Category: Pigs

The other day, one of our customers stopped by asking if they could buy some meat and maybe see the runt piglet.

“Sure. No problem.”

“Can we stop by now?”

“Um, I’m kinda running around right now, but sure come on over.”

They wanted to know if they could take a picture with the pig.

I was busy doing something so I sent Spork along to help and make sure the piglet got put back in the cage. Of course I asked for copies of the pictures and this is what I received.

They brought a hat. For. The. Pig.

If that isn’t cute I don’t know what is.

The funny part is, the piglet was screaming in the beginning and by the time this picture was taken about 45 seconds later, she was sound asleep. If you look closely you can see her passed out.

It’s ok if you sleep through Christmas. Santa understands.

We’ve had a lot of requests for beef standing rib roasts for Christmas and we’ve fulfilled as many of the requests as we can. However some folks weren’t able to get in line quickly enough to get beef. However, we also have another option that has been very popular with the people who’ve purchased them in the past. In fact this item started as a special order for a few people and we’ve brought it back in time for Christmas.

These 4 bone roasts come out tasting wonderfully and look amazing as well. As you can see they run about 3.5-4 pounds each, perfect to accompany the rest of your feast on Christmas. Or if you want to make it a center piece of your meal, put two across from each other and end up with something like this.

Plus pork is cheaper than beef and we have plenty of it available so if you missed the pre-order window on your beef rib roast, give our awesome heritage pork a try for your Christmas meal.

One last picture to make your mouth water. I know it does mine. In fact, I think I’ll go put a couple in the secret freezer for our own use…

Here is some sunshine and cuteness from yesterday on this rainy Thursday.

Since we were bringing in gravel to dress up some soupy spots, she decided to let the piglet have a walk on the gravel pile.

The piglet was pretty happy to play on the gravel pile. I only had a minute to snap these pics before heading out for another load. The piglet had the afternoon to enjoy being a pig.

The cute little runt piglet is doing well. Round belly and plenty of attention. We should all be so lucky.

 

The eggs she had for breakfast was actually taken after this video where Grandma started her on baby food. She’d read that iron deficiency was an issue for baby piglets. She was correct (Go Grandma!) so she also read that rice cereal was high in iron and started her on this mixture. When Grandma told me all this, I told her I had iron shots I could give her.

Give her piglet a shot? With a needle? And hurt her precious?

I think she wondered how we ever raised three children with any of my involvement. Of course, SWMBO wonders the same thing sometimes.

Here is the latest on the piglet, having a breakfast of warm scrambled eggs. I seriously doubt this is leftovers from Grandmas plate. More likely, it was made special for the little piglet and Grandma made herself coffee and nothing. I’m sure she went right back to sleep after this meal since that’s all she seems to do is sleep and eat.

Wait! What?

How did I end up here?

One of our sows had a litter of 11 piglets. As is usual with a large litter, one little piglet was the runt. She seemed to be getting some milk but as time passed, she was staying the same size and her brothers and sisters were getting bigger. This meant that she was getting less and less milk as she got pushed away by her siblings. I’d already noticed her and thought maybe I’d put her with the sow with only four babies, but that sow was being nursed by the neighboring piglets in the next stall so she was like a busy gas station with piglets coming and going at all times.

Enter Grandma. She was quite offended that the little runt wasn’t getting milk like she needed and what was I going to do about it?

Shrug. “She’ll probably die. That happens to runts, ya know.”

Now I have to explain, Grandma has ALWAYS wanted to bottle feed and raise a piglet. Since she was a little girl. She’s never been able to in her life and since we’ve had pigs we’ve either had piglets that were too bad off to to well off for her to take one. However this piglet was perfect. In trouble but only needing TLC. She’d had colostrum but just wasn’t getting enough milk now. This is just what Grandma needed.

“What will you do with the pig if I bring it back.”

“Eat it.”

I wasn’t going to be accused of coaxing her into this when the pig was trashing her house. After being bottle raised, I’m sure she’ll end up being a pet and be retained here as a breeder. I was glad she was a female because otherwise I’d have been telling the truth about eating the pig.

“I’m only going to keep her until she’s old enough to fend for herself. And I’m NOT naming her.”

Shrug. “Ok, do what you want. I’ll get you a box.”

That piglet was going home with Grandma before she even saw it. That was a foregone conclusion.

Fast forward a couple of days.

Last night, I got home from working at the barn. I was pretty dirty but hey, I’m a farmer, it’s expected. I arrived to find a house full of kids, Grandma, and this.

There is a whirling dervish ongoing in the house. Kids screaming, jumping around, bashing. Normal kid noise of about 130db. The piglet is sound asleep, in a knitted white scarf, being carried around by the different kids.

Grandma has been feeding the baby piglet yogurt, baby food, milk, and I don’t know what else. Probably caviar. She has had a bath, and probably perfume but I wasn’t allowed to get close enough to find out. Basically the piglet was living the life of royalty.

Grandma has been wearing the piglet all day just like you see Spork carrying her now. How she hasn’t been peed on yet is beyond me but apparently the piglet gets up, eats like a pig, then goes back to sleep like you see above and sleeps through anything. She is already sleeping through the night which Grandma is quite happy with and I think is taking credit for. She seems to be the perfect baby so far.

Apparently the kids were pretending the piglet was baby Jesus before I got there and acting out the wise men in the manger. The pig slept through it all.

I however was not allowed to touch the pig. I was too dirty.

To. Touch. A. Pig.

 

Today one of our customers asked if she could bring her daughter out to see our new little piglets. Of course! Miss Olivia came out and plopped right down in the barn to hold this baby piglet. Both were well behaved and I’m sure Olivia smells like a pig now but everyone seemed pretty happy.

Thanks to mom for sharing the pictures.

If you want to see the baby piglets, just let me know. I’m around most of the day tomorrow and next week.

We have sows dropping piglets left and right. The hospital barn is awash in the cute little things.

When I got home from our trip I found that two of our sows had already delivered their piglets. This one had 11 piglets all healthy and happy.

Also our first time mom, a Berkshire, had her litter.

We don’t have studio lights so you’ll have to trust me on these piglets. They are CUTE. Or you can swing by and take a look. This was this mom’s first litter and she only had four. Small but not unusual for a first time mom. We’ll see if she bounces back for her second litter. If not, she won’t be one of our breeders going forward.

When I checked on our last sow, she seemed to be in labor. After a few minutes, I found out I was correct.

Turned out this mom was just starting to give birth and I saw her first, second, and third piglet being born. Of course I couldn’t help myself and grabbed each piglet and helped them latch on for the first time.

As soon as I was sure everything was progressing nicely, I went over to the house and got the kids so they could see. They loved being able to see all the new babies.

I thought this photo was hilarious. Even Cotton wanted to see what was going on.

We’ll spend the next few weeks making sure the piglets get a good start and the moms are on a rich diet. Then everyone will go back outside to their normal paddocks to live a normal outdoor piggy life. In the meantime, if you’ve been meaning to get over here to buy some meat and take the kids out of the house, now is the time. They can see and maybe even hold a piglet, but only until these guys go back outside. Drop me a line if you want to come by.

Normally we feed fresh produce every day to all of our animals. Carrots, broccoli, lettuce, bananas. Whatever is in season or available. We have no control over what shows up which makes management of the food a pretty intense job. When you have three pigs, it’s not that big of a deal. When you have over 100 pigs, a little shortage starts to be major. Since we feed from the farmers market, that means we feed with the seasons and there are times during the season when the produce doesn’t flow as well. Right now we are between summer produce and fall produce and there has been a lull for a few weeks. What that means is that we have to feed potatoes.

Feeding potatoes is good because they are energy dense. We can feed part potatoes and part what produce we are getting and give a balanced diet. And we can get potatoes most any time of year from one of our farmers. However the downside to feeding potatoes is that we have to cook them first. Pretty much all day, every day, for the past few weeks, we’ve had our scald pot going with about 500 pounds of potatoes boiling away. As soon as we are done we hand scoop them out and into a bin for feeding, and hand scoop in another batch to start cooking again. All the while tending the fire and of course doing our normal jobs on the farm. It’s not a big deal, but it requires a lot more time than we always have. Thankfully it’s time for pumpkins to show up so we’ll be back to giving the potatoes raw to the cows (who love them!) and we can feed pumpkins to the pigs for a while.

This page is being updated as of 6-15-2019. We no longer offer BBQ pigs for sale directly to the public. We are concentrating our efforts on hogs for our store.

We don’t list this as one of our normal products we sell but with the weather turning cooler it’s a great time to fire up (or dig out and build) the smoke pit and invite your friends over for a BBQ.

(For a primer, here is an in depth article about all things BBQ, with a shout out to us crazy NC folks in paragraph 4) I love this quote from the article.

“But when it comes to whole hog, there is no place on earth that takes it as seriously as the folks in the Carolinas.”

We sell BBQ pigs of all sizes, from suckling hogs to over 200 pounds. Availability is based on what we have on the ground at the moment and generally you’ll come out to the farm ahead of time to pick your pig and pay a deposit of 1/2 of the estimated price. When you order a pig, we will need as much notice as possible, at least a week. We will have ready for your pickup the pig of your choice, scalded, scraped, and gutted, and chilled in our walk-in, ready for the grill. We generally will handle all of the bloody bits a few days before your event so the hog has some time to cool properly in the walk-in and there are no last minute issues that can mess up your event.

You’ll pay by the hanging weight of the pig and the price per pound is $4.50. For those of you who don’t already know, our pigs never have commercial feed and eat a diet of forage and produce every day of the year. There is no comparison of the flavor of our hogs and of corn fed hogs.

For more detailed information on selecting a BBQ pig, see our post here with a link to Sugar Mountain Farm

In case you aren’t ready for some BBQ  yet, here is one last thing to get you thinking about that wood smoke smell.