Pig Tales and Porkers .....page 1

Once upon a lifetime, on a planet far, far away, We farmed pigs, my husband and I.
We started from scratch knowing absolutely nothing about pig keeping (being escaped rat race city folk.)

After buying a few acres with some large buildings housing indoor pig pens, and one not exactly even tempered ‘Large Welsh’ sow of undetermined age (all from the village butcher), we thought we should find out how to do things.
We got books and advice, and decided to buy some stock.

But what to buy?
We discovered large whites and the lovely saddle back pigs gave excellent flavoured pork, but not as lean as Landrace pigs which originally came from Sweden, the trick was to find a happy balance, between a good flavour and a lean bacon.

We kept our old Welsh sow and bought some large white, landrace hybrid gilts and a very handsome landrace boar and so the story really starts from there.

But I mustn’t leave out my favourite pigs, saddle backs just had to have one, well two to start off with, but I will come to them later.

Here I will try to tell you of our experiences and maybe give a few tips on how to do things of a piggy nature, and tell of the way we did things then.

to be continued, oink, oink

page 2 How to move pigs

page 3 Farrowing

Page 4 Breeding Pigs