated least by the springs, and therefore arrive last.

(3) Using the derivatised pigs from step one, now on roller-skates according to step two, accelerate the pigs first forwards, and then sideways by application of appropriate magnetic field. The pigs will move in a circular path with radius depending on mass. Use an appropriately placed gate to select pigs of any desired size.

(4) Arrange a long thin enclosure. Suspend over the top of the enclosure an attractive source of food on a stick that can be rotated; rotate it. Meanwhile place another source of food to one side of the enclosure. Push pigs into the end of the enclosure. Small pigs with low inertia should chase the food on the stick, running round in circles until they become dizzy and can't walk any more. Large pigs will find they can't keep up with the stick and will gradually stray off towards the fixed food at one side. Pigs of just the right size will be sufficiently distracted by the twirling-stick food to avoid noticing the food to one side, and will therefore pass all the way through the enclosure to a gate at the other end, where they can be counted.

(5) Equip each pig with one spring per foot. Set the pigs bouncing. Measure the frequencies with which they bounce, Fourier transform the result, and although you won't have separated the pigs, you will at least know what sizes you had.

[DR]

...I will set up a surface with nipples that deliver special milk. The little pigs will get stuck on the nipples...

k'(little pigs) is way too high to be practical.