Drought / Burn Ban / Brazos County

Dust, Dust, Dust

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Baseball Hero, Historical Texas Ranch, Squeaky the Feral Pig, and a herd of Cattle

If ever there is a self-fulfilling prophetic story of non-fiction to enter in the MooPig Wisdom radar, well here it is. This human interest story meets the four corners of the MooPig vision for humanity, and then some:

• Eating
• Herding
• Wallowing
• Sleeping

ROSHARON — Call her Squeaky the Wonder Pig, or the cowpig or a 385-pound guard pig. But most of all, call her when it's time for pizza.

Squeaky is clearly no ordinary pig.

The pet and partner of Mike Veara, manager of Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan's China Grove Ranch in Brazoria County, she herds cows, eats pizza and greets most visitors to the ranch.

"And she's a wild pig," Veara said. "You never see a feral pig like that."

Veara insists that Squeaky taught herself all of her skills, not all of which are helpful.

She adopted the 1,800-acre ranch as home.
There are about 1.5 million feral pigs in Texas, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Squeaky has known at least one feral hog. Seven months ago she gave birth to a pair of piglets.

One day Veara and some ranch hands were herding some cattle on horseback when Squeaky got between the riders and the cattle. "I said let's just back off and see what she'll do," Veara said.
Squeaky herded almost 200 head of cattle into pens, just where Veara wanted them. Since then she's been a real cowpig.

She absolutely refuses to eat pig food. Her main rations are cat food and deer corn, Veara said. "And fish sticks. She loves fish sticks," he said.

He often gives her cookies for snacks and she nibbles on marshmallows with delight.

She loves to wash down a snack with a nice bowl of Dr Pepper, Veara said.

"Mr. Ryan likes to bring her candy, but I have to discourage that," Veara said. "If she gets too much sugar she goes into some sort of sugar high and starts running around all over the place.

"Ol' Squeaky is getting to be better known than the historical marker," he said, referring to a marker on FM 521 that notes that China Grove was once part of the plantation owned by Texas Revolutionary War hero and Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston.

She considers a wallow in mud to be the height of fashion and doesn't like to be washed off. Although she seems to think of herself as some sort of porcine breed of dog, complete with barklike "oinks," she's never become uh, ...housebroken.

(Almost forgot: this story scooped by our Bryan, Texas, associate: Bobby Suhes in middle of the night Aug 14, 2008. Way to go Bobby!)