Last year Joshua and I raised extra pigs to sell to our friends. It completely delights me to be able to help more people get meat from animals who are raised in non-industrial conditions. And it makes me happy that I get to have more pigs! I’ve just started talking with people about this years pigs, and I thought the information I’ve compiled for my friends might be interesting to someone else out there, too.

Buying a Pig From The Wallow

You are paying for Joshua and me to buy and raise a pig for you and deliver the pig to the processor once it reaches market weight. We are NOT legally able to sell you meat, which means you are required to pick up and pay for the meat at the processor’s yourself. There’s a lot of information here, so be sure to ask any questions you have!

Price:

• The goal cost for you is around $500, but this price will vary depending on the exact weight of your pig at slaughter time.
• You will owe $1.75 per pound hanging weight to me, payable in two parts: a $200 deposit due by March 1st and the balance to me due when you come to pick up your meat.
• You will owe a $30 slaughter fee and $0.40 per pound hanging weight to the processor on the day you pick up your meat. I am not in charge of processor fees, and they are subject to change. I will let you know as soon as I know if they change.
• If you are splitting your pig with someone else, one person should be chosen to be the person who pays me and the processor. You can work out collecting the money between yourselves, and then one person does the paying for each whole pig.

Pig Details:

• I aim for a live weight of around 300 pounds per pig. This results in approximately 216 pounds hanging weight and 144 pounds of stuff for your freezer. This post gives more information about these terms.
• The pigs live at The Wallow until the day they go to the processor. You are welcome to visit at any time and are encouraged to ask any and all questions you have about their care.
• The pigs’ diet is primarily commercial feed, supplemented by hay, pasture forage, cull chickens, and kitchen scraps.
• We do not do any preventative medication (no antibiotics in the feed, for example), and we take steps to prevent medical needs, but I do treat medical issues as they arise.
• Your pig is NOT raised vegetarian and is NOT raised organic. Your pig IS raised to be happy.
• If you have ANY questions about the care of the pigs, please ask. I don’t know what you might want to know, but I’m happy to tell you anything.

Pick Up Logistics:

• I buy piglets in March. They will be ready for slaughter sometime between July and October.
• I will coordinate the slaughter date with you so that pick up works with your schedule. I will be able to tell you a few weeks leading up the slaughter what the trajectory looks like based on the pigs’ weight.
• You need 3-4 large coolers. The meat is already frozen when you pick it up, so you don’t need extra ice. You just pack it in coolers and then head home. This post talks about space needs so you can judge your cooler and freezer space needs.

Meat Details:

• I am not responsible for any cutting errors made by the butcher.
• This post talks about how much meat and what kinds of cuts you can expect from your pig.
• For hams and bacon, you have the option of taking them home to wet cure on your own or having the processor send them to Benton’s (a local business) for curing and smoking. If you have Benton’s cure and smoke for you (smoking is optional), there is an extra cost of $1.50/lb for the ham/bacon, payable to Benton’s when you pick up the meat.
• The bacon is ready about 6 weeks after being dropped off at Benton’s and the hams are ready after 4 months. After Benton’s cures/smokes the meat, it can go back to the processor and they can slice it up for you.
• What Benton’s does is called salt-cure or country-cure. It may be very different from the ham and bacon flavor you’re used to and its preparation is different. You may want to Google around to learn about country-curing so you’re not surprised.

The Unexpected:

• If your pig dies prior to processing, I will refund your $200.
• Some things could result in your pig needing to be processed prior to the weight goal. A broken leg is an example. In this case, you will still be responsible for the hanging weight prices to me and the processor, but these amounts would be much smaller than estimated, and you would get less meat than expected.
• If you are unable to pay the remaining balance on your pig, you do not get a refund of your deposit, nor do you get your pig or the meat. You are free to try to find someone else who wants to buy your pig or split it with you. It is up to you to work something out with the other party.

In Barnward Irony, Gene Logsdon talks about his troubles trying to keep broilers alive in the heat – a problem we had at The Wallow in 2011, our first year raising broilers.

We are in a record-breaking heat wave as I write this, and as we are learning, these broilers have very little stamina in adversity. The first one to keel over from 98 degree heat we carried out into the airy woodland shade, dunked its head in water, sprinkled water all over it in fact, did what we could to lower its temperature… Seeing that it was going to die, we butchered the poor thing. Then we connived various ways to get more air into the coop. You might think that would be fairly simple, but we have no electricity to the barn (on purpose) and heat is not our only public enemy right now. Foxes have been carrying off hens regularly so I dare not open the coop doors and let everything run outdoors all the time like usual. Carol found an old screen door for the broiler side of the coop and on the other side I let the hens out in the afternoon despite fox danger. This resulted in a freer flow of air through the coop but it meant that I had to stand guard or make regular trips to the coop on fox patrol.

And then a friend points out that one day he’s putting all this great effort into keeping the chickens alive, and then the next day he’s killing the chickens. Meat production is like that. A back and forth between caring greatly about the lives of animals and then enjoying greatly their purposeful deaths.

I’m reminded of the two posts Joshua made after Jeebus died this summer, which are worth a re-read – Another Dead Animal and State of The Wallow Update: July 16, 2011 (FUCK IT ALL!).

We’re going into the winter now, where our relationship to the outside is much less hectic, nothing will die on purpose, and most likely no one will die on accident.

But it’s good to remember that it’s a seesaw.

Edit: I wrote this post last week and then scheduled it to post this week. I spoke too soon. Over the weekend, our silkie rooster was killed by (mostly likely) a hawk. It’s sad when an animal dies unexpectedly. I hope the rest of the chickens stay safe.

“The Silkie” was the neatest of all the 2011 chicks. He was a gift from our friend Kitty, and he seemed to have a personality. I loved watching him.

He was hesitant as he grew. This is the first day the chicks got let out of the coop to free-range, and he was the last to leave the coop. We didn’t know he was a rooster yet. It would be a few weeks still until he let out a cock-a-doodle-do and we knew for sure.

It’s been fun watching The Silkie run around the yard, run to keep up with the other chickens, try so hard to hop up on things, and crow so exuberantly in the mornings. I’m going to miss him.

Baby mice. Or some other kind of rodent. I rescued them from the compost as he kept turning and kept finding more babies.

Then, he uncovered a stash of pristine corn:

Mama mouse had been swiping corn from the barn and socking it away in the compost!

My collection of babies kept growing:

Eventually, all the compost was turned, and I think I’d found all the babies. I tucked them all back inside the pallet at the bottom of the compost bin and covered them up with more compost. The family’s stash of corn was disrupted, but I hope the babies stayed warm enough until mama returned to care for them.

]]> http://lovelivegrow.com/2011/12/mice-compost-surprise/feed/ 3 http://lovelivegrow.com/2011/11/sheep-back-together-again/ http://lovelivegrow.com/2011/11/sheep-back-together-again/#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:12:57 +0000 Issa http://lovelivegrow.com/?p=3878 Keep Reading]]> I previously posted about our ram troubles. Joshua and I had sequestered Buck in his own enclosure so he couldn’t bother the ewe who wasn’t wanting his attention and so he couldn’t be aggressive towards Baby Jeebus 2. One attempt to move Buck back in with the ewes didn’t go well. Joshua and I had been talking about our options but hadn’t come to any conclusions yet.

Then it rained all day Sunday and the rain is going to continue through Wednesday. Buck’s temporary home doesn’t have any shelter other than some tree cover. One day of rain is okay. Four days of being stuck in the rain is over our line for how we want to treat our animals. As of yesterday morning, we either had to put all the sheep back together where they can share the shed, or we had to build Buck his own shelter. Not doing any construction in the rain won, and we moved Buck back in with the ewes.

We made the main enclosure a bit bigger. Our hope was that the extra space would give the ewes and lamb more room to run away from Buck if they needed to and the extra bit of new grass to munch on would distract them all from bothering each other. We also hoped that the rain had worn Buck down a bit. When Buck went in with the other sheep, he immediately started chasing the ewes around, but he wasn’t nearly as aggressive about it as he was the last time. For whatever reasons, they were all getting along much better. Whew. That means we can probably leave them all together for the rest of the winter, which is a bit of a relief.

I went out to check on the sheep several times during the day, and I frequently found them all hanging out together in the shed, tucked in out of the rain.

Over the weekend, Joshua built the sheep a hay feeder. We’d been feeding them out of a horse feeder that came with our barn, but it doesn’t really hold enough hay. We were either feeding them several times during the day (annoying!) or failing to feed them several times a day, leaving them without hay now and then. The other alternative, which we’ve been doing for a few days, is to just put the hay on the ground. That makes a lot of waste, though. So Joshua built them a feeder which will let us give them plenty of hay for the day and cut way down on the amount of hay that gets wasted. I’m always impressed when Joshua builds these things. He banged these out in just a couple of hours:

Today, we tried to put Mary back in with Buck. Yeah, no. His mood is not going to pass. He immediately ramped back up, got excited and agitated, chased Mary, tried to mount her, etc. There’s no way we could put Jeebus 2 back in there and expect Buck to leave him alone. We want our barn stall back, though, since that’s where we store our hay. So tonight, Joshua set up an extra fenced space separate from but in sight of the other one. Buck went in there, and the two ewes plus baby were all reunited in the main enclosure.

It’s hard to diagnose exactly what’s causing his recent mood, so we’re staying in management mode and waiting to see what happens. A lot of people won’t keep a ram at all in a small flock, because there’s just this kind of trouble. We’ll see.

This photo is from Buck’s friendlier days, but this is the face of trouble!

When I walk out my back door I usually turn right to head to the barn, but I always glance to the left because I love this view:

This chicken has been moulting, so her comb is a bit droopy. I caught her taking a dust bath:

It’s almost time to start burning wood for heat again. Joshua has collected and split enough wood for two years:

All around our property huge mushrooms have popped up. I find them enchanting:

I’ve been spending a lot of time swinging with Dylan on the hammock watching the sheep. Because, really, how cute is this?!

Sausage and Fatback peek out from the shade:

Nomming on some corn tossed on the ground:

Peeking out from a mud hole:

Punkin, with my hammock in the background:

Oh, fuck. That’s a dead sheep.

When we first got pigs last year, I joined a mailing list discussion group for small-scale hog farmers, soaking up all the knowledge I possibly could. Someone on the list had a pig die and others that were sick and was troubleshooting the problem with other group members. Somewhere in the thread, someone stated that when you raise pigs (or any animals, really), no matter how knowledgable you are, sooner or later it’s three in the morning and you’re out in your pasture with your animals dropping dead for an unknown reason while you desperately try to save the rest of them.

This truly terrified me. I crossed my fingers hoping I could at least get through the first year with no mysteriously dead pigs. If they’d dropped dead the first year, I wasn’t sure I could do it again. I obsessed about every little mark and mannerism. No serious health issues popped up; the first year went smoothly.

We had a couple of chickens disappear last year, maybe to dogs, maybe to something else. That was sad and frustrating, of course, but didn’t involve dead bodies. This year some of the chicks died for this reason or that, but that wasn’t really unexpected. Loosing a couple of chicks is par for the course, and I’m not too attached to the chickens anyway. They’re small. They don’t have names. The dead ones still got to be food by being fed to the pigs.

Jeebus was another story. Jeebus was more the sooner-or-later scenario I’d been warned about. I had a carcass to deal with and three other sheep to figure out how to protect from the unknown cause.

Me trying to manage the carcass would have been comical, if not for the subject matter. Jeebus probably weighed about 40 pounds, which is manageable for me but just barely, and, as I said, comical when a 13 pound baby is also along for the ride, and I’m trying not to get any ooky on me. Since the cause of death was likely overheating, I also had to find a way to create shade for the other sheep in the middle of the pasture.

Anyway. The short version of the story is it all got handled, with no harm done to any other creatures, just a lot of sweating and stressing on my part in between slightly frantic phone calls to Joshua. Sometimes on a farm or homestead, what’s happening now is difficult and sad.

I could try to be all philosophical about this, but Joshua’s already written really eloquently about this. If you haven’t read it already, I recommend his post about Jeebus dying where he talks about livestock dying in general and the tradeoffs and guilt that can be involved. Also, for a brilliantly written emotional look into the ups and downs of raising livestock, check out his recent Fuck It All post.

I wanted to get some photos of Jake before he left. All you get are super-close-ups, because he was trying to eat my camera the whole time!

I’m looking forward to seeing how the different cuts of lamb taste. I’m not sure I’ve had lamb before.

Buck, our other ram, is a little less friendly, so it’s easier to get photos of him:

You can see he’s still got a bit of his winter wool hanging on. He did decide to come up for a nibble after all:

Baby Jeebus:

And one of Mary and Baby Jeebus together:

Big Mama didn’t make an appearance in this photo shoot. Maybe next time. Next time I might also be telling you how yummy lamb chops are!