Dirty Jobs (2005) s01e06 Episode Script
Pig Farmer
1 My name is Mike rowe, and this is my job.
I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty You're not gonna tell me that we're gonna scoop the poop with a garden trowel.
hardworking men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
Now, get ready to get dirty.
Coming up on "dirty jobs," I go to a pig farm in Iowa What fresh hell are we in here? and learn what it takes to bring home the bacon.
Then, I hit the sidewalks of New York City.
Gumbusters.
Where does the gum go? It just disappears.
Oh, no.
Later, I go up on the roof to combat pigeon poop.
This is the strangest poo I've ever seen.
Oh, god! It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it whoa-oh, oh-oh, oh it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it -- captions by vitac -- captions paid for by discovery communications this little piglet's barely one day old.
6 months from now, he'll weigh over 300 pounds.
And between now and then, he's gonna make one hell of a mess.
[ Piglet squealing .]
Iowa is smack-dab in the middle of America, a place best known as the "hawkeye state.
" But what I bet you didn't know is that there's more pork in Iowa than anywhere else in the nation.
Pigs get up early here in woodward, Iowa.
So do pig farmers.
This is Eric polich.
How are you, Eric? Good.
How are you doing? I'm doing okay.
Nice place you have here.
Thank you.
Let's get some nomenclature out of the way.
Are they pigs, are they hogs, are they swine? What are they? All three.
Doesn't matter? Doesn't matter.
You got individual names for any of them? Sows are the females that make the babies, boars are the males that also make the babies.
No, I mean, like, you know, Freddy or Sally or biff or something like that? No, no, just for the pets.
What, briefly and basically, is gonna happen here today? Well, first, we're gonna feed and go through our chore process.
Then we're gonna clean pens, and then we're gonna breed sows.
The boars are gonna breed sows.
The boars, not us.
Just so we're clear.
I hate to see any kind of confusion.
Why don't you fire this thing up and we'll get busy with the chores? All right.
Sounds good.
[ Engine turns over .]
Is this two, three horsepower? Yeah, something like that.
Nice.
Polich: We'll have to feed those across the road there, and we'll have to feed the calves after we get done.
That's the barn that we clean.
These are gilts that we just finished up breeding.
They're gonna go in the sow lots here later on this summer.
Gilt -- that's boy pigs.
Nope, gilts are females that have not had babies yet.
Why not just call them "virgins"? We're not in California.
[ Both laugh .]
Good point.
Polich: The sows we feed 5 to 6 pounds apiece per day.
The big sows will weigh up to 750 pounds.
Rowe: You've got to be worried, at this point, thinking maybe I got an eye on your job.
We're hiring.
[ Snorting .]
Dirty pigs.
Now that the pigs have been fed, it was time to get to work on cleaning up after breakfast, and I do mean literally.
Well, now, this can't be good.
This is the dirty job.
The dirty job? Is there a clean one on this place? Not really, but this is the worst.
Well, this is a particularly dirty pen you have here.
Yeah, this is the gilt pen -- gilts that we're gonna retain to breed, so there are more pigs in this pen.
So the goal, at this point in a pig's life, is to simply grow as fast, as expeditiously as possible.
Yep, we just want to grow them as big as we can so we can get these pigs either to market or to retain to breed.
Gotcha.
Whoa, I'm coming in, you pigs.
Oh! Oh, god.
That's just a terrible smell.
Stop it.
Pigs are biting me.
Is it okay to kick them? Yep.
D'oh! What, are you an idiot? I will shovel you right out of your own pen.
Move.
Ow! That's right.
I'm making your bed, you moron.
They're smart when they want to be.
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Uh-oh, I lost a pig.
Get back in there.
Back in there.
Back, back, back, back.
That's right.
Clearly, they don't know who they're dealing with.
Not the brightest pig in the pen, are you? You can't eat the steel.
For such curious animals, they don't seem interested in coming out outside.
They don't like to step up.
They don't like to step down.
So this ledge pretty much keeps them in their pen.
Stop biting me! This little piggy went to the market.
This little piggy stayed home.
That little piggy looks like he'd eat roast beef.
You know, I used to think, when they said that old nursery rhyme, "this little piggy went to the market," I figured it was like, "hey, we're all gonna get dressed up, go to the market.
It'll be a nice day out.
" But a piggy goes to the market Wrong market.
he ain't coming home.
He doesn't want to go.
No.
Funny how they made that sound so cute.
And this little piggy went, "whee, whee, whee" all the way Home.
There's over 800 piglets born at the polich farm every year, creating a never-ending cycle of dirty swine Oh, I smell pigs.
and filthy chores.
Polich: This, Mike, is the farrowing house.
This is where all the sows come to have their babies.
These pigs were just born about 24 hours ago.
We need to clip their teeth, their tails, and give them their shots.
These are the tools.
We have two syringes -- one to give an antibiotic shot and one to give an iron shot.
Why do they need iron? Pigs need supplemental iron because after about four to five days, the pigs run out of their iron that's in their bloodstream, so they need supplemental iron to live.
So everything you're about to do here is for the pig's own good.
For the benefit of the pig.
All right.
Well, let's start with this guy.
That looks like a likely candidate.
What are you gonna do to him? First thing we're gonna do is we're gonna clip his teeth.
Pigs are born with very sharp little teeth.
There's two reasons why we clip the teeth of a baby pig -- one, it's more comfortable for the sow when the pig's nursing.
Number two, when the pigs establish their nursing order, each pig has its own individual teat that he nurses on.
If another pig comes in contact with the pig when he's nursing, those sharp teeth can injure other baby pigs.
The easiest way to do it is to hold him out front like this, behind his ears, put your index finger on the side of his mouth.
You see them sharp, little pointy teeth in there? Yeah, I see that.
I also see them on your finger.
Does that hurt? Yeah, when they bite down, they're pretty sharp.
They're called "needle teeth.
" There's a reason why they're called needle teeth.
We take our clippers Ohh! clip the ends of them off.
I'm not a farmer or a veterinarian, but is the pig in pain? He's not so much in pain as much as he is frightened.
Whoa.
Look at that.
That's dried-up umbilical cord.
We need to take part of it off so it doesn't get stepped on, doesn't get torn.
We're just gonna clip it off.
Why not take it all off? Well, we need to leave a little bit of it on just so the navel heals.
I'm holding a pig's umbilical cord.
That's a first.
What else happens? Now what we need to do, we need to take part of his tail off.
[ Laughing .]
Why? Basically for two reasons.
Look at this.
I think you upset the mother.
Oh, well.
If a pig's tail is long -- and we crowd those pigs in the nursery -- after we wean them, those pigs will begin sometimes to chew on other pigs' tails.
They can become cannibalistic.
Let me hold this end.
Cut it where you need to cut it.
We're gonna take about half an inch off is what we want to do Like that.
Real quick cut.
Pigtail -- just as interesting as the umbilical cord.
We're gonna give him a shot of iron.
Where we give pigs shots at is in the neck.
Why? On the side of the neck.
Because, normally, that is an injection site that is not consumed.
It's not consumed? If it is consumed, it's consumed in sausage or it's ground and processed.
You mean consumed by people.
Oh, I understand.
That is the safest spot to give a pig a shot.
We want to inject this iron intramuscularly.
You give him 1cc of iron.
With clipping his tail and clipping his teeth, we've opened up open wounds on this baby pig.
That will allow staph infections and strep infections to get inside the baby pig.
I see.
What we need to do is give him an antibiotic shot in the other side of his neck Like that.
That way, he can fight off any infections that might occur later on down the road.
All right, so this pig, right now, is healthier than he's been his whole life, which, at this point, is about 23 hours.
[ Squealing .]
Oh, man, look how sharp those teeth are.
Holy cow.
All right.
They could come back and get your eye if you're not careful.
Hold still, brother.
There you go.
Okay.
Yep.
Just like that.
All right, umbilical cord.
Right about there.
Right about here.
I'm so sorry, but you're okay.
You're okay! You're okay! [ Squealing continues .]
Coming up, I get to spend some quality time with the pigs and their poo.
Something wicked this way comes.
I learn that gum busting is part science, part magic.
It's a miracle.
Then I gear up for a job that really is for the birds.
A respirator? There's actually 60 diseases related to pigeon poop.
Great.
A few weeks from now, those cute little pigs we saw earlier will have doubled in size, and then they'll move here to the nursery.
Rowe: Oh, good god! Good lord! This is the nursery.
The nursery? What fresh hell are we in here? This is where we take the baby pigs after they're weaned and grow them up to about 50 to 60 pounds.
Ohh! [ Coughs .]
It's on my teeth.
It's like it's in my eyes.
It's pretty strong.
You dirty, dirty pig! Why is the floor crooked? There's a 3-foot-deep self-contained pit that is gonna be gravity-fed outside.
The poop is under the pigs? It's under the pigs.
That's why I don't see too much poop on the surface.
Man, there it is.
Look at that.
Oh! And it looks as bad as it smells.
Well, not quite.
But it looks bad.
Liquid manure is what it is -- mixture of water and manure.
In each one of these pits on each side, there's about 2,000 gallons of liquid manure.
That's two tons of diarrhea.
That's the plug, and once you lift that up, all that manure is gonna be gushing out that 6-inch pipe.
So that little thing is holding back about nearly a ton Of liquid manure.
of liquid manure.
"Warning.
Do not open.
Dangerous gases.
" Against my better judgment, I am not going to follow that advice, because 1,500 pounds of piglet poo needs a place to live And that's home.
Hit it.
Oh, god! How are you doing, Mike? Not well, Eric.
Not well.
Just holler at me when it gets to the top.
I'll let you know when we get close.
It looks like we're almost done.
That's the east side.
Now we got to pull the West Side.
We're half done.
Are you a tank half-full or half-empty kind of guy? We're both right now.
The eternal optimist.
Oh.
Something wicked this way comes.
Basically what this tank is for, it's an underground storage facility, and we will come in and suck this out with a vacuum tank and spread it on the fields for fertilizer.
That is what the end is for.
Nothing should be able to make a smell like that And live.
Well, the nursery is now clean -- or cleaner, anyway.
What we need to accomplish at this point is to get the pigs that are in here out of here, because they've outgrown the nursery, so we can make room for the smaller pigs, which means we have to carry them.
Where do we start? This end or the other? Let's start at the other end.
All right.
How much do these boys weigh? The bigger end in here is probably about 90 pounds.
The smaller end's about 50 to 60.
First thing we need to do is just grab one of these.
By the way, it still stinks in here.
[ Laughs .]
And it always will.
We got rid of two tons of diarrhea, and it still smells wretched.
Just gonna take this off.
All right.
Just like that.
Hey, fella, or little lady.
Set this over here.
All you have to do is reach in and grab him.
All right.
[ Squeals .]
Do they bite? Oh, sometimes.
What I'm thinking is you show me how to do it and then I'll get the rest of them.
Okay.
I mean, seems reasonable.
Yeah.
Easiest way to do it is just grab him by his back leg or by his tail.
Back leg or tail? Just pull him out just like this.
Carry him out.
Good lord, man.
I think he's barking at me.
He's saying something.
That pig's got a little dog in him.
Get that out.
Hey, buddy.
So just reach right in and grab his back leg? Yep.
Stand him up, try to spin his head over.
Spin his head? Which way? Spin his head.
Okay.
[ Squealing .]
Just like that.
There you go.
Only 15 more to go.
That's insane.
[ Squealing continues .]
They all scream at first.
[ Laughter .]
These are the big ones.
All righty.
[ Squealing .]
Good luck.
Oh, look at that.
You look very mellow.
I'll just -- Hey, come here a second.
I need to carry you outside.
Guess my ship's come in.
Coming up, love is in the air, along with a whole lot of other stuff.
Polich: This is the boar dummy.
What the heck is that thing?! Yep.
Seems like just hours ago, I was cleaning this out.
Now what's gonna happen? Polich: These pigs have been in confinement.
Some of them are gonna walk right into the pen.
Others, we're gonna have to help.
What you need to do is hop in here and just push them out.
Can I just pull them or is it better to push them? It'd be better to push them.
I don't have to worry about hurting them, do I? No, no.
They're pretty tough animals.
It's not really them I'm worried about, to be honest.
Come on.
There's no future in here for you.
The future's out there.
The future is there.
There you go.
Future, future.
There's your future.
You're kidding me.
Just like that.
Come on.
Everybody out.
It's okay.
It's just concrete.
Go.
Pigs are peeing on me.
Come on, out you go.
Go.
Come on, everybody out.
No more Mr.
Nice guy.
We got to go.
Honestly.
[ Grunting .]
Go.
Go to where your friends are peeing.
That's it.
Join the urine parade.
Oh, he must be exhausted.
Come on.
Come on.
There's a party in the pen.
Nothing to it.
There's some smart-aleck trick to this that you didn't tell me.
Rowe: It's a beautiful spring day here at the polich farm, and love is in the air.
It's also in the mud.
So this is known as "the dummy"? This is the boar dummy.
This is what we collect semen off of, Mike.
It's heavy.
It's heavy so that big boar can't tilt it and tip it and so he can jump on top of it.
He's done this before.
He's done it before.
I'm gonna be underneath, and what I want you to do is take the collection cup and catch it Um -- as it comes out.
Is it gonna be coming at me in a fairly obvious direction, or is it sort of like? No, it will be coming right out the end of my hand basically.
No surprises.
Ready to give it a shot? Is he ready to give it a shot? He's ready.
We just need to get him in here.
Let's go fetch him.
Uh-huh.
Look familiar? This is unusual.
Just like at the doctor's office Only not exactly like it.
Oh, dear.
What the heck is that thing?! I mean, I know what it is, but That's his penis.
Tell me what you're doing here from a layman standpoint.
What I'm trying to do is grab on to the end.
Here it comes.
Oh, jeez-oh-whiz.
Looks like he may be sliding off the dummy.
You'll see a clear fluid.
Uh-huh.
That's seminal fluid.
That is the actual semen that is coming out right now.
I'm gonna go ahead and get out of the way.
Let him get off here.
No rush, my man.
Nicely done.
That ain't half-and-half, folks.
That is from one boar.
That's one collection.
How much are we looking at here? We're looking at roughly about 150 to 200 milliliters of raw sperm.
Now, we only have the one sow to take care of, but you could normally extend this? Normally what we do is extend the semen out to about 12 to 14 doses, rather than just one dose.
Will we use all of this on the sow we're about to meet? Yeah, we will go dump all that into the sow that's standing right now, and she will just get the one full dose of raw semen.
"Dump.
" you make it sound romantic.
So easy -- that's what you're gonna get to do.
"Dump"? [ Laughs .]
Let's go.
Okay, who's the lucky lady? Okay, big sow laying down there in the mud is the one we're gonna get.
We need to stimulate her to stand.
So what we need to do is we need to go get the boar, and she should come up and stand on the other side of the fence.
So the boar is The "stimulator" is what we call him.
All right.
That's a heck of a job.
[ Snorting .]
Okay, now what I want you to do, Mike, is go up through the gate there on the corner.
Get around Mr.
Wonderful here.
Just push her as hard as you want to.
She's locked up.
She's standing.
Her ears are standing erect.
That means she's ready to be bred.
What we have here is a sow in heat? Yep.
And we've got a boar there who's providing the external stimulation.
The sow appears to be stimulated.
We need some lubricant.
Here's your lube, sir.
Now you're gonna want to take your hand and brush off the excess dirt off her vulva.
Right.
With my clean gloves.
Excess dirt? There's nothing here but -- this vulva is encased in poo.
I don't want to be too rough with her, but this vulva's a disaster.
Insert the catheter upwards towards her spine.
If you go in at a downward angle, you'll insert it in her bladder.
We don't want that.
We want to go upwards into the uterine tract.
Push it in as far as you can.
Wow.
Goes in there pretty far.
You can give it a slight little tug, and if it doesn't come out, you're locked in the cervix.
I don't believe I'm quite locked yet.
Yeah, you're in.
Gosh, if only I had some sperm.
Go ahead and insert the bottle.
Now, what you're gonna want to do is you're gonna want to sit on top of her.
I am? All right.
Go ahead and sit on top of her just like that.
Just like that.
Now, squeeze it in slowly.
Always with the slowness.
Always with the slowness.
You're gonna be able to feel her take it in.
Oh, yeah.
This is right up there with maybe the weirdest thing I've ever done.
Polich: You're empty.
We're empty.
So go ahead and hop off the sow.
All right.
And in one swoop, just pull the catheter straight down and straight out.
Just like that.
Good lord.
We've done it.
You've just bred your first sow.
How does it feel? It feels dirty yet magnificent.
In about 16 weeks, this sow will be a proud new mom of 6 to 10 baby piglets.
Come here, cupcake.
And the cycle of this dirty job will start again.
I know.
I know.
You're exhausted.
I'm exhausted.
Let's Let's try not to make a big deal out of this.
I mean, you can't plan it.
I walked in.
I caught your eye.
You caught mine.
I don't know how these things happen.
Look, I don't want to overstate things, but what we have here, it's magic.
It's magic.
Coming up, how much gum does a gumbuster bust? There has to be trillions of pieces of gum on the ground.
We'd better get started.
Later, when it comes to pigeon poo, to solve it, de-solv-it.
Just a little dab will do you? Am I overdoing it? I'm not sure that de-solv-it is gonna take care of that bad boy.
[ Horn honks .]
Rowe: Springtime in New York, where a young man's fancy turns to the gum I've just stepped in and the pigeons, who have just crapped on me.
For the life of me, I've never seen a dirtier town.
I always thought those spots all over the sidewalk were tar.
They're not.
They're someone's chewing gum.
People chew about 50 million pieces of gum a day, and most of them just throw it anywhere they want so that other unsuspecting people get to step in it.
Fortunately, the problem has a solution, and there it is.
We're in Anthony mulé's New York headquarters of gumbusters.
What is that? Mulé: It's a machine that removes chewing gum from virtually any surface.
How much gum is out there in your territory right now, waiting to be picked up? There has to be trillions of pieces of gum on the ground.
Trillions of pieces of gum for James and Joe and me to go find and pick up? Exactly.
We'd better get started.
While Anthony stayed behind to man the phones, James, Joe, and I were dispatched to the heart of Brooklyn.
For the territory that encompasses all of New Jersey and New York, this gumbusters franchise works overtime to help local business owners get out of some really sticky situations.
Oh, man.
That is a bad-looking sidewalk.
How much are we charging for this patch of sidewalk, roughly? The average is like 35, 40 cents a foot.
Not per piece? No, per foot.
That's too bad 'cause if we were charging by the piece, we'd make a fortune.
Okay, the Van is unloaded.
The machines are being charged.
We've secured the perimeter.
How do you -- yeah, that's my question, the wands and all this -- how's he work? Well, this is the famous brush that we're gonna use for removing the actual gum itself.
I see.
We have an extension.
So you don't have to get down on your hands and knees.
So this isn't a vacuum or anything, right? It spits out.
It doesn't suck in.
It's like a It's like a steam machine.
The materials necessary to bust gum are fairly straightforward -- water and a proprietary cleaning agent.
Once you put the nozzle on the piece of chewing gum, you let it sit there for a couple of seconds, and here's the chemical.
Where does the gum go? It just disappears.
It just dissolves.
It's a miracle.
It's gone.
There's no trace of that gum.
That gum is busted.
How hot is that? About 300 degrees.
Kind of works better if you go with the grain instead of against the grain.
It's a nice day, Joe.
It is.
A nice day to pick up gum.
Oh, no.
Did it take you a long time to master the technique? What's the key? Do you go from the knees? Do you just keep your back straight? I just sort of bend my knees a little bit and just bend my back and -- where my back is comfortable.
I like to come at it from an angle.
Put a little ass in it.
There.
Now you're talking my language.
We cleaned 350 square feet of sidewalk, which, for the record, must have been covered with at least 1,000 pieces of gum.
Keeping this city clean is no easy job.
Next stop, central park.
No, no.
That's another story.
Gum has become such a problem on the sidewalks of New York that city officials have contracted gumbusters to help make the problem disappear.
That's right -- busting gum.
New York City.
So, JoeIs it a dirty job, bottom line? Disgusting.
Not only are we dealing with the steam, but the sun beating on us all day long, the smell that's coming from the gum that's being dissolved.
'Cause it doesn't really smell like gum smells when you take it out of the package.
Absolutely not.
It smells disgusting.
Yeah, like the secret ingredient is billions of pounds of saliva.
Maybe it's the horse poo -- a lot of horses.
So you've got the poo, you've got the saliva, you've got old gum, and the heat and the steam.
Yeah, it's dirty.
Thanks to guys like James and Joe, it's once again safe to stroll the sidewalks of New York.
The gum never had a chance.
[ Horn honks .]
Coming up, I teach an old tool a new trick -- how to pick up poop.
I'm sure this is not what the dustpan had in mind.
'Cause, technically, this isn't dust.
Well, we've taken care of the gum.
Now it's time to take on the pigeons -- more specifically, their poo.
It's been estimated that there are over 8 million pigeons in New York City.
That's close to one pigeon for every man, woman, and child.
Today we're at a New York City hospital that's been invaded by thousands of pigeons, and their poo is causing serious health concerns.
The solution -- call in the professionals.
Well, the sign pretty much says it all -- a pigeon with a red circle around it and a red line through it.
This is bell environmental services' mobile unit.
This is Mike.
He works with Milton.
And together, the three of us are gonna make this a pigeon-free zone? Yes, sir.
What's with the outfit? Basically Milton's getting suited up with a tieback suit.
Along with that, we're gonna be bringing a respirator.
A respirator? All we're doing is picking up poo.
What's the big deal? There's actually more than 60 diseases and/or viruses that are related to pigeon poop.
60 ways to die cleaning up pigeon poo? Yes, sir.
Great.
Because of the diseases associated with bird droppings, bell services treats them as hazardous waste.
And believe me, I want as much protection as possible between me and encephalitis, meningitis, and the ever-popular newcastle disease, which can be acquired by either inhalation or direct touch.
Over 80% of the world's population will eventually be infected with some form of bird-related disease.
I'm pretty sure the hospital would have an elevator.
Of course, if you're trying to recuperate in the hospital, this might not exactly be the sight you want to see coming down the hall.
Every year, it's estimated that nesting birds in New York City cause over $200 million in damage, so imagine what the city would look like if these guys never showed up for work.
Basically, what we're gonna start with is some de-solv-it.
We're gonna spray the area down.
It's an enzyme that's gonna break down the bird droppings.
You want to spray the ledges.
All right.
Spray the ledge.
So you just, obviously -- just a little dab will do you? Am I overdoing it? Nope, not at all.
Over-pooing it? Rowe: Are there really 60 different diseases traced to the pigeon? Yes, sir.
Basically, it can give humans respiratory problems, headaches, infections -- long list of things.
Well, give me one of them.
Histo-- what is it called? Histoplas-- I can't say it, either.
He wants to stop.
He can't say the name of the disease.
I think the word is "histoplasmosis," which is a chronic lung infection caused by inhaling airborne fungal spores found in bird poo.
All right, now, I'm not sure that de-solv-it is gonna take care of that bad boy.
Actually, what you're seeing right here is sea-gull droppings instead of our friend, the pigeon.
How can you tell? Obviously it's the size.
Obvious? Well, it's an impressive -- it's like a puma.
That is impressive.
Rowe: So what do you do with a situation like this? Obviously, the de-solv-it's not gonna work.
Nope, dustpan.
The dustpan? Yes, sir.
Garbage bag.
Make it disappear.
You say, "make it disappear," you mean I make it disappear.
You make it disappear.
I'm sure this is not what the dustpan had in mind.
There we go.
'Cause, technically, this isn't dust.
Now, Milton's pushing the water and 60 different ways to die right into us at the moment.
That's just what he does, right? Rowe: So that's the enemy.
Milton: Those guys aren't making our job easier.
And they're staring us down.
The pigeon has no respect.
Not for us, not for the people in the hospital, and certainly not for that ledge.
So what are we seeing there? What's happening is, the birds are sitting on the ledge because it's made out of concrete and stucco.
And it's very porous, so it's easy for them to grip on to it.
They get traction.
Exactly.
So what we're gonna do is put tin flashing there so that next time they land there, they'll slide right off.
Boy, that's gonna shock them.
Of course, they can fly, so it won't be tragic for them.
But it will be surprising.
Definitely.
Another colossally stupid way to die.
"What happened to Mike?" "He fell off a building.
" "What was he doing?" "Oh, he was cleaning up pigeon poo.
"Tragic, really.
Cut down in the subprime of his life.
" Ugh, god.
Pigeon poo coming through.
In we go.
Okay, what's the next step? We all strapped in for safety? Safety first.
Well, at least in the top five.
That's what we like to say.
Definitely.
Well, what we have here is one of our bird exclusion methods.
This is our electrical tracking.
This puts out about 10,000 volts depending on the amount of feet that you have to give them a nice little pop when they land.
Won't hurt them.
Won't kill them.
You can run 10,000 volts through a pigeon and it's gonna be okay? That's what the charger puts out, but it depends on how many feet of track you actually have on it.
Are we safe with the electricity? Surely.
The charger's turned off.
10,000 volts.
What could possibly go wrong? I've seen those spikes and those owls that people put out that scare pigeons.
Why don't you just put some of those up here? Owls really don't work.
We've actually been on jobs were pigeons were sitting on the owls.
And they tend to nest in the spikes.
This is a foolproof method.
Yeah, 10,000 volts sends a message that even the most obstinate pigeon cannot ignore.
Exactly.
Okay, but we're gonna drill through each of these holes.
Actually every fourth hole.
One, two, three, four.
It will take over 800 feet of electrical tracking to make the top of this building an undesirable landing zone for our feathered friends.
You're a professional.
Is it straight enough? Yes, sir.
Well, we're talking about pigeons.
It doesn't have to be perfectly straight, right? So, really, cleaning up the poo is only a small part of the service that you offer.
A small part of the service, yes.
This is really what the customer's paying for -- keeping the pigeons and their poo away.
And making sure that they don't come back.
Rowe: So basically, we're done.
Yep.
We're done running our track on the roof.
Time to move on down to the next section.
Because, from what I understand, poo rolls downhill.
Coming up, in a pigeon's house, the bathroom and living room are the same room.
They build a nest on top of their poo.
How firm a foundation.
And an innocent woman becomes a helpless target.
Look at Elaine's lovely suede coat.
A pigeon did that to you, didn't it? So you can't get down to the third-floor roof without getting up to the third-floor roof, and this is how we do that, right? Yep.
Very fancy.
Looks like the pigeons beat us to it, though.
Rowe: So, obviously the pigeons have done a number on the roof.
Have you seen worse? Absolutely.
But this could be potentially serious.
This is the main drain.
Yeah, basically, when we're on the roofs, that's the first thing you want to see.
Obviously, if the bird droppings do build up to the point where it clogs the drain, the water levels rise on the roofs, and it's just no good structurally.
It can't support the water.
So, basically, what we want to do is make sure that drain is clean before all our droppings -- you see them right now.
Basically, we're gonna shovel all that into a garbage bag.
All right, shovels, gas masks, the whole routine? Yep.
Definitely.
I do enjoy the gas mask.
All right.
Okay.
Disinfect first? You know, the casual observer would just assume this was mud.
It's not mud.
You can even smell it through the respirator a little.
There we go.
Where the wet meets the dry.
Because bird poo is very acidic, it eats away at roofing materials.
It can shorten the life-span of a roof considerably.
I only hope it doesn't shorten my life-span.
Oh, man, does it ever end? Oh, man, I tell you.
We did a lot of the grunt work, and I've got something else to show you, so why don't we move on to that? In an older section of the hospital, we find a pigeon housing problem -- abandoned nests.
So the course of action here is pretty clear, Mike.
We're gonna do a little renovation? Yeah, you could say that.
That's an abandoned pigeon nest up there, and it poses as big a hazard, I guess, as any other pigeon place.
Yeah, definitely, especially when the bird nests are actually built on top of their own droppings.
Definitely, the problem's there.
They build a nest on top of their poo? Yes, sir.
How firm a foundation.
Am I gonna spray the nest, as well as the -- just spray the whole area.
And we'll wait for it to actually break it down, a couple minutes.
And we'll remove the nest, spray it again, and then we'll spray some disinfectant.
Okay, I'm squirting down the nest Squirting down all the poo.
If you want to come back down, I'll give you a scraper and a garbage bag.
Okay.
Industrial-strength dustpan And bag.
All right.
Wow.
This old nest.
Oh, god.
This is the strangest poo I've ever seen.
And I say that as a man who has seen a fair amount of poo.
What is this stuff called again? Pyrethroid.
Sounds like one of the diseases you can catch.
Yeah, basically.
We're gonna spray this for the insects that are related to the bird droppings -- fleas, ticks, mites.
The pigeon is a host to all those types of insects, so the droppings that are left over, if they do have those types of insects in them, they'll still look for a host.
So when we eliminate the bird, they're still gonna be looking for a place to live.
Man, that is just creepy.
Even though the bird and its home and all its poo is gone, the ticks and the mites, the fleas, and all the parasitical goodies that made their home on the pigeon Are alive and well.
That window -- jackpot.
Right? They're everywhere.
All right.
That should be good.
We don't have to brush up or anything? Basically, it should dry itself off.
Once it rains, it will wash that off.
Great.
Again, this doorway isn't active so no one's gonna get dripped on.
Oh, once again, I've nearly killed myself with safety.
This is an osha job, I take it.
Hoo.
Nice.
Another successful avian eviction.
All right, guys.
Got it? Milton: Yep, thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
Milton and Mike are done for the day.
They'll be back tomorrow to finish the job.
Me, I'm headed back to central park.
Now that I knew more than I ever wanted to know about pigeon poop, I set out to inform the general public.
This is Elaine, and this is dushon.
Something tragic just happened.
Look at Elaine's lovely suede coat.
A pigeon did that to you.
Yes, it did.
Let me just run something by you real quick.
Stop me when any of this sounds familiar -- paratyphoid, fibriosis, salmonellosis Oh, you're talking about -- ew, god, you're grossing me out.
listeriosis, fibriosis.
Pasteurellosis.
Syphalitis, meningitis.
Histoplasmosis.
St.
Louis encephalitis.
Newcastle disease.
These are just a few of the over 60 diseases that one can contract from coming too close to pigeon poop.
Pigeons.
Pigeons.
If you could say something to the pigeons, in a language they would understand, what would it be? "Die.
Go away.
" [ Cooing .]
I am the largest farmer in the land.
Think you have a dirty job? Click on discovery.
Com/dirtyjobs and tell us about it.
You never know where I'll show up next.
You must have a very deep voice.
Anthony, can you imagine a world with no gum and no sidewalks? What would it be like? If I was Anthony, I'd be able to answer that.
For god sakes, man.
You make good points.
[ Laughs .]
My name's Mike rowe, and I've put a pig on a pedestal.
Why? Because even though he works in the dirt, this noble creature is the embodiment of hard work, self-sacrifice, and a good-natured willingness to get the job done, no matter how dirty.
Day after day, he goes about his business without complaint.
And night after night, he brings home the bacon.
[ Pig snorts .]
I am sorry I said that.
What's on your pedestal?
I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty You're not gonna tell me that we're gonna scoop the poop with a garden trowel.
hardworking men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
Now, get ready to get dirty.
Coming up on "dirty jobs," I go to a pig farm in Iowa What fresh hell are we in here? and learn what it takes to bring home the bacon.
Then, I hit the sidewalks of New York City.
Gumbusters.
Where does the gum go? It just disappears.
Oh, no.
Later, I go up on the roof to combat pigeon poop.
This is the strangest poo I've ever seen.
Oh, god! It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it whoa-oh, oh-oh, oh it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it -- captions by vitac -- captions paid for by discovery communications this little piglet's barely one day old.
6 months from now, he'll weigh over 300 pounds.
And between now and then, he's gonna make one hell of a mess.
[ Piglet squealing .]
Iowa is smack-dab in the middle of America, a place best known as the "hawkeye state.
" But what I bet you didn't know is that there's more pork in Iowa than anywhere else in the nation.
Pigs get up early here in woodward, Iowa.
So do pig farmers.
This is Eric polich.
How are you, Eric? Good.
How are you doing? I'm doing okay.
Nice place you have here.
Thank you.
Let's get some nomenclature out of the way.
Are they pigs, are they hogs, are they swine? What are they? All three.
Doesn't matter? Doesn't matter.
You got individual names for any of them? Sows are the females that make the babies, boars are the males that also make the babies.
No, I mean, like, you know, Freddy or Sally or biff or something like that? No, no, just for the pets.
What, briefly and basically, is gonna happen here today? Well, first, we're gonna feed and go through our chore process.
Then we're gonna clean pens, and then we're gonna breed sows.
The boars are gonna breed sows.
The boars, not us.
Just so we're clear.
I hate to see any kind of confusion.
Why don't you fire this thing up and we'll get busy with the chores? All right.
Sounds good.
[ Engine turns over .]
Is this two, three horsepower? Yeah, something like that.
Nice.
Polich: We'll have to feed those across the road there, and we'll have to feed the calves after we get done.
That's the barn that we clean.
These are gilts that we just finished up breeding.
They're gonna go in the sow lots here later on this summer.
Gilt -- that's boy pigs.
Nope, gilts are females that have not had babies yet.
Why not just call them "virgins"? We're not in California.
[ Both laugh .]
Good point.
Polich: The sows we feed 5 to 6 pounds apiece per day.
The big sows will weigh up to 750 pounds.
Rowe: You've got to be worried, at this point, thinking maybe I got an eye on your job.
We're hiring.
[ Snorting .]
Dirty pigs.
Now that the pigs have been fed, it was time to get to work on cleaning up after breakfast, and I do mean literally.
Well, now, this can't be good.
This is the dirty job.
The dirty job? Is there a clean one on this place? Not really, but this is the worst.
Well, this is a particularly dirty pen you have here.
Yeah, this is the gilt pen -- gilts that we're gonna retain to breed, so there are more pigs in this pen.
So the goal, at this point in a pig's life, is to simply grow as fast, as expeditiously as possible.
Yep, we just want to grow them as big as we can so we can get these pigs either to market or to retain to breed.
Gotcha.
Whoa, I'm coming in, you pigs.
Oh! Oh, god.
That's just a terrible smell.
Stop it.
Pigs are biting me.
Is it okay to kick them? Yep.
D'oh! What, are you an idiot? I will shovel you right out of your own pen.
Move.
Ow! That's right.
I'm making your bed, you moron.
They're smart when they want to be.
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Uh-oh, I lost a pig.
Get back in there.
Back in there.
Back, back, back, back.
That's right.
Clearly, they don't know who they're dealing with.
Not the brightest pig in the pen, are you? You can't eat the steel.
For such curious animals, they don't seem interested in coming out outside.
They don't like to step up.
They don't like to step down.
So this ledge pretty much keeps them in their pen.
Stop biting me! This little piggy went to the market.
This little piggy stayed home.
That little piggy looks like he'd eat roast beef.
You know, I used to think, when they said that old nursery rhyme, "this little piggy went to the market," I figured it was like, "hey, we're all gonna get dressed up, go to the market.
It'll be a nice day out.
" But a piggy goes to the market Wrong market.
he ain't coming home.
He doesn't want to go.
No.
Funny how they made that sound so cute.
And this little piggy went, "whee, whee, whee" all the way Home.
There's over 800 piglets born at the polich farm every year, creating a never-ending cycle of dirty swine Oh, I smell pigs.
and filthy chores.
Polich: This, Mike, is the farrowing house.
This is where all the sows come to have their babies.
These pigs were just born about 24 hours ago.
We need to clip their teeth, their tails, and give them their shots.
These are the tools.
We have two syringes -- one to give an antibiotic shot and one to give an iron shot.
Why do they need iron? Pigs need supplemental iron because after about four to five days, the pigs run out of their iron that's in their bloodstream, so they need supplemental iron to live.
So everything you're about to do here is for the pig's own good.
For the benefit of the pig.
All right.
Well, let's start with this guy.
That looks like a likely candidate.
What are you gonna do to him? First thing we're gonna do is we're gonna clip his teeth.
Pigs are born with very sharp little teeth.
There's two reasons why we clip the teeth of a baby pig -- one, it's more comfortable for the sow when the pig's nursing.
Number two, when the pigs establish their nursing order, each pig has its own individual teat that he nurses on.
If another pig comes in contact with the pig when he's nursing, those sharp teeth can injure other baby pigs.
The easiest way to do it is to hold him out front like this, behind his ears, put your index finger on the side of his mouth.
You see them sharp, little pointy teeth in there? Yeah, I see that.
I also see them on your finger.
Does that hurt? Yeah, when they bite down, they're pretty sharp.
They're called "needle teeth.
" There's a reason why they're called needle teeth.
We take our clippers Ohh! clip the ends of them off.
I'm not a farmer or a veterinarian, but is the pig in pain? He's not so much in pain as much as he is frightened.
Whoa.
Look at that.
That's dried-up umbilical cord.
We need to take part of it off so it doesn't get stepped on, doesn't get torn.
We're just gonna clip it off.
Why not take it all off? Well, we need to leave a little bit of it on just so the navel heals.
I'm holding a pig's umbilical cord.
That's a first.
What else happens? Now what we need to do, we need to take part of his tail off.
[ Laughing .]
Why? Basically for two reasons.
Look at this.
I think you upset the mother.
Oh, well.
If a pig's tail is long -- and we crowd those pigs in the nursery -- after we wean them, those pigs will begin sometimes to chew on other pigs' tails.
They can become cannibalistic.
Let me hold this end.
Cut it where you need to cut it.
We're gonna take about half an inch off is what we want to do Like that.
Real quick cut.
Pigtail -- just as interesting as the umbilical cord.
We're gonna give him a shot of iron.
Where we give pigs shots at is in the neck.
Why? On the side of the neck.
Because, normally, that is an injection site that is not consumed.
It's not consumed? If it is consumed, it's consumed in sausage or it's ground and processed.
You mean consumed by people.
Oh, I understand.
That is the safest spot to give a pig a shot.
We want to inject this iron intramuscularly.
You give him 1cc of iron.
With clipping his tail and clipping his teeth, we've opened up open wounds on this baby pig.
That will allow staph infections and strep infections to get inside the baby pig.
I see.
What we need to do is give him an antibiotic shot in the other side of his neck Like that.
That way, he can fight off any infections that might occur later on down the road.
All right, so this pig, right now, is healthier than he's been his whole life, which, at this point, is about 23 hours.
[ Squealing .]
Oh, man, look how sharp those teeth are.
Holy cow.
All right.
They could come back and get your eye if you're not careful.
Hold still, brother.
There you go.
Okay.
Yep.
Just like that.
All right, umbilical cord.
Right about there.
Right about here.
I'm so sorry, but you're okay.
You're okay! You're okay! [ Squealing continues .]
Coming up, I get to spend some quality time with the pigs and their poo.
Something wicked this way comes.
I learn that gum busting is part science, part magic.
It's a miracle.
Then I gear up for a job that really is for the birds.
A respirator? There's actually 60 diseases related to pigeon poop.
Great.
A few weeks from now, those cute little pigs we saw earlier will have doubled in size, and then they'll move here to the nursery.
Rowe: Oh, good god! Good lord! This is the nursery.
The nursery? What fresh hell are we in here? This is where we take the baby pigs after they're weaned and grow them up to about 50 to 60 pounds.
Ohh! [ Coughs .]
It's on my teeth.
It's like it's in my eyes.
It's pretty strong.
You dirty, dirty pig! Why is the floor crooked? There's a 3-foot-deep self-contained pit that is gonna be gravity-fed outside.
The poop is under the pigs? It's under the pigs.
That's why I don't see too much poop on the surface.
Man, there it is.
Look at that.
Oh! And it looks as bad as it smells.
Well, not quite.
But it looks bad.
Liquid manure is what it is -- mixture of water and manure.
In each one of these pits on each side, there's about 2,000 gallons of liquid manure.
That's two tons of diarrhea.
That's the plug, and once you lift that up, all that manure is gonna be gushing out that 6-inch pipe.
So that little thing is holding back about nearly a ton Of liquid manure.
of liquid manure.
"Warning.
Do not open.
Dangerous gases.
" Against my better judgment, I am not going to follow that advice, because 1,500 pounds of piglet poo needs a place to live And that's home.
Hit it.
Oh, god! How are you doing, Mike? Not well, Eric.
Not well.
Just holler at me when it gets to the top.
I'll let you know when we get close.
It looks like we're almost done.
That's the east side.
Now we got to pull the West Side.
We're half done.
Are you a tank half-full or half-empty kind of guy? We're both right now.
The eternal optimist.
Oh.
Something wicked this way comes.
Basically what this tank is for, it's an underground storage facility, and we will come in and suck this out with a vacuum tank and spread it on the fields for fertilizer.
That is what the end is for.
Nothing should be able to make a smell like that And live.
Well, the nursery is now clean -- or cleaner, anyway.
What we need to accomplish at this point is to get the pigs that are in here out of here, because they've outgrown the nursery, so we can make room for the smaller pigs, which means we have to carry them.
Where do we start? This end or the other? Let's start at the other end.
All right.
How much do these boys weigh? The bigger end in here is probably about 90 pounds.
The smaller end's about 50 to 60.
First thing we need to do is just grab one of these.
By the way, it still stinks in here.
[ Laughs .]
And it always will.
We got rid of two tons of diarrhea, and it still smells wretched.
Just gonna take this off.
All right.
Just like that.
Hey, fella, or little lady.
Set this over here.
All you have to do is reach in and grab him.
All right.
[ Squeals .]
Do they bite? Oh, sometimes.
What I'm thinking is you show me how to do it and then I'll get the rest of them.
Okay.
I mean, seems reasonable.
Yeah.
Easiest way to do it is just grab him by his back leg or by his tail.
Back leg or tail? Just pull him out just like this.
Carry him out.
Good lord, man.
I think he's barking at me.
He's saying something.
That pig's got a little dog in him.
Get that out.
Hey, buddy.
So just reach right in and grab his back leg? Yep.
Stand him up, try to spin his head over.
Spin his head? Which way? Spin his head.
Okay.
[ Squealing .]
Just like that.
There you go.
Only 15 more to go.
That's insane.
[ Squealing continues .]
They all scream at first.
[ Laughter .]
These are the big ones.
All righty.
[ Squealing .]
Good luck.
Oh, look at that.
You look very mellow.
I'll just -- Hey, come here a second.
I need to carry you outside.
Guess my ship's come in.
Coming up, love is in the air, along with a whole lot of other stuff.
Polich: This is the boar dummy.
What the heck is that thing?! Yep.
Seems like just hours ago, I was cleaning this out.
Now what's gonna happen? Polich: These pigs have been in confinement.
Some of them are gonna walk right into the pen.
Others, we're gonna have to help.
What you need to do is hop in here and just push them out.
Can I just pull them or is it better to push them? It'd be better to push them.
I don't have to worry about hurting them, do I? No, no.
They're pretty tough animals.
It's not really them I'm worried about, to be honest.
Come on.
There's no future in here for you.
The future's out there.
The future is there.
There you go.
Future, future.
There's your future.
You're kidding me.
Just like that.
Come on.
Everybody out.
It's okay.
It's just concrete.
Go.
Pigs are peeing on me.
Come on, out you go.
Go.
Come on, everybody out.
No more Mr.
Nice guy.
We got to go.
Honestly.
[ Grunting .]
Go.
Go to where your friends are peeing.
That's it.
Join the urine parade.
Oh, he must be exhausted.
Come on.
Come on.
There's a party in the pen.
Nothing to it.
There's some smart-aleck trick to this that you didn't tell me.
Rowe: It's a beautiful spring day here at the polich farm, and love is in the air.
It's also in the mud.
So this is known as "the dummy"? This is the boar dummy.
This is what we collect semen off of, Mike.
It's heavy.
It's heavy so that big boar can't tilt it and tip it and so he can jump on top of it.
He's done this before.
He's done it before.
I'm gonna be underneath, and what I want you to do is take the collection cup and catch it Um -- as it comes out.
Is it gonna be coming at me in a fairly obvious direction, or is it sort of like? No, it will be coming right out the end of my hand basically.
No surprises.
Ready to give it a shot? Is he ready to give it a shot? He's ready.
We just need to get him in here.
Let's go fetch him.
Uh-huh.
Look familiar? This is unusual.
Just like at the doctor's office Only not exactly like it.
Oh, dear.
What the heck is that thing?! I mean, I know what it is, but That's his penis.
Tell me what you're doing here from a layman standpoint.
What I'm trying to do is grab on to the end.
Here it comes.
Oh, jeez-oh-whiz.
Looks like he may be sliding off the dummy.
You'll see a clear fluid.
Uh-huh.
That's seminal fluid.
That is the actual semen that is coming out right now.
I'm gonna go ahead and get out of the way.
Let him get off here.
No rush, my man.
Nicely done.
That ain't half-and-half, folks.
That is from one boar.
That's one collection.
How much are we looking at here? We're looking at roughly about 150 to 200 milliliters of raw sperm.
Now, we only have the one sow to take care of, but you could normally extend this? Normally what we do is extend the semen out to about 12 to 14 doses, rather than just one dose.
Will we use all of this on the sow we're about to meet? Yeah, we will go dump all that into the sow that's standing right now, and she will just get the one full dose of raw semen.
"Dump.
" you make it sound romantic.
So easy -- that's what you're gonna get to do.
"Dump"? [ Laughs .]
Let's go.
Okay, who's the lucky lady? Okay, big sow laying down there in the mud is the one we're gonna get.
We need to stimulate her to stand.
So what we need to do is we need to go get the boar, and she should come up and stand on the other side of the fence.
So the boar is The "stimulator" is what we call him.
All right.
That's a heck of a job.
[ Snorting .]
Okay, now what I want you to do, Mike, is go up through the gate there on the corner.
Get around Mr.
Wonderful here.
Just push her as hard as you want to.
She's locked up.
She's standing.
Her ears are standing erect.
That means she's ready to be bred.
What we have here is a sow in heat? Yep.
And we've got a boar there who's providing the external stimulation.
The sow appears to be stimulated.
We need some lubricant.
Here's your lube, sir.
Now you're gonna want to take your hand and brush off the excess dirt off her vulva.
Right.
With my clean gloves.
Excess dirt? There's nothing here but -- this vulva is encased in poo.
I don't want to be too rough with her, but this vulva's a disaster.
Insert the catheter upwards towards her spine.
If you go in at a downward angle, you'll insert it in her bladder.
We don't want that.
We want to go upwards into the uterine tract.
Push it in as far as you can.
Wow.
Goes in there pretty far.
You can give it a slight little tug, and if it doesn't come out, you're locked in the cervix.
I don't believe I'm quite locked yet.
Yeah, you're in.
Gosh, if only I had some sperm.
Go ahead and insert the bottle.
Now, what you're gonna want to do is you're gonna want to sit on top of her.
I am? All right.
Go ahead and sit on top of her just like that.
Just like that.
Now, squeeze it in slowly.
Always with the slowness.
Always with the slowness.
You're gonna be able to feel her take it in.
Oh, yeah.
This is right up there with maybe the weirdest thing I've ever done.
Polich: You're empty.
We're empty.
So go ahead and hop off the sow.
All right.
And in one swoop, just pull the catheter straight down and straight out.
Just like that.
Good lord.
We've done it.
You've just bred your first sow.
How does it feel? It feels dirty yet magnificent.
In about 16 weeks, this sow will be a proud new mom of 6 to 10 baby piglets.
Come here, cupcake.
And the cycle of this dirty job will start again.
I know.
I know.
You're exhausted.
I'm exhausted.
Let's Let's try not to make a big deal out of this.
I mean, you can't plan it.
I walked in.
I caught your eye.
You caught mine.
I don't know how these things happen.
Look, I don't want to overstate things, but what we have here, it's magic.
It's magic.
Coming up, how much gum does a gumbuster bust? There has to be trillions of pieces of gum on the ground.
We'd better get started.
Later, when it comes to pigeon poo, to solve it, de-solv-it.
Just a little dab will do you? Am I overdoing it? I'm not sure that de-solv-it is gonna take care of that bad boy.
[ Horn honks .]
Rowe: Springtime in New York, where a young man's fancy turns to the gum I've just stepped in and the pigeons, who have just crapped on me.
For the life of me, I've never seen a dirtier town.
I always thought those spots all over the sidewalk were tar.
They're not.
They're someone's chewing gum.
People chew about 50 million pieces of gum a day, and most of them just throw it anywhere they want so that other unsuspecting people get to step in it.
Fortunately, the problem has a solution, and there it is.
We're in Anthony mulé's New York headquarters of gumbusters.
What is that? Mulé: It's a machine that removes chewing gum from virtually any surface.
How much gum is out there in your territory right now, waiting to be picked up? There has to be trillions of pieces of gum on the ground.
Trillions of pieces of gum for James and Joe and me to go find and pick up? Exactly.
We'd better get started.
While Anthony stayed behind to man the phones, James, Joe, and I were dispatched to the heart of Brooklyn.
For the territory that encompasses all of New Jersey and New York, this gumbusters franchise works overtime to help local business owners get out of some really sticky situations.
Oh, man.
That is a bad-looking sidewalk.
How much are we charging for this patch of sidewalk, roughly? The average is like 35, 40 cents a foot.
Not per piece? No, per foot.
That's too bad 'cause if we were charging by the piece, we'd make a fortune.
Okay, the Van is unloaded.
The machines are being charged.
We've secured the perimeter.
How do you -- yeah, that's my question, the wands and all this -- how's he work? Well, this is the famous brush that we're gonna use for removing the actual gum itself.
I see.
We have an extension.
So you don't have to get down on your hands and knees.
So this isn't a vacuum or anything, right? It spits out.
It doesn't suck in.
It's like a It's like a steam machine.
The materials necessary to bust gum are fairly straightforward -- water and a proprietary cleaning agent.
Once you put the nozzle on the piece of chewing gum, you let it sit there for a couple of seconds, and here's the chemical.
Where does the gum go? It just disappears.
It just dissolves.
It's a miracle.
It's gone.
There's no trace of that gum.
That gum is busted.
How hot is that? About 300 degrees.
Kind of works better if you go with the grain instead of against the grain.
It's a nice day, Joe.
It is.
A nice day to pick up gum.
Oh, no.
Did it take you a long time to master the technique? What's the key? Do you go from the knees? Do you just keep your back straight? I just sort of bend my knees a little bit and just bend my back and -- where my back is comfortable.
I like to come at it from an angle.
Put a little ass in it.
There.
Now you're talking my language.
We cleaned 350 square feet of sidewalk, which, for the record, must have been covered with at least 1,000 pieces of gum.
Keeping this city clean is no easy job.
Next stop, central park.
No, no.
That's another story.
Gum has become such a problem on the sidewalks of New York that city officials have contracted gumbusters to help make the problem disappear.
That's right -- busting gum.
New York City.
So, JoeIs it a dirty job, bottom line? Disgusting.
Not only are we dealing with the steam, but the sun beating on us all day long, the smell that's coming from the gum that's being dissolved.
'Cause it doesn't really smell like gum smells when you take it out of the package.
Absolutely not.
It smells disgusting.
Yeah, like the secret ingredient is billions of pounds of saliva.
Maybe it's the horse poo -- a lot of horses.
So you've got the poo, you've got the saliva, you've got old gum, and the heat and the steam.
Yeah, it's dirty.
Thanks to guys like James and Joe, it's once again safe to stroll the sidewalks of New York.
The gum never had a chance.
[ Horn honks .]
Coming up, I teach an old tool a new trick -- how to pick up poop.
I'm sure this is not what the dustpan had in mind.
'Cause, technically, this isn't dust.
Well, we've taken care of the gum.
Now it's time to take on the pigeons -- more specifically, their poo.
It's been estimated that there are over 8 million pigeons in New York City.
That's close to one pigeon for every man, woman, and child.
Today we're at a New York City hospital that's been invaded by thousands of pigeons, and their poo is causing serious health concerns.
The solution -- call in the professionals.
Well, the sign pretty much says it all -- a pigeon with a red circle around it and a red line through it.
This is bell environmental services' mobile unit.
This is Mike.
He works with Milton.
And together, the three of us are gonna make this a pigeon-free zone? Yes, sir.
What's with the outfit? Basically Milton's getting suited up with a tieback suit.
Along with that, we're gonna be bringing a respirator.
A respirator? All we're doing is picking up poo.
What's the big deal? There's actually more than 60 diseases and/or viruses that are related to pigeon poop.
60 ways to die cleaning up pigeon poo? Yes, sir.
Great.
Because of the diseases associated with bird droppings, bell services treats them as hazardous waste.
And believe me, I want as much protection as possible between me and encephalitis, meningitis, and the ever-popular newcastle disease, which can be acquired by either inhalation or direct touch.
Over 80% of the world's population will eventually be infected with some form of bird-related disease.
I'm pretty sure the hospital would have an elevator.
Of course, if you're trying to recuperate in the hospital, this might not exactly be the sight you want to see coming down the hall.
Every year, it's estimated that nesting birds in New York City cause over $200 million in damage, so imagine what the city would look like if these guys never showed up for work.
Basically, what we're gonna start with is some de-solv-it.
We're gonna spray the area down.
It's an enzyme that's gonna break down the bird droppings.
You want to spray the ledges.
All right.
Spray the ledge.
So you just, obviously -- just a little dab will do you? Am I overdoing it? Nope, not at all.
Over-pooing it? Rowe: Are there really 60 different diseases traced to the pigeon? Yes, sir.
Basically, it can give humans respiratory problems, headaches, infections -- long list of things.
Well, give me one of them.
Histo-- what is it called? Histoplas-- I can't say it, either.
He wants to stop.
He can't say the name of the disease.
I think the word is "histoplasmosis," which is a chronic lung infection caused by inhaling airborne fungal spores found in bird poo.
All right, now, I'm not sure that de-solv-it is gonna take care of that bad boy.
Actually, what you're seeing right here is sea-gull droppings instead of our friend, the pigeon.
How can you tell? Obviously it's the size.
Obvious? Well, it's an impressive -- it's like a puma.
That is impressive.
Rowe: So what do you do with a situation like this? Obviously, the de-solv-it's not gonna work.
Nope, dustpan.
The dustpan? Yes, sir.
Garbage bag.
Make it disappear.
You say, "make it disappear," you mean I make it disappear.
You make it disappear.
I'm sure this is not what the dustpan had in mind.
There we go.
'Cause, technically, this isn't dust.
Now, Milton's pushing the water and 60 different ways to die right into us at the moment.
That's just what he does, right? Rowe: So that's the enemy.
Milton: Those guys aren't making our job easier.
And they're staring us down.
The pigeon has no respect.
Not for us, not for the people in the hospital, and certainly not for that ledge.
So what are we seeing there? What's happening is, the birds are sitting on the ledge because it's made out of concrete and stucco.
And it's very porous, so it's easy for them to grip on to it.
They get traction.
Exactly.
So what we're gonna do is put tin flashing there so that next time they land there, they'll slide right off.
Boy, that's gonna shock them.
Of course, they can fly, so it won't be tragic for them.
But it will be surprising.
Definitely.
Another colossally stupid way to die.
"What happened to Mike?" "He fell off a building.
" "What was he doing?" "Oh, he was cleaning up pigeon poo.
"Tragic, really.
Cut down in the subprime of his life.
" Ugh, god.
Pigeon poo coming through.
In we go.
Okay, what's the next step? We all strapped in for safety? Safety first.
Well, at least in the top five.
That's what we like to say.
Definitely.
Well, what we have here is one of our bird exclusion methods.
This is our electrical tracking.
This puts out about 10,000 volts depending on the amount of feet that you have to give them a nice little pop when they land.
Won't hurt them.
Won't kill them.
You can run 10,000 volts through a pigeon and it's gonna be okay? That's what the charger puts out, but it depends on how many feet of track you actually have on it.
Are we safe with the electricity? Surely.
The charger's turned off.
10,000 volts.
What could possibly go wrong? I've seen those spikes and those owls that people put out that scare pigeons.
Why don't you just put some of those up here? Owls really don't work.
We've actually been on jobs were pigeons were sitting on the owls.
And they tend to nest in the spikes.
This is a foolproof method.
Yeah, 10,000 volts sends a message that even the most obstinate pigeon cannot ignore.
Exactly.
Okay, but we're gonna drill through each of these holes.
Actually every fourth hole.
One, two, three, four.
It will take over 800 feet of electrical tracking to make the top of this building an undesirable landing zone for our feathered friends.
You're a professional.
Is it straight enough? Yes, sir.
Well, we're talking about pigeons.
It doesn't have to be perfectly straight, right? So, really, cleaning up the poo is only a small part of the service that you offer.
A small part of the service, yes.
This is really what the customer's paying for -- keeping the pigeons and their poo away.
And making sure that they don't come back.
Rowe: So basically, we're done.
Yep.
We're done running our track on the roof.
Time to move on down to the next section.
Because, from what I understand, poo rolls downhill.
Coming up, in a pigeon's house, the bathroom and living room are the same room.
They build a nest on top of their poo.
How firm a foundation.
And an innocent woman becomes a helpless target.
Look at Elaine's lovely suede coat.
A pigeon did that to you, didn't it? So you can't get down to the third-floor roof without getting up to the third-floor roof, and this is how we do that, right? Yep.
Very fancy.
Looks like the pigeons beat us to it, though.
Rowe: So, obviously the pigeons have done a number on the roof.
Have you seen worse? Absolutely.
But this could be potentially serious.
This is the main drain.
Yeah, basically, when we're on the roofs, that's the first thing you want to see.
Obviously, if the bird droppings do build up to the point where it clogs the drain, the water levels rise on the roofs, and it's just no good structurally.
It can't support the water.
So, basically, what we want to do is make sure that drain is clean before all our droppings -- you see them right now.
Basically, we're gonna shovel all that into a garbage bag.
All right, shovels, gas masks, the whole routine? Yep.
Definitely.
I do enjoy the gas mask.
All right.
Okay.
Disinfect first? You know, the casual observer would just assume this was mud.
It's not mud.
You can even smell it through the respirator a little.
There we go.
Where the wet meets the dry.
Because bird poo is very acidic, it eats away at roofing materials.
It can shorten the life-span of a roof considerably.
I only hope it doesn't shorten my life-span.
Oh, man, does it ever end? Oh, man, I tell you.
We did a lot of the grunt work, and I've got something else to show you, so why don't we move on to that? In an older section of the hospital, we find a pigeon housing problem -- abandoned nests.
So the course of action here is pretty clear, Mike.
We're gonna do a little renovation? Yeah, you could say that.
That's an abandoned pigeon nest up there, and it poses as big a hazard, I guess, as any other pigeon place.
Yeah, definitely, especially when the bird nests are actually built on top of their own droppings.
Definitely, the problem's there.
They build a nest on top of their poo? Yes, sir.
How firm a foundation.
Am I gonna spray the nest, as well as the -- just spray the whole area.
And we'll wait for it to actually break it down, a couple minutes.
And we'll remove the nest, spray it again, and then we'll spray some disinfectant.
Okay, I'm squirting down the nest Squirting down all the poo.
If you want to come back down, I'll give you a scraper and a garbage bag.
Okay.
Industrial-strength dustpan And bag.
All right.
Wow.
This old nest.
Oh, god.
This is the strangest poo I've ever seen.
And I say that as a man who has seen a fair amount of poo.
What is this stuff called again? Pyrethroid.
Sounds like one of the diseases you can catch.
Yeah, basically.
We're gonna spray this for the insects that are related to the bird droppings -- fleas, ticks, mites.
The pigeon is a host to all those types of insects, so the droppings that are left over, if they do have those types of insects in them, they'll still look for a host.
So when we eliminate the bird, they're still gonna be looking for a place to live.
Man, that is just creepy.
Even though the bird and its home and all its poo is gone, the ticks and the mites, the fleas, and all the parasitical goodies that made their home on the pigeon Are alive and well.
That window -- jackpot.
Right? They're everywhere.
All right.
That should be good.
We don't have to brush up or anything? Basically, it should dry itself off.
Once it rains, it will wash that off.
Great.
Again, this doorway isn't active so no one's gonna get dripped on.
Oh, once again, I've nearly killed myself with safety.
This is an osha job, I take it.
Hoo.
Nice.
Another successful avian eviction.
All right, guys.
Got it? Milton: Yep, thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
Milton and Mike are done for the day.
They'll be back tomorrow to finish the job.
Me, I'm headed back to central park.
Now that I knew more than I ever wanted to know about pigeon poop, I set out to inform the general public.
This is Elaine, and this is dushon.
Something tragic just happened.
Look at Elaine's lovely suede coat.
A pigeon did that to you.
Yes, it did.
Let me just run something by you real quick.
Stop me when any of this sounds familiar -- paratyphoid, fibriosis, salmonellosis Oh, you're talking about -- ew, god, you're grossing me out.
listeriosis, fibriosis.
Pasteurellosis.
Syphalitis, meningitis.
Histoplasmosis.
St.
Louis encephalitis.
Newcastle disease.
These are just a few of the over 60 diseases that one can contract from coming too close to pigeon poop.
Pigeons.
Pigeons.
If you could say something to the pigeons, in a language they would understand, what would it be? "Die.
Go away.
" [ Cooing .]
I am the largest farmer in the land.
Think you have a dirty job? Click on discovery.
Com/dirtyjobs and tell us about it.
You never know where I'll show up next.
You must have a very deep voice.
Anthony, can you imagine a world with no gum and no sidewalks? What would it be like? If I was Anthony, I'd be able to answer that.
For god sakes, man.
You make good points.
[ Laughs .]
My name's Mike rowe, and I've put a pig on a pedestal.
Why? Because even though he works in the dirt, this noble creature is the embodiment of hard work, self-sacrifice, and a good-natured willingness to get the job done, no matter how dirty.
Day after day, he goes about his business without complaint.
And night after night, he brings home the bacon.
[ Pig snorts .]
I am sorry I said that.
What's on your pedestal?