First a bit of background, my wife and I bought a hobby farm last summer, and I have been slowly beating it back into shape since then. Everything outside of the house had been fairly neglected so there has been a lot of pruning and fixing and mending.
The pasture fencing was in pretty good shape and so was the lower level of the barn so I thought maybe we would get some kind of livestock this summer. After running new electric fence and some new barbed wire we started asking around. Turns out one of my wife’s old friends raises organic pigs. So we went and visited them a few weeks ago and picked out a couple of gilts, a gilt is a young female pig, and they delivered them to us on saturday.
Here’s a picture of them getting used to the pasture:
The question everyone wants to know is : “Are they pets?”
Sorry, but no. Buying certified organic piglets and feeding them all summer and into the fall is an expensive pet. These pigs are destined for the table.
They should be ready for slaughter sometime around October/November. I’m sure it wil be tough, but they won’t be nearly so cute at that point.
Right now I’m trying to convince my wife that I need to build my own smokehouse but, with all of the other projects that need doing, it’s a tough sell.
They should get to somewhere between 200-250lbs by the fall. We should get about 65% of that in meat if I remember rightly, so let’s say around 150lbs per pig. We are only going to keep half of one for ourselves, the rest is being sold to friends and family. I am getting a premium price because they will be hormone and antibiotic-free and pasture raised but we won’t make money on them this year. If I raise 2 or 3 next year then we could see a profit.
Costs so far were $240 in fencing/ gate materials and $75 each for the piglets. That is higher than normal because they are Certified Organic. A normal “feeder” pig is about $40-50, I believe. I estimate the cost of feeding them at $7/week, cheap for me because I work at a craft brewery and can take home all the spent brewer’s grain I want, which will be about 30% of their feed.
Our farm is just over 5 acres, the pig’s pasture is about 3/4 acre to an acre. I haven’t paced it off. I’ve been haggling with a local farmer over the 8 acres right behind our property, we’ll see how that goes.
Pat a piglet!!! Pat a piglet on the side, on his hip above one of his back legs, a good pat, but not a slap. Piglet will turn in a circle for however long you hold your palm on him. Turn turn turn turn turn!!! Pat a piglet today!!!
You’re going to need a smokehouse. If not this year, then the next. Make it big enough to hold several hams, strings of sausage, and slabs of bacon all at once. Start looking around for a source of apple wood for the smoker.
I agree silenus, and if I build one I will build it big. I don’t have to look too hard for apple wood since I have 9 very overgrown apple trees on the farm, I only got 2 of them pruned this spring, but I have plenty of apple wood just from those. Thanks for the book suggestions, I’ll check them out.
bubastis, I’ll try that tonight! This morning was the first time they let me get near them, I guess they have figured out that I’m the new food guy.
And hey brownie, no problem! Come on over this weekend for some beer and chicken on the grill!
I also have a couple dozen pheasant eggs that are incubating and should hatch in about 6-8 days, another new experience for me and especially for my wife, who is trying to overcome her urban upbringing. I spent 5 summers working at my great-uncle’s dairy farm as a teen, so I at least have a bit of experience with livestock, this is all very new for her and she is being a trooper.
