7125 Old Stage Road Raleigh NC 919-322-0197
Everything that oinks on the farm
Six piglets born so far, all healthy and happy. Everyone is nursing and we’ve lost none so far. I’d love to claim that I’m responsible but I actually had to run some errands and this is what I came back to so I’m a bad midwife. Maybe she’ll still have some more, maybe not. Large Blacks (the daddy pig) aren’t known for their litter size so six may be all we get.
We’ll keep an eye on her though to see if more pop out.
We have a couple of our momma pigs in the barn who are VERY pregnant. We’ve been watching them for the past few weeks and nada. But this morning when Miguel opened the barn to let them out for their daily stroll, we found this.
This is one of our Chester White/Old Spot crosses. She weighs over 400 pounds, to give you a sense of scale here. She is currently in labor and we’ll be checking her every hour or so today till she starts popping out babies. Time permitting I’ll try to keep everyone updated on the progress.
This was a few minutes later. She’ll keep moving around trying to get comfortable, which any momma out there will tell you isn’t possible at this point. That’s cantaloupe from dinner last night just in front of her.
I’ll pass along any well wishes to her as I check on her. She doesn’t need any help, but the babies sometimes need a bit of help getting to where they can nurse and stay warm next to mom so I’ll be checking them to make sure they are ok. Hopefully by this afternoon we’ll have a new litter of pigs, and of course some cute pictures.
If you’ve been here before, you know that produce is what makes our pigs different. We don’t feed commercial bag feed to our animals.
Above you see a normal way to feed pigs. Once a week, once a month, whatever, you dump bags of feed into the top of the feeder and then you basically walk away from the pigs and ignore them. If you are certified Organic, the only difference is that you dump Organic feed in instead of Tractor Supply feed. No really, that’s what Organic means. Different feed. The pigs generally eat what you see in this picture, corn. If they are Organic then its Organic corn. Corn is the animal equivalent of this.
Corn is calorie dense, but nutrient deficient. Of course people may feed a grain mix, or a prepared pellet like this.
The grain companies will tell you all the nutrition the pig needs is in this pellet. Probably is. Of course they are telling you that your pig will gain at a maximum rate for the minimum cost to produce the biggest pig possible in the shortest amount of time possible. They aren’t promising the pig will live a long healthy life since that pig will be slaughtered at 6 months of age. It is not like the pig will get heart disease, joint problems, etc in only 6 months. But the pig will get the results of this kind of diet in the meat in 6 months. The same meat you will be putting into your body. I’m assuming you’re planning on living longer than 6 months.
Fed with a self feeder, when pigs want to eat, they walk over to the feeder, nose it open, and munch on the grain inside. After they eat their fill, they go lay back down and don’t do much else the rest of the day. We’ve bought pigs fed this way before. They are extremely fat and lazy to the point of it being funny. I actually loaded some large pigs one time from a farmer. Usually loading pigs is kinda upsetting to them. They are going into a strange new place and are locked in. The doors slam and people yell and poke. They can get upset. We closed the trailer door behind them and started chatting for a minute while I wrote the check. About 2 minutes after loading, I heard snoring and looked in to see one of the pigs passed out asleep and already snoring. Folks, that’s not calm, that’s fat and lazy!
When those pigs would get to our farm (we no longer buy pigs), we would melt about 25% of their body weight off in a couple on months. It was like starting a gym membership and weight loss program all at once. Suddenly they had to work to get their food, and their food wasn’t high calorie, nutrient poor corn. The pigs became active and spent their days rooting and looking for additional food besides the produce we fed them. Once they lost their blubber, they grew at a normal pace and finished out nicely. What they weren’t able to be anymore was this.
So what do think makes for a healthier meat for you and your family, the couch potato above, or this?
Oh, and did I mention there is NO COMPARISON in the taste? Try our pork chops or Boston butts and see what real pork tastes like. There is no comparison.
Yesterday Miguel, Yarik and I sorted pigs from paddock to paddock. I messed up a text I sent to Miguel first thing, causing him to feed the pigs we were going to not feed until they were moved. That’s a problem because the way we get them on the trailer is to put their food on the trailer and they then fight to get on. Then we simply close the gate, raise the trailer, and drive them to where they need to be. Once there and in position, we lower the trailer hydraulically, open the gate, and the pigs just walk right off. It just takes a few minutes and works well. But because I “murderlized the Queen’s english” in my text, we had to crowd the pigs onto the trailer. They don’t much appreciate this method and neither do we. I had to take my shower via water hose when we were done.
Regardless, we sorted out and moved pigs around to different paddocks. Some moved to brand new paddocks and some got resorted into new groups that were closer to each other’s size. It’s very similar to an elementary school where some kids move up to third grade, some skip to fourth, and some get held back in second grade. But for us, all that decision is based on size and weight, not end of year testing.
Now we have our finished pigs right by the barn where we can really focus on getting them full meals and letting them get that last bit of weight on before going to the processor. With our diet of pure produce, we don’t have to worry about over fattening the hogs so we can really pour the food to them and let them have all they can eat. As spring comes in and produce becomes more plentiful, this won’t be a problem to keep them eating.
I just got back from the processor and we have bacon, snack sticks, and fresh BBQ in the freezer cooling down right now.
I also dropped off two hogs today to be picked up next week so even if we have a run on bacon (seems like it always happens), we should be restocked by mid next week. We are getting a little short on kielbasa and bratwurst so it was time to take a couple more hogs and get some sausage. We are well stocked on everything else and my chicken farmer is going to be here tomorrow to deliver a large order of chicken and dairy goodies, including more ice cream!
If you haven’t booked your visit to come by and shop, now is the time.
Saturday I was giving tours, showing people our farm. We had 31 bookings on Saturday so it was very busy.
I was driving people around, acting like a knew what I was doing, pointing out all the cool stuff when Miguel asked me if I’d seen the new piglets?
Huh? What new piglets.
Yep, I’d been driving right by them.
In my defense, they were inside the house away from everyone else and I hadn’t even looked in there.
She’d only had 5 piglets, and two didn’t survive birth so we only have 3 piglets from this litter which is a really low number. If she keeps having this small of a litter, she’ll probably go on the truck to the processor this fall. Hopefully her next litter will be a larger one. Till then, we’ll enjoy the cuteness that is large black piglets. They are the cutest piglets I’ve ever seen!
The other day I let you know we had lots of pork show up from the processor. What I didn’t tell you is that Holly helped with putting it away. I didn’t ask her to, but she insisted.
All was going well. I had all the meat in boxes and was simply transferring everything from boxes to the freezers, organizing, sorting, etc. Holly was happy running around. She had a full belly of multiple yogurts and other than being underfoot constantly everything was going well.
Then suddenly things took a turn for the worse. Holly started looking in the boxes and asking questions.
“What is this?”
“Stuff for customers.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Sausage, bacon, roasts, chops, that kind of stuff.”
“Where did you get it?”
“At the processor.”
“They make it there?”
“Um, yeah. They sure do. ”
“Out of what?”
“Uh, out of meat.”
“What meat?”
“Um, the meat I take there for them to make it with. Hey, look! The door is open, why don’t you go play outside!”
“Nah, it’s cold out there. Where do you get the meat you take them?”
“I buy it. On, um, Amazon. That’s what all those boxes are for that show up all the time. Would you like some more yogurt? I can open some more for you?”
“Nah, I’m full. Maybe later. They sell meat on Amazon? What kinds?”
“All kinds. They have everything.”
“Where do they get the meat?”
“I think they have an arrangement with The Stork. He does a lot of deliveries all over.”
“Oh, ok. I think I’d like some yogurt now.”
Oh, thank God!
“Sure, let’s go back to your room and I’ll hook you up. Do you want blueberry or strawberry?”
“Both. Hey, those pigs you had on the trailer the other day. Where did you take them? You said they went for a ride but they didn’t come back with you.”
Hey, look at the time! It’s almost time for a customer to show up. Let’s finish and get ready! Hurry hurry!”
Amazon? Oh good Lord what have I done?
Holly and Ruby have been going at it, play fighting, for the past week. Since we were all relaxing in the sunshine and awesome warm weather Sunday afternoon, I had a chance to finally catch them on film. As you can see, Holly has no problem starting the fight and usually does.
In round three, Ruby figures out to move quicker and start biting ears. Once that happened, Holly didn’t do quite as well. However it didn’t keep her from starting it all over again a bit later, right after a nap in the dirt.
The funny part is that Ruby is quite accustomed to be bigger than Holly. I doubt she’ll ever recognize that she is not the biggest, even when Holly weighs 300 pounds. That should be interesting to see.
Sunday it was over 70 degrees and sunny. After Spork and I did all of our farm chores and went to the market to pick up the days produce, we retired to the house and some chairs we have parked out front. Holly was busy running around the barn having a large time. I tried to get her to follow us to the house but she wouldn’t hear of it, insisting on staying at the barn and by her new mansion of a home.
Finally I grabbed her and picked her up to carry her to the house. She screamed bloody murder the entire way, barely pausing to breath. Once I finally sat her down on the ground she immediately started poking around in the thick mulch we have in our front bed. Since she was born, Holly has been inside a barn, on gravel, on concrete and on hard packed dirt. She hasn’t really been on soft soil before so I’m not sure she knew quite what her rooter was for. In fact, I think she thought she was more puppy than pig but after a few minutes of being in the mulch, this is what he had.
We spent the entire afternoon outside, reading, drinking wine, and watching Holly and Ruby play in the yard. It was over 70 degrees and life doesn’t get any better. Especially if you are a pig.
For you eagle eyed viewers, yes, I’m drinking wine out of a solo cup. Our kitchen is still destroyed so we only have paper cups and plates. Hopefully we will be back in our kitchen in about 30 days, Lord willing.
I’ll be posting some video later of Holly and Ruby playing together. It’s a riot.
I know, never name one of your farm animals. I assure you, I didn’t have anything to do with it. But SWMBO informed me that the runt piglet was now named Holly.
As in Holly, Noel, Christmas, you get it.
Holly has been having a large time lately, and has been part of the tours we’ve been giving. The weather has been so nice that she has stayed outside with us and greeted everyone when they show up. I have to imagine seeing a farm for the first time, then seeing your farmer come strolling up, followed by a puppy at his heels… No wait, a piglet! It’s got to be an odd sight but everyone goes crazy over her and she behaves better than a puppy might. Yesterday I needed to do something with her but had to give a tour. So I put her in the back of the Gator and she rode the entire time, two tours, and never had a complaint. I didn’t even think to get a picture but it was pretty neat. I’m assuming that as long as she’s light enough that I can get her in the Gator, she’ll be part of the tours.
When we had all that rain earlier in the week, Holly spent a lot of time in her cage. I walked by during the day to find what you see above. Burrowed under a towel, warmed by a heat lamp, full belly of food. She wasn’t snoring, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if she was.
Yesterday Holly moved to the barn where she has her own private horse stall now. A stall bigger than some kids bedrooms. She’s also graduated from baby food to yogurt, which she loves. I’m not sure how long it will be before she goes back to being a normal pig, but for now she’s living the life.