These Little Piggies Went to Market

We saw this display at the fair, if you click on the picture you can actually read the words. When you take a drive in the Iowa countryside and see these buildings, now you know what they are! I didn't until about 3 years ago. I wondered how Iowa could be a top state for hog production and yet I'd never seen any pigs on farms. Cows? Yes. Horses? Yes. Even sheep in fields. Never pigs though. Now I see them all over the place. It really is big business.

For us too. But we do things differently. Our pigs also have constant access to clean water and food. Our pigs have shelter that protect them from extreme temperatures, plus their natural behaviours. Predators? We've not yet had a problem. The herd tends to look out for themselves plus our fence is pretty decent too. We also care for our animals, but we also care for additional needs like playing and happiness. I do think that happy animals make better food. They have room to run and play. They actually like sleeping outside under the stars. The self regulate for hot and cold. They are really quite clean and have not destroyed the pasture as we were warned they would do.

See?

Pigs running!

Pigs gathered to eat.

Pigs nosing things up in the pasture grass.

Four of these happy pigs went to "market" today. They spent 3 weeks eating mostly whey, milk, walnuts, apples, and peaches. They ate very little grain, after filling themselves up with the good stuff. Transporting them to market was a new challenge and Chad learned a lot about the process. On my end, I learned a lot about the order forms. Tomorrow very early I find out if the pigs were big enough to provide jowl bacon. Later in the day I drop off order forms and verify information. It's all very exciting!