Finding hogs

[sandy01]

 We were moving along very nicely with just purchasing a couple of feeder pigs at a time and raising them to harvest for the freezer for us and a couple other families (to offset cost). Then there was the pandemic. You would think that with the shutdown of the big Ag processers that the market would be flooded with feeders and the price would drop. Nope. If I could find feeders at all they were awfully expensive and not the best-looking pigs (sick). But just recently I happened upon a Craig's list add for heritage piggies. I had been searching for an answer for a long time now. So, I contacted the poster of the add and meet a genuinely nice couple about a 4 hour drive east of us. They recently started growing a heritage hog piggery and have about 3 or 4 different lines of Old Spot hogs. I decided that since it was so difficult to find decent feeders here locally and heritage feeders are kind of pricey, that I would purchase some for breeding.

[Maura]

That cloud had a silver lining. I hope all turns out well with the piggies. If you got two to breed, that means you don't have any to butcher this fall. Or, are they adults?

[sandy01]

Jan 13, 2021 19:54:01 GMT Maura said:

That cloud had a silver lining. I hope all turns out well with the piggies. If you got two to breed, that means you don't have any to butcher this fall. Or, are they adults?

 You are correct, we don’t have one for the fall yet. We did just harvest our last feeder before Christmas. That’s when it was cool enough here to do the job. I couldn’t get a date with a processor. Right now, they are booked a year out or more. I didn’t want to take a chance with the weather and spoil the meat, so this hog got really huge and the meat (and fat) will last us for some time. We are planning to go back for one more gilt, we can get a feeder or two at that time. I really do enjoy raising the hogs.

[sandy01]

Here are the new piggies in their new pen, under the oak trees. They just love rooting for acorns. I found a really fast and easy way to move them, the wheeled trash cans a make great pig taxi.