Rida's Note: Having Fun in Piggery Farm University of Sydney

Asslamualaikum warahmatullah hi wabarakatuh.

Apa kabar? Aku dan Kau sehat selalu ya.:D

Tak terasa sudah lebih dari seminggu aku tinggal di Camden, Australia. Banyak pelajaran berharga yang aku dapatkan disini. Ilmu, pengalaman, dan kebahagiaan yang tak terhitung! Alhamdulillah.

I get chance to do xchange in Uni Sversity of Sydney, Australia. This is pilot program between Gadjah Mada University and University of Sydney. So, next year, student form UniSyd will come to Indonesia for studying in 2 months. In my first week, i learned about epidemiology, worked in Sheep unit, Dairy Farm and the last day in Piggery Farm. Ill share about my experience in piggery farm UniSyd. Lets check it out! :D.

surrounded by Eucaliptus tree

The head of the piggery farm is Gregory Macnamara who has experience with pig more than 30 years (i called him as the father of pig :D). Together with his son, Benjamin Macnamara, they are the key person in piggery farm UniSyd.

Jam 07.00, kami (aku dan Agi) dijemput oleh kepala peternakan Babi, Greg. Mereka amat sangat ontime. Untuk sejenak, tinggalkan kebiasaan ngaret Indonesia untuk mencegah mereka mencibir ke negara ibunda pertiwi tercinta. Jarak dari Nepean Hall ke peternakan babi sekitar 10 menit dengan menggunakan mobil. Karena bau dari peternakan babi sangat khas, kami ditawari untuk menggunakan disposable overall. Tawaran yang bagus!. Di peternakan Babi UniSyd terdapat beberapa kelompok kandang, kelompok pertama, babi betina usia produktif, kelompok kedua, kumpulan piglet yang berbeda-beda umurnya (7 – 16 minggu), kelompok ketiga terdiri dari babi-babi yang siap untuk dipasarkan (kastrazed male, betina dan betina yang siap untuk dikawinkan), kelompok keempat terdiri dari para pejantan, kelompok kelima terdiri dari para ibu-ibu babi yang baru saja melahirkan, dan kelompok terakhir terdiri dari babi yang sedang bunting untuk pertama kali dan babi betina spesial kesayangan Greg, EdWina namanya. EdWina sudah tua, sekitar 7 – 8 tahun, spesial karena walaupun sudah tua dia tetap siap untuk bunting. Dan selama hidupnya telah memberikan sebanyak 204 piglet! Dan kesemuanya sehat dan cantik. :D

Di peternakan Babi, kami belajar untuk handling piglet, menyuntik piglet, membedakan body condition score, menggiring babi keluar dari kandang, handling babi dengan alat khusus (aku lupa namanya), test kebuntingan dengan USG. Cara termudah untuk handling piglet adalah angkat satu kaki belakang lalu lakukan gerakan seperti gerakan menggenggam dan letakkan di pinggang (susah untuk dijelaskan tapi mudah dilaksanakan :D). Untuk lokasi suntikan babi, ternyata berbeda dengan sapi, lokasi ideal ada di leher dekat dengan telinga lakukan dengan gerakan lurus 90 derajat.

Ketika mereka akan disuntik, biasanya akan mengeluarkan teriakan yang lucu tapi amat sangat bising.

Berdasarkan pengalaman Greg, kekuatan suara mereka sampai 100 dB! Sehingga direkomendasikan penggunaan alat penutup telinga dalam bekerja. Walaupun teriakan mereka masih sangat terdengar, tapi lebih baik untuk menggunakannya. Hihihihi. Penggiringan babi keluar kandang dilakukan dengan memisahkan terlebih dahulu babi yang akan digiring dari kawanan yang lain. Untuk menghandle babi ukuran lebih besar, digunakan alat yang terbuat dari tali dimasukkan ke mulut (jangan terlalu dekat dengan hidung karena akan melukai) lalu tarik dan Babi siap untuk diperiksa ataupun diberi suntikan jika perlu. Penggunaan USG pun dilakukan untuk test kebuntingan pada babi. Dan USG nya super duper canggih! Amat flexibel dan harganya lebih dari 160 juta. Auchh!

Australia merupakan negara dimana Animal Walfare tak hanya sekedar teori. Mereka memberlakukan aturan ini dengan amat sangat ketat. Contoh sederhana, ketika berbelanja di supermarket akan ada produk hewani yang diberi tanda jaminan bahwa produk tersebut didapatkan sesuai dengan perikehewanan alias menjungjung tinggi animal walfare. Kemudian Greg pun mengatakan pada saat kami belajar untuk menghitung body condition score(BCS), jika terdapat babi dengan BCS 1 tanpa diberikan perlakuan khusus seperti managemen perbaikan pakan, maka kepala peternakan tersebut akan dipenjara! Superb subhanallah! And for the pig are ready to sell, the consumer only wanna buy soar and castrated male, why?because if this boar still has their testickel, male hormon or we called it as testosteron will give some influence to the smell of the meat. Greg say its really bad smell! :D. There are two common method to castrate pig, Manual and chemichal. Local anasthesion is given to pig when they are ready to castrated. Nevertheless,sometime pig is castrated without local anasthesion, just give food and drink, we can cut testicle out, its caused by they are animal who hold their pain tight. In some big company, they give chemical castration and inject some of formulation will depress production male hormon without cut the testikel out. If consumer complain, why this boar still has their testicel? They will answer that this boar has given chemical castration. In Piggery FarmUniSyd, greg dont give chemical castration because its dangerous for people who work with it. There is some chance whenever the worker get this injection for theirself and if it will happen twice, the worker will lost their future! Haha. Auch!

In the end of our time, Grek asked me about prohibition againts eating a pork and drinking alcohol for moslem. Its interesting question! Actually, i love when some people asked why muslim cant do something normal for others like this prohibition for example. I and Agi tried to explain about it. We says that, pig has similiar genetic to human and if we eat them thats why some of pig’s chracteristic give some influence to people who eat this. We gave some example by telling a famous story, that there was a Ustad (term of islam teacher) asked by a king from non Muslim country with the same question, “why moslem cant eat pork?”, He explained by giving a example what will be done by 2 chicken and 2 pig in struggling their mate. Its evidently that pig is shameless animal, because both of pig pull together to mate with soar, and what happen with those chicken? With its pride, they fight until one of them die or get injury in their body only to get the hen. About one of forbidden for Muslim others, i asked him, what happen if you drink too much alcohol? He answered that ill do stupid things that i never do with this before. I say, exactly greg! Islam is one of religion that highly respectful of mind, thats why we are not allowed to consume something that can get lost your mind even you consume in a small amount. We also told him a famous story from a observant man. Once upon a time, there was a man who always prayer to Allah every time in his life, and the devil come t him to choose 3 crime that he never done, drinking alcohol, making love with other woman (not his wife, in islam we called it “Zina”) and killing people. He choose to drink alcohol because its like a slightes crime, and what happen to him? After get drunk, he making love with wife from other man, killing her husband, and passed away with not acknowldge Allah SWT as his god. Greg say that him self is not a drinker because he only consume a bottle of beer in 4 months. And Alhamdulillah, he understood what has been described by us even we talked with very simple english (less of vocab!haha).