Milk-Fed Pigs and a Homegrown Meat Update

The sound of the canner hisses from the kitchen as I type. We have been slowly processing the meat birds and a canner full of meat and at least one of broth will finish off my day. This is the first homegrown meat we’ve had in months so we are all quite thankful.

We got Mabel preg-tested about a month ago and it came back negative. Almost simultaneously I was perusing Craig’s List – the farm & garden section, of course – and found some very inexpensive feeder pigs. Since summer heat is not conducive to making cheese, we decided to snag up four of them and use Mabel’s evening milk for raising some good meat. That combined with lots of garden scraps, some excess milk from our neighbors, and a small amount of local, non-GMO grain is making up their ration.

We created a pen using some spare materials we had on hand. Because any excess produce and weeds from the garden are going their way, we put them right in the corner of our main field. A couple of loads of wood chip mulch give them a nice thick layer of carbon and so far, there is really no smell at all. We plan to layer in more mulch, depending on how it goes, to keep them in a fairly clean area despite not having access to free range pasture.

Of course George and Rita, our breeding pair of kunekunes, are still around. I have no idea if Rita is, in fact, pregnant which was the plan from the beginning. So they are on a similar feed as the feeder pigs and I’m still staring at Rita trying to figure out what, if anything, is going on with her. Can you tell we’ve never bred pigs before?

The other on-the-hoof meat we currently have is Buttercup, Mabel’s calf, who is now weaned and on pasture. She’s about a year old now and we’ll probably wait about another year to harvest her, Lord willing. We may breed Mabel soon and maybe consider a fall crop of meat birds. We’ll see.

One thing I know is that having to buy food with labels touting organic or pasture-raised or grass-fed when one can never truly corroborate those claims is good motivation to grow more of our own… especially animal foods.

And I am so grateful for all that has come from this land.