Pigs are an awesome addition to a farm, they’re just like dogs, but socially acceptable to eat, and presumably more delicious. I need to make an assumption on one of those. We started our pig journey in Fall 2021 with two Kune Kune pigs, but due to the loss of one, we ended up getting 2 more Yorkshire pigs after show season ended. We are ready to expand!
Since South Texas Livestock Auctions stopped allowing Swine, local producers have been severely hobbled. This among other issues has motivated me to build LocalFirst.Live, similar to a Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist just for farmers and consumers to interact, but some lack of time and funding has set that back a bit. Anyway, I hope to connect more farmers and grow this operation enough to employ a couple of family-run, pig farrowing operations. Both are specialties and have their own challenges, I want to pay someone else for being good at making bacon seeds.
After building systems and some makeshift infrastructure, we are happy with the quality of life for the pigs on-farm and the processes developed to care for them. We don’t graze them on the “sugar sand” or beach sand as I call it, at the back of our farm because they cause damage to the ecosystem, but they do wonderful on the clay-sand-loam on the front of our property. There are a few areas that were overgrazed in decades past, so we concentrate feeding, housing, and water in those areas to maximize disturbance and regenerate the land back to growth, away from desert. We also deliver plenty of nutrients to those damaged areas with the extra pig fertilizer from their feed and rear ends, in addition to water spillage. Wallows are welcomed as the ground is like concrete when dry and needs some texture to hold water when it does rain.
The pigs are genuinely a joy to work with. While their curiosity can be a little terrifying at times, especially when they want to eat your shoe, they are like giant, hungry dogs. They run to you for snacks and head scratches, they respect the fence and live their best pig lives until the one bad day, when they go to freezer camp. We certainly don’t enjoy sending these piglets to freezer camp, but we certainly feel better knowing that our meat had a quality life and wasn’t abused like the atrocities noted in the factory food system. There is also the Soy concern, which I can absolutely attest to the problems of, as the father of 2 girls.
For all you folks concerned about us having enough pork for you this season, get on over to pre-order a pig ahead of time. You won’t find them cheaper and at this quality level. Prices will go up considerably once they make it to the freezer. Either way, we will have the stock for a short period of time this year and will have even more next year.
Contact us to get on our list for updates and to know when we get more stock.
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