A happy Miguel, after weeks of work to lure Flash in.
A few months ago I wrote about getting some new pigs from one of our friends who attended our hog killing class. Specifically I wrote about some pigs escaping. Two pigs escaped that day, Spider Pig, who came back home that day, and Flash Gordan because of how fast she ran.
Flash never left the farm, instead taking up residence in our woods by Swift Creek, going Huck Finn and living off of what she found. After months of effort, we managed to get Flash eating from us and sleeping in a little dog cage we had, while of course living her own life as a free, independent woman. Being the male chauvinist that Miguel and I are, we couldn’t abide all that freedom and “girl power” and today we trapped Flash in her dog cage during her breakfast.
This story had a tidy ending with everything being alright, Flash being finally at home and reunited with her family and Miguel and our family settling down to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. If you’ve been around long enough, you know things don’t quite end up like we plan on Ninja Cow Farm.
After taking Flash back to the maximum security pen she’d originally escaped from, checking the hot wire, and herding her long lost family in for a warm greeting, we opened her cage. Flash jumped out of her cage, made one half-hearted attempt to scurry off, then leaped to the same spot she’d escaped the first time. Aha, but we put chicken wire on it this time. No pig is going to… Arghh!!! The wire was secured against little pigs, not 75 pound wild women! In a flash, Flash was out again and heading off the farm exactly as last time. The first time, I had some bad language. This time, I’m just laughing. Spork takes off around the barn to track where the pig is going and keeps us informed. Once I get there to watch, he warms up the Gator and we tear off after the pig. Miguel takes off running to try and cut Flash off. Silly Miguel, nobody can outrun Flash Gordon. Luckily, Spork and I are a well oiled team by this point and pig wrangling is old hat. We take off at full speed in the Gator and after negotiating cows, holes, and gates, we arrive at the spot where Flash escaped last time, about 15 seconds before Flash was to escape again. We succeed in turning her around and Spork jumps out of the still moving Gator to try and help Miguel catch Flash. What part of “Flash Gordon” don’t you guys get? Flash runs circles around both of them while I pursue and cut off the pig in the Gator. We eventually get Flash headed back to the barn. Miguel is in hot pursuit on foot and Spork dives back into the Gator, Dukes of Hazard style, and we tear off again to the barn. Another 10 minutes of chasing bears a striking resemblance to this:
Much like Benny Hill, Flash ended up running right into incarceration, having bowled into the pig paddocks. She was halted by some hog wire and stopped long enough to see that there were pigs around. The three of us spent about 20 minutes watching, waiting, and tossing food in to keep everyone happy. After making old and new acquaintances, It appears that Flash is finally happy to have come back home and all is well on the farm.
All kidding aside, I’m glad to get her back with her family as winter approaches. I don’t want her trying to stay warm by herself.
Flash Gordon, when we thought we had her, and she knew better.
Today was a sick day for us on the farm. I was under the weather and so was Wildflower. Therefor SWMBO took the other two to church and left us to our own devices. On our limited list of things to do was to go pick up pigs from our friends Chuck and Tommy. We actually purchased the pigs over a month ago, but just couldn’t get together on when to pick them up.
Wildflower and I loaded up and headed off for our 30 minute drive. Chuck and Tommy were expecting us, however their help had not shown up and they were struggling to get the pigs corralled and caught. Wildflower stood outside with their dog and played while the three men chased pigs around a paddock for 1.5 hours, falling, bonking into things, getting run over and under by pigs, etc. Wildflower said it was pretty funny so she was entertained.
The pigs were fat and healthy, and had grown quite a bit since I’d last seen them. We had a quiet ride home and the pigs are currently spending the night in the trailer. Miguel and I will integrate them into the fold tomorrow, after making sure they are all ready to go which will involve a bit of playing vet.
Chuck says he will have a mess of pigs for me next year, which is good because we are going to need them. We’ve been out of pork for too long.
When we got home, we had a greeting at the front door. Cotton was guarding the front door and relaxing. She paid me no mind but as soon as Wildflower got close she jumped up and started sniffing, smelling Chuck’s dog on her. She was determined to come in the house with us and stay with Wildflower. It was an interesting reaction, her finding out one of her brood had been off playing with another dog.
This past weekend we doubled the number of pigs we have on the farm to about 60. It took three trips to three different farms, while crossing half of NC, to pick up all the pigs. Fortunately we have two good local suppliers now who say they can provide us with piglets going forward. That means we should be again doubling our pigs on hand getting us over 100 pigs on farm at one time. About 110 pigs is our goal, enabling us to supply 20 pigs per month which is the volume we need to meet for 2015. If we can keep pigs and produce both flowing into the farm, we should be able to accomplish it.
Here is a closer, and much cuter, view of one of the pigs. This pig just laid in my arm and didn’t complain. He was so cute that I had to take a picture. I think the fact that last time he was in this position he’d had his testicles cut out made him think he better behave this time.
We also went to Zebulon to pick up some larger pigs from a friend. These pigs averaged about 205 pounds each and are a cross of Duroc/Landrace and Large Black/Tamworth. Don’t laugh at that many crosses. I’m a cross of Swedish/Scottish/Irish/English/Southerner. And that’s only on one side of the family.
More of the big pigs. These look much more Tamworth than the others. Getting these big pigs in was expensive but it’s a big boost to getting our production going. These pigs will finish around December, and the following batch should finish around February which will be just right. After that we have another batch finishing in the spring. With the pigs we’ve added now, we should finally have some pork in the freezer plus what we need to sell. I like the pigs from Zebulon. I don’t know if it’s because they are tame or just their disposition but they are calm and gentle, which makes them enjoyable to have around. Unlike the Spider Pig.
The new big pigs were turned into a fallow paddock with lots of food, and lots of grass and acorns to eat. They have settled in very quickly and seem quite content to enjoy their days on our farm. You can pet these pigs as they walk by and they are quite curious when you go into their paddock, coming up to check you out one by one. Despite the high cost, I’m happy with these pigs.
One of the things we are doing with our pigs is to try and knock back the Japanese stilt grass that is growing in all of our wooded areas. It seems you can do three things to stilt grass. Burn it, spray it with chemicals, or turn pigs loose on it. In the video above, you can see the pigs happily grazing the stilt grass, something the cows won’t touch. Once all this grass is grazed, the pigs will root up the roots and eat them. By December this paddock won’t have a single piece of stilt grass in it and will be ready for planting of something else should we so choose next spring.
Our new pig paddock, before the pigs have done any work.
Just to have a before picture, I took this photo of the pig paddock the first morning the pigs were in it. I’ll get an after shot later in the year for comparison.
Did I mention that Spork was part of this endeavor all the way through? From riding all over NC to handling pigs. His speciality is pig catching in the trailer. I was able to catch his prowess, and the resulting hilarity in the following short video. He’s not hamming it up, he didn’t even know I was filming.
Yesterday we traveled to Henderson to buy some pigs. This morning, Miguel, Spork, and I decided to get the pigs out of our trailer and place them into our holding paddock. This was an excellent idea because:
Spork was able to get out of school for farm work. Always a plus.
Handling and castrating pigs trumped school. Education comes in many forms
We were going to castrate the boy pigs. Something handy for Spork to learn as it’s his responsibility that his sisters are protected from any roaming suitors. Castration is what they call a negative influencer.
Lastly, the pigs were ready to get out of the trailer and into somewhere new that hopefully had food.
We staged our work crew into various areas of expertise. Spork was in charge of catching the pigs in the trailer. This isn’t as easy as it sounds however Spork is the pig whisper and was able to lay healing hands on the errant pigs with alarming regularity, often overrunning Miguel and I.
Miguel was in charge of, well, everything. He kept the trailer door closed keeping the extra pigs from escaping while taking each “caught” pig from Spork and transferring it to the table to have it’s home surgery performed. Miguel was also in charge of sweetly and calmly lying to the pigs, telling them everything would be alright and that he’d be there for them. This was while they were being castrated. For the boys in the audience, you can well understand that everything most certainly was not going to be “alright”.
As El Jefe, I was in charge of the medical supplies and the sharp bits for the castration. Basically I get the dangerous but clean bits.
Our first pig was a female so I took her straight to the holding paddock. This paddock is remarkably similar to the area where the Ninja Cow was delivered on that fateful day. Unfortunately, the results were similar.
Shortly after depositing the first pig into the paddock, I discovered that the hot box wasn’t on, the hot wire was shorted even if it had been on, and there were about 10 places that a little pig could escape but that no other pig had ever looked at. Of course this first pig found the first place and escaped from confinement and into the barn yard. Miguel took off in pursuit while Carter and I grabbed the gator to give chase. Much like the Ninja Cow, the pig immediately took off and successfully navigated to the best route off the farm. A combination of Miguel, Carter, and I worked all the way down to the edge of The road and chased the pig up and down the fence, diving and failing to grab it. Miguel was yelling at me to keep the pig away from the corner fence, I was yelling to keep the pig away from the pond’s drainage line. Luckily we listened to each other and drove the pig to the corner of the pasture where it ran under a 10″ opening in the fence and escaped completely (Arrrghh, Miguel was right!).
Did I say luckily? Alas, I was due some misfortune because I had used MANY bad words up to this point, including using the Lord’s name in vain. Something Spork has reminded me of since, and of course has told his mother. /Sigh
So we returned, defeated, having lost a 50 dollar pig and much of my dignity. More importantly, I’m no closer to heaven after my language so I have that to work on as well. Miguel asked if we should string a new wire around the paddock. I couldn’t see where a new hot wire would make a difference so I said no. “Are you sure Jefe?” Yeah, I’m sure. Remember this point, it will become important later.
We proceeded to grab pigs and dump them into the paddock, castrating the boys till we’d reached pig number 7 of 10. Miguel kept pointing out that we might want to consider stringing a new wire as he didn’t like the way they were trying the existing hot wire. Then as we were reading pig #8 for castration, the pig I’d been eye balling the entire time, the black pig with a white stripe around it’s middle ala Ninja Cow, decided to jump not only the hot wire but the gate and the fencing material and escape into the wild.
Folks, if I hadn’t lost my religion prior, I certainly did when I watched this pig jump out of confinement and escape across our barn yard. The fact that it was the pig version of the ninja cow didn’t help. The fact that Miguel was in mid-sentence asking me “if I didn’t just want to string some wire, are you sure?” as this pig escaped just killed me. I kept picturing a single hot wire like we already had. Miguel, now obviously, meant to string chicken wire across the opening the pig had just escaped from. So much for my Spanglish. /Sigh.
So we went in pursuit of this new pig. Everyone was involved and we hoped that we could turn the pig back to it’s friends before it escaped completely. Much like the original ninja cow, the pig was head down and bent on escape, never stopping to look around or wonder. I lost the ninja pig in our tall pastures almost immediately and we didn’t see the pig again.
7 pigs dealt with, two escaped. Not a great ratio.
After a fruitless search, we began to turn our pig paddock into Fort Knox. Finally much effort was paid to every possible escape. The electric wire went from 1.5k volts to 13k volts. The openings were closed off and all was made secure. All of this was after the remaining pigs had escaped from another hole while I was chasing the ninja pig. Spork and Miguel managed to corral the pigs back into the paddock, preventing a mass escape. Fortunately I did not even know about the additional escape till after it was contained. I don’t think my psyche could have taken it at this moment.
So with Fort Knox secure, we castrated the rest of the pigs and I cleaned up and headed for work knowing farming wasn’t going to pay when I’m loosing $100 worth of pigs on day one. I’d not even made it to work when I received a call from our neighbors at the golf course that a black and white ninja pig had been spotted at hole number 6 and we needed to come and capture him. I hightailed it back to the farm, changed clothes, and recruited not only my family but any friends who might be nearby plus any errant golfers who might be close. After commandeering two golf carts we went on a pig hunt, complete with The Princesses pink rifle should we not be able to capture the pig. After one fruitless trip around the golf course, we returned to the house where I redressed for work and headed out for the joy that was 1 day of work compressed into a few pigless hours. While at work I received the following picture from Miguel.
The ninja pig had returned to her family and Miguel, through guile and ingenuity had managed to catch her and put her back with everyone else. This ends the story of the ninja pig, DAY 1. God help us for day 2.
Spork had decided that instead of ninja pig, this black and white pig should be named spider pig from the Simpson’s movie. After what I’ve seen, I can’t argue.
Last weekend, we posted a picture of our new intern Justin and his altercation with the chicken brooder house and our tractor. I thought shame and public ridicule would stand in place of instruction and oversight. Apparently I was wrong because this weekend I told Justin he was on his own once again to do everything on Sunday. This was the result.
Apparently training and oversight are actually needed with brand new interns. Go figure. I can’t fault Justin, he covered two Sunday’s in a row for me with hardly any instruction. It’s not our normal training regimen but it’s what I could accomplish this time. Hopefully going forward I’ll be able to be around more and at least be a part of breaking my stuff.
Today we drove to Henderson to meet up with some of our friends from our Bang to Bacon class. Luckily, despite attending my class, they have stayed with raising pigs and had a couple of litters to sell. We were fortunate to get 10 pigs from them and the highlight of the trip was putting the kids in the paddock to chase piglets. Here you can see the craziness that is chasing 4 week old pigs around a paddock. I was lucky that Mr. Dorman was able to accompany us on this trip riding shotgun. Since we were in Vance county and were somewhat lost, it was handy to have Mr. D around to return fire should anyone decide we shouldn’t be turning around in their yard. Luckily all was fine and we were able to meet our friends neighbors who were all very nice.
The 10 new pigs made the ride home just fine and will be attended to in the morning by Miguel and I. They need to be castrated and then turned into their new paddock. I have 5 more coming this coming weekend, along with 12 large hogs. I hope our food supply holds out as we head into winter. We’re in the pigs all of a sudden.
Speaking of Mr. D. I received two AWESOME birthday gifts from him, along with his help in chasing errant piggies. One is a book that isn’t really farm related but is very special. The other is a pack of 100 labels, shown here. These labels are not “real” labels in that they won’t pass any state or federal inspections. They are more for our home cooked products that we gift away to friends. Here you can see a jar of some of our wares, now awesomely labeled with our information. The upper sticker is the state motto for the state of NC. It translates into, “To be rather than to seem.”
On the fine print below the sticker, for those of you who can’t read 2 point font, I’ll list the fine print below.
Lovingly hand crafted here on our family farm, this product exudes luxuriant notes of wet dog, cow manure, and bits of Mr. Dan’s burning flesh; accidentally ignited with disturbing frequency. It’s much betterer than that last batch we made. It’s SWMBO, Spork, Princess, and Wildflower approved.
If you receive something from us with this label, you are one of the chosen ones we hold in high esteem.
Heritage breed Berkshire pigs in their natural environment.
It’s funny, the people I talk to that raise hogs outdoors, on the ground, in natural conditions aren’t dealing with this epidemic at all. And we in NC are at ground zero of this epidemic per this article. So it would stand to reason that housing animals in confinement, shoulder to shoulder with their peers by the thousands, may not be the safest way to produce healthy pork after all.
Kind of like how chicken pox swept through cities while the cure was found in milking sheds (cowpox) in the country. Or how rabies had the same effect in cities. Massing many of anything in a small area makes for problems we don’t normally see otherwise. One more reason I’m happy to have our animals on pasture and in organic farming practices.
This picture is actually from a few weeks ago. This is a batch of the new piglets standing inside my shop on the farm. I’m pretty particular about my shop. I keep it clean, organized, and capable of whatever we need to do whenever it needs done. This bunch of knuckleheads had taken to sneaking under a hot wire to explore greener pastures. Of course, they returned every day to their paddock, especially when we deliver the food. On this particular day they’d decided to walk into an open door and take a self guided tour of the shop to assure themselves we were not keeping all the truly yummy food sequestered out of their site.
We keep an extra 24 joule fence charger on hand and Miguel rigged it up the next day. 24 joules gave the piggies a new perspective on what it means to stay where they are supposed to.
Don’t feel bad for the pigs, I couldn’t have put them to work anyway. They don’t have thumbs and certainly can’t operate a lathe.
She is a cute little feeder pig who has grown up around two boxers and acts like one of the dogs. I wonder what they will do when she weighs 400 pounds and sits wherever she pleases.
We have some new additions on the farm. A drove of Berkshire feeder pigs have taken up residence and are already filling out with the rich produce we provide them. We purchased them for Kayla at The Butcher and the Baker who will be taking these pigs, and lots more in the future.
Some of the pigs in their new paddockThere is some pink mixed in with our pure blood Berkshires. The mother of the pink pigs was like a big friendly dog. Her offspring are equally nice to be around.More pigs in the forest.
I took these pics after a quick summer rain shower had passed over. The leaves of our trees were weighted down by the water and the little pigs were happily munching on the newly lower leaves.
