Pastured Pigs, Green Grass, Blue Sky
Just a photo from a walk in the field…
We’ve been having some lovely early fall weather. The photo above of sows from the upper paddock of the south field shows some of the variety within our herds: Yorkshire, Berkshire, Tamworth, Large Black, Mainline, Blackieline, Redline and crosses.
These sows had been raising litters in the south field. Most of them have now crossed over to the north field to breed with Spitz, our Berkshire boar. They’ll be farrowing piglets in early winter for next summer’s pigs.
You may note there are a few chickens in the photo. They follow the herds of grazers through the rotational grazing of paddocks. We don’t try to fence the chickens in because they naturally follow the larger animals just like birds do in nature. The grazers kick up insects and other interesting things which the chickens eat. They are our natural pest control as well as breaking up manure patties and scratching the soil. Done this way the chickens can get all their feed from the pastures so we don’t have to buy any commercial chicken food or grain for them just as we don’t buy commercial hog feed for the pigs. As a wonderful side benefit the hens produce tens of thousands of eggs which we cook to double the available protein and feed towards the younger pigs which maximizes the nutritional leverage. That is to say, an egg for a piglet is much more meaningful than an egg for a 600 lb sow.
Outdoors: 74°F/44°F Sunny
Tiny Cottage: 65°F/60°F
Daily Spark: I can’t decided if I’m an Agnostic.
