Pigs make a great asset to the small homestead. They can be used to produce meat with little investment in feed, time, or labor if managed correctly. They are also able to provide additional income through piglet sales.
Here are some questions to ask yourself when considering your purchase.
1. Are you raising them solely for meat production or also for breeding? You can purchase a mixed breed piglet reasonably cheap. However if you are seeking an outstanding quality in taste, try a heritage breed or mix thereof. These breeds excel in their red meat, and flavor unlike commodity pork.
Another consideration is choosing between a lean or fatty meat type. The lean meat is touted as being healthier yet with less lard. Many people mistakenly believe lean meat doesn't contain marbling. Marbling contributes to flavor. These lean meat breeds provide some the best tasting pork available. Lard breeds provide a more fatty type meat product, as well as their lard which is used in baking and cooking. In recent years, utilizing lard has regained popularity.
When considering adding a breeding program to your small homestead, be sure to invest in quality stock. Anything less is not contributing to the genetic poll of that particular breed. To be sure of what you are selling, we recommend purchasing registered piglets. While it is important to know the farm your stock originates from, records speak for themselves. Without registrations, you do not know the lineage of your stock. Due to bio security reasons, we do not recommend visiting pig farms. Taking the precautions necessary to keep your livestock safe is vital to maintaining healthy livestock. Instead, we recommend utilizing registration records and recommendations from previous buyers in selecting which farm to purchase your breeding piglets from.
2. What breed? Choosing a breed is dependent upon the reason you are raising them. If you are showing in the fair, most commercial breeds such as the Hampshire, Yorkshire and Duroc dominate that market. However if you are raising them for your family and considering breeding, we suggest raising an endangered heritage breed. http://www.livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/conservation-priority-list#Pigs
These are breeds that excelled on small homesteads back in the day of our forefathers. Heritage breed pigs are hardy, adaptable, easily manageable and better foragers. Be sure to take their temperament into consideration. While most pigs are fairly friendly, some are more docile than others. While there are few heritage breeds not listed on this conservancy list, many of them have been "improved" in their genetics resulting in more of a commercial pig than those of past. These changes were made to adapt to the intense indoor farming practices of today's large pig farms.
3. How will you raise them? Raising pigs in a small pen or barn is quite different than raising them out on your land. Pigs need ample space or they become bored, and destructive. One mistake we made when purchasing one of our pigs is that we did not make sure he was raised in the way we planned to raise him. In other words, he was raised in a barn. We brought him home, put him out to pasture and he did not fare well. We had to bring him into our barns and adjust him slowly to life outside. It would have been much easier to purchase a pig that had been raised outdoors.
If raising your pigs outside, they will need shade and water. Since pigs do not sweat, they need access to a mud hole or pond in the summer. They also need protection from the wind in the winter. A small shelter filled with straw during the coldest part of winter will suffice.
Pigs make a big mess when allowed to free-range. Therefore fencing is another must. Electric is the less expensive option however it is higher maintenance and will not always work with smaller pigs or piglets. Though they can be trained to the electric, one strand will not be enough for them. Woven wire is another option though a strand of electric must be added. Pig panels are yet another option though costly, work well for smaller (feed out) type pens.
In our next blog, we will talk a bit more in depth about fencing, maintenance, spacing and rotational grazing of pigs.
-Jim and Steph Pauley
