Feeder Pigs

[mikiz]

How adorable new piggies! Hope they taste as good as they look.
Going to love following this thread, so many laughs!

 

[Baymule]

PIG SOUP!!
do you think they know??

 

[madcow]

Sounds like one heck of an adventure in the Lone Star State for sure! I know what you mean about the mud goo poo in the pig pen, because we too live in Texas and have experienced all the rain, of which more is coming beginning tomorrow through the weekend. Just great. We haven't dried out from the last round of bucketfuls pouring out of the sky for days on end, twice! We raise pot belly pigs for food and our pig pen with our sweet, lone, little pregnant Betty has rooted it up to no end fishing for bugs and roots. Amazing how much mud a single little pig can move around. She has her own little oasis of a sleeping area on an island of waste hay from the goat pen and that's about the only area she hasn't turned over looking for bugs. I suspect she's waiting for it to dry up a bit more before turning it all over so she doesn't lose her only dry spot outside to sleep.

Your pigs are great looking and I bet they are going to taste delicious! Our little Betty is due to have her little bacon bits the day after Christmas. So hopefully before summer we should have a new batch of fresh pork for the pit and the freezer.

I never thought I would be raising pigs and my husband always said he never would (I had to make a liar out of him!), but he's seen how easy they are to raise and he has actually grown attached to Miss Betty, as he calls her. He's the softy here, and I'm going to have to keep reminding him not to get attached to the cute, little, wiggly shoats when they are born. We have a friend close by that went into pot belly pig farming the same time we did and we've just recently butchered her boar. He was a real pain in the rear at constantly trying to dig out of the pen and just seemed a little tetched in the head. He was kind of aggressive, so he made the cut once we acquired a new boar. He too was a pot belly pig (Asian Heritage Hog) and was about a year old. He dressed out at about 50 to 55 pounds. Our first time butchering, but we took to it like killing snakes! Not too terribly difficult with a pig that only weighed about 85 pounds to start with, but he was plenty of meat. I've got hams curing and I've made sausage from a good portion of it and froze the rest. We should be in pork for a good while. Pig farming isn't too difficult once you get set up for it. Congrats on your new acquisitions!

 

[Baymule]

Our little Betty is due to have her little bacon bits the day after Christmas. So hopefully before summer we should have a new batch of fresh pork for the pit and the freezer.

bacon bits!!!

 

[mikiz]

This is already inspiring me to add piggies to my list of animals to have!
I was contemplating it but wasn't sure how difficult they were to look after and then butcher. Doesn't sound so bad now, and I love me a bit of bacon!

 

[Ferguson K]

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2013/130429.htm

Stress gene is mainly in show hogs. I remember from when I was showing there was a batch of pigs where over 50 died due to it. Only about 2/3 of us made it to the show ring with our pigs.

All this talk about bacon bits has me drooling. Those little pigs look like they need some spinach. And butter... rip some rib meat off and drop it in, yum!

 

[Mini Horses]

Your pigs are looking good! I have 4 AGHs who are all black & remind me of those -- except they won't get the size of yours when full grown. At only 4 months old they are true garbage disposals!! Eat all the time. Luckily I have a source for close dated produce that sure helps with them and the chickens. Picked up a truckload a few days ago and almost gone....but, lettuce and tomatoes go fast. LOL.

I plan to separate the gilts & boars next week when fencing is done. Butchering one boar, breeding the gilts early summer & trading that boar for another. Sounds ok now, we will see.

Latestarter says:
I find it easier to tackle all these jobs when I'm doing it for the benefit of another rather than myself. I just don't have "another" to be doing it for, so sometimes have to fight to get motivated.

I also have a problem with procrastinating

I wholeheartedly agree with that!!!!! It isn't as much fun now as when I had a hubby --- who always came to watch me work in the garden-----that was an area he left alone, although he would do ANYTHING else on the farm.

I love produce from the garden but, small spot is all I can make myself work now. If I go to another's place I'm willing to work my butt off.....back to having another person to "share" the experience. It is a motivation issue. I love to milk my goats and probably because she and I can share the experience. I also love to collect eggs but, not a big egg eater. Lots of chickens and they are fun to watch!

 

[Latestarter]

Oh yeah... I used to love bacon and eggs but as I got older, just couldn't handle it. I might eat eggs once a month now if that. I don't bake or cook with them as it's only me. I have all these chickens (who are presently on strike; molt, cold, shorter days, etc) and was selling 100 eggs+ a week at one point. At this moment I get 1-3 eggs a day, sometimes none. and I have all these folks wanting eggs, and I can't deliver May be spring before I'm back up to 15-20 a day. Don't have the goats yet, and now that I plan on moving next summer, will probably put them off for another year Not going to start a garden next spring either... that will also have to wait till I settle down again. <sigh> Hopefully this will be my last move aside from the eventual nursing home or hospice...

 

[Mini Horses]

I hope you are moving to a "warmer" climate. Been out there in CO, WY, etc. It is just beautiful BUT just cannot do that snow!
Or the cold, either. Here in VA it's far more stable from extremes. Sure hoping that a nursing home is WAAAAY in the future for me. Just put my mom in one a few months ago, no choice. Told my kids "SSS" if I get that extreme.

Right now my animals make me do more than I might otherwise. In fact, my list is waiting for me to get to the feed store! There's that money gone again . I could stop but, what to do then?

 

[Baymule]

@Mini Horses my Mom had a stroke at 88 and we moved her in with us. I quit my job to care for her. Her once brilliant mind was just not there any more. Sad. We finally had to put her in assisted living because we were moving and I did a lot of running back and forth, remodeling the house and getting it ready for us to move. She passed away on Fathers Day with my DH and I at her side. You just had to make a HARD decision. It doesn't get any easier.

I've told my kids when I get like that, take me on a family camping trip in bear country. Grease me up with bacon grease and pitch my tent away from them. When I wander off, don't come looking for me.

Now back to our regularly scheduled PIG program. On our first cold rainy day, the pigs have been nestled down in their Hawg Hut in a pile of hay.

Last week, I sowed whole oats in the pig/garden. They are now coming up and are a couple of inches high. The pigs aren't rooting them up, but they selectively pull them up and eat the sprouts. So I sowed a lot more in there. If the oats sprout and grow and the pigs eat them, I might do this all winter.