Pig Group Report October 2011 - At last – the outcome!

The two boars have been to the butcher, come home, and been sampled by the three partners in the Transition Monmouth Pig Group.

As the instigator of the project, I am extremely relieved to report resounding success: The boars were certainly fatty; but equally certainly that made their meat wonderfully tender and tasty.  No fibres in the meat, no hard chewing, and dense flavour – it was real luxury.  And plenty of home-produced, “resilient” cooking fat.

The boars had got very demanding and bad-tempered by their end.  It was a pleasure to be eating them, rather than being eaten.  The gilts are different – more playful – which will make their send-off more difficult; but I really don’t want to have to tangle with well-grown males again. [Agreed ! -Ed]

The locally-sustainable-feed plan has worked really well, but it has displayed with great clarity the difference between commercially-managed pigs on the one hand and, on the other, commercially-managed beef and sheep, both of which latter I kept for 20 years.  By using a hardy native breed of cattle (North Devons), we produced late-autumn beef that, in feed terms, had cost around one pound of coarse (non-muesli-grade) rolled oats for each pound of beef – the rest of the feed was hay and grass. 

Our Pig Group pigs have cost approximately 230kg each in feed – for a return of about 50-60kg meat, which includes a good proportion of fat.  And the pig feed was good organic barley and split peas which could, in famine or with lots of herbs, have been used for human food.  It seems illogical that beef should be so much more expensive than pork; I suspect that time-taken has an impact (5 months for pigs, 18 months for our beef), the litter size (12 piglets, one calf), and also possibly the area of land needed for each animal.  It’s hard to work out realistic comparisons when the husbandry methods are so different.

So it is plain to me that, to provide sustainable pork, the amount of cereal/legume feed needs to be reduced as much as possible.  We are attempting to recreate a back-yard pig-keeping culture so that in a much more severely localised future, people can still have a cheap local source of tasty protein.   It happened during the last war, after all.  As a complete beginner with pigs, I fed quantities according to the text books; next year I shall give the weaners less bulk feed, only once a day, and make up with lots of vegetable waste, from my own garden and, if possible, other people’s.  This year’s pigs turned their noses up at turnips and cabbage leaves, though sweet juicy beetroot were popular enough.  And their weed-clearing activities soon petered out.  They were obviously not really hungry!

There will be plenty of spare meat from the last two Transition Pigs, which will be on sale, cubed and frozen in 500g bags, for £1.75 (which is the production cost), from the middle of November, from Ann Eggleton at Little Mill Farm:  anneggleton@waitrose.com, or 01600 780449.  If you would like to become a Pig Group Partner next year, get in touch!  If you have a load of spare waste veg next summer, let me know!

Pig Group Report 1- July 2011

The Transition Monmouth Pig Group pigs have been in the orchard at Little Mill Farm for five weeks now and have so far been a resounding success.

They have made a complete clearance of the weeds in their first penned area (see photo), have provided bucketsful of dung to activate a long-term compost heap, and have more than doubled in size and appetite since their arrival.

As well as doing good work, their mission is also to educate their owners, with a view to re-establishing an enthusiastic and progressive backyard-pig-keeping culture – as far as is possible within current legal restraints.  For instance we have learned that pigs love old lettuce and beetroot, but won’t sniff at broad bean haulms, which are loved by cattle.

A further aim, we feel the most important, is to attempt to rear pigs in a totally locally-sustainable way.  All processed pig feed (including organic feed) contains soya meal amongst other undesirables – soya meal means rainforest destruction: trans-global transportation: high-energy processing: etc.  All very non-Transition.  So the TM Pig Group pigs are fed on locally-grown, organic barley meal or wheatmeal (75%) and kibbled yellow peas (25%).  We were unsure at first how this would work out, but the pigs have thrived wonderfully.  It probably helps that they are an old breed (Oxford Sandy and Black – one of the rarest) whereas modern pigs have been cross-bred and rigorously selected to do well on the high-protein, globally-damaging, soya-based feed.  We are going right back to basics here and learning fast.

It may well be that in September when the first two go to the butcher, they are more fatty than your average supermarket pork.  That is no bad thing.  Locally-sustainable rendered pork fat for cooking is much more “resilient” in the face of our approaching problems than imported, highly-processed soya or peanut oil.  And the flavour!  The tenderness!

Pig Group Report 2 - August 2011

Well, the Learning Curve has been suitably steep.  In principle, the pigs have done extraordinarily well  -  pig-knowledgeable people who have seen them have been astonished at their size and vigour for their age, and the feed costs for locally-produced organic feed have been half, or even less than that, of the cost of processed, soya-based pig-nuts. 

By September we expect to have produced top-class, fully free-range, organic, locally-sustainable, “resilient”, rare-breed pork, at a cost of less than £3 a kilo freezer-ready.  Check that out at Waitrose!  Mind you – labour and housing costs are not included in that.

On the other hand, these perfectly-reared porkers have shown extraordinary initiative and inventiveness in living their lives the way they want:

First, they grew to the point where the flexible, movable posts for the confining electric tape were a fun thing to push over and walk past. 

Then, there was one weak point in the orchard boundary fence which I, naively, hoped they wouldn’t find, as they would have to power their way through the blackthorn thicket which concealed it.  Of course they did.  As it happened, their exit from their confinement within the electric tape  had worried me, and I had closed the gate across the farm drive a couple of days earlier – so at least they were limited to damage on the farm, not up the lane and to any vehicles that encountered them round a blind bend! 

We suffered pig-ploughing of the front lawn, the banks of the drive, the area around the sheep shelter on the largest field, and the surrounds of the cartshed, for three weeks, before the fencer could come and replace the ancient, tattered netting at the north end of the orchard.

Before that, there was the memorable day when I went down to the feed-room to put together their evening meal, only to find that they had burst the bolts and marauded in.  The place was completely trashed, and four over-large pigs were flat-out and snoring in a welter of torn paper sacks, kibbled peas, barley meal, rolled oats and layers' mash.  It took a lot of whacking to get them on their feet and out of there.

Such is the charm of pigs that one can’t help forgiving them.  At least, so far.  The two boars are due to go to Neil James’ abattoir in Raglan in the next few weeks; Neil is a perfectionist butcher, they will be booked in for a set time and will be delivered and then killed at once before they know what is happening.

So long as I and any volunteers can get them separated from the two girls and into the trailer at the specified time  . . . . . .  Don’t hold your breath  . . . . . .

Pig Group Report September 2011

The Transition Pig Group pigs continue to astonish.  I had been told to make sure to separate the two sexes in time – after about four months.  So I was caught somewhat by surprise one day to watch them, heads down in the feed, when there seemed to be much more of a double bulge at the rear ends of the boys than had been visible before.  A further check the following day confirmed this!  My guru, consulted, said “unusual but not impossible”; so I took prompt action.  Separating them was easy.  They always came to the orchard gate if they heard me on my way with the buckets, the boys being far more pushy (sounds familiar), so I eased the gate open a little to let those two out and managed to close it again firmly in the face of the girls.  The boys followed the buckets to the next field, and were fed there, and the girls (who had followed along the fence) were left in the orchard.

I had thought that it was only sheep who have the useful trait of showing you (by enlarging them) every smallest hole in the fence that they can find.  No, pigs are just as good.  Next day, there was one of the boars back in the orchard.  I got him back to his new field the conventional way, through the gate; the largest girl followed along the fence; and they were rushing to get together again through the hole that he – or she, or both – had dug under the fence at that barbed-wire-free section I hadn’t known about.  So, back to the orchard, let both girls out, shoo them down the track away from the boys’ field, dash down to find a ladder, use it to block up hole under fence, chase girls around farm till they could be got into a field which I was fairly sure had no holes in fences except into woodland  . . . . .  I should also mention that it seemed likely that that larger, enthusiastic girl was in season, being a bit swollen and shiny and pink in the vulva.  Guru, consulted again, was even more surprised, but my description convinced him.

So, sorry folks!  -  no nicely mature bacon, ham and sausages this year; the girls have to go to the butcher much sooner than planned.  If I leave it too long, I will be helping at a farrowing in the mud and snow and dark of Christmas week, and it will be suckling pig for Christmas dinner.

Since that hectic week, things have settled down nicely.  All four are still growing well, and the boys will be off to the butcher in the last week of September.  The girls will then go back to the orchard, where I hope they will tackle a little more of that weed-infested ground that I originally got them in to clear.  They will really miss the woodland and the stream, which are the natural habitat for pigs, but they won’t be around for very long.

I will certainly have next year’s boars castrated!

You can download recent reports from the transitionmonmouth pig group >>>

​Pig Group Report, November 2012

 

The remaining two gilts have grown enormous.  When I walk up the track with the bucket, they throw themselves at the gate, and can get their “arms” over the top and look over it easily; I try to sneak up on them, to as not to get bounced.  There are quite a few rashers of bacon on them.  I’ve been trying to fatten them up a little, so the flavour is there.

 

Through that dull, grey summer, I had no spare veg at all to give them, so I tried feeding once a day, double quantity, to encourage them to root around more on their weed-clearing job.  They have had some pellets this summer, against all my principles, but the organic farm I buy the kibbled peas from didn’t have time to kibble, they were working so hard to catch up with the work held over because of all the rain.  What will I do if pellets become unavailable?  Well – by then I shall have a house cow, and they will be fed skim milk instead of vegetable protein.  That’s after I start growing younger again.

 

The lucky recipients will be reporting on the success of this year’s bacon and ham.

Pig Group Report, August 2012

You may recall that the Transition Monmouth Pig Group was proposed (by me) just under two years ago, and set up, with the idea of encouraging anyone with a little spare ground and a little spare time to keep their own pig – or pigs – to produce local, sustainable, tasty protein in a world whose ability to feed itself was beginning to look fragile.

I feel a little guilty about this.

Last month I said that pigs are not built for vertical progress.  I was wrong.  To keep pigs happily (for you), and safely (for the rest of your property), you do need really good fencing.

A pig sty would be best.  Four-foot high brick walls, and a stout solid gate (not a galvanised farm gate), and several bolts plus padlocks would seem to be the ideal.  I don’t have that.

I have already broken off typing this to try to re-incarcerate the remaining two 2012 TM pigs in the only paddock that I had thought was pig-proof.  They had hefted up the gate (a farm gate) and wriggled out underneath.  I have watched them do it; limbo dancers have nothing on enthusiastic pigs.

Well, let’s get realistic.  The three porkers went to the abattoir last Monday, were collected this afternoon (Friday) by a member of the Group, and have already been tried and highly approved.  Yes, a little small (thanks to my untoward trustingness on purchase), but as hoped they are extremely tasty and tender, and definitely more-ish.  So far, so good.  The two remaining female pigs, who are destined for bacon and ham in the late autumn, have certainly calmed down and ceased the aggressive and competitive greed for food that always seems to be triggered by the males in any (animal) group.  They are cheerful, attentive, talkative, companionable, and will stop at nothing in their attempts to keep company with their hapless keeper (me, alas).  They did that impossible-looking vertical climb over the orchard fence (which, being put up round the orchard only for sheep, has no barbed wire along the top).  That was started by Intelligent Pig; Less Intelligent Pig used to butt her way out underneath the fence, until we blocked the holes, so now she trustingly follows Intelligent Pig over the top.  John and Catherine Payne are coming tomorrow with a 4x4 load of fencing equipment, to put matters right, with stouter fence posts and yards and yards of prickly barbed wire to lay along the top to deter any further escapology.

I hope and expect that once the TM Pig Group are once more confined to a place where they can do no harm to lawns, veg gardens, terraces and paths, they will once more seem to me to be friendly, companionable, appealing creatures.  Meanwhile I have started on a new gin bottle (can you tell?), and will have to check soon and through the night on where my charges have charged to next.

Actually I still love farming – and pigs are definitely appealing.  As long as you refuse their appeal to be let roam ad lib.

Pig Group Report, July 2012

The Transition Monmouth Pig Group is growing nicely on the rations that are reduced from last year.  This year there is much more squealing and barging when I appear with my piglet-pink bucket, but as my new book says, your pigs will always try to convince you they are starving, no matter how much you feed them.

It will soon be time to get the first three to the abattoir.  Last year we had too much fun, chasing all the porkers round the orchard trying to get them to go out of the gate into the track where the trailer awaited.  This year I have got clever; I have a second trough out in the track where I give them the first half of their dinner, then when that has gone and they start squealing again I lure them back into the orchard to the first trough.  (It took a time or two to think of that one – so now they don’t rampage round the track looking for somewhere to do unspeakable piggy things, they just follow me back and jump straight into the trough that’s waiting.)

Looking after pigs can be great fun, as long as you manage to be more inventive than them, all the time.

Those lucky Transitioners who have been allotted a side of pork will be contacted when the time comes.  We shall be left with two females, the two with very long bodies full of bacon rashers, who will grow on for another five months or so, and, I hope, calm down on the way.

Pig Group Report, May 2012

The Transition Monmouth Pig Group is launched on its second year.  Problems arose even before the piglings arrived; I hadn’t managed to get to see them beforehand and had trusted to the telephone description, “Gloucester Old Spots X Tamworth”.  That should have been good.  But on arrival the piglets were much smaller than last year’s at the same age, and didn’t look as though there was a single hair of Tamworth on their pudgy little bodies.  Tamworths are the long-legged, long-snouted, hairy, ginger pigs you see in old-style farming mock-ups.

I couldn’t face the effort of getting the piglets back to their breeders, so made another, more searching phone call; it turned out that it was these piglets’ parents that were the GOS X T pigs; so these are hybrids of hybrids.  It’s like F1 veg seeds, the offspring don’t come true to type, and are very variable.

Anyway, the piglings (they have grown enough by now to achieve that nomination) are very happy in the orchard, growing not too erratically, and are already happy to use their still-small teeth on my largest over-wintered carrots and celeriac.  The pork will taste good, after all, because, muddled as their genes are, they do all tend to old-fashioned flavour; this is just another of those learning-curve bulges that make life such fun.

I could take in many more piglings and sell them at a very good profit as pork to people who like to have all the labour taken out of their lives, but that’s not what Little Mill Farm is about.  I am still working on the business of producing the best possible pork in a genuinely locally-sustainable way, so that I can help anyone who has a little time and space to produce their own cheap tasty protein without troubling the supermarkets and the multi-national corporations (who are only in the business of profit, never mind the planet).  So get in touch if you are interested in having a go  …..

Previously on Pigwatch... The first bacon sandwich for 23 years

I have been a vegetarian since 1988, but inquisitive children and the temptation of a pig that had been humanely looked after by The Transition Pig Group tested my resolve.

I had twice collected their organic feed from a farm near Bromyard and had held the gate open as they had rather noisily been loaded onto the transport to the abattoir.

We met up at Ann’s place last week with the bacon in the back of the car, and it is the essence of Transition that as Catherine works in a school very close to the abattoir in Cinderford, food miles were saved! We sliced 10 Kg of gorgeous bacon and I have to say that even just one rasher of bacon in a roll was worth waiting 23 years for !