Animal Lovers Web Blog

We braved freezing temperatures, muddy puddles and our first flurry of snow to visit a local farm that specialises in rare breed pork, poultry and lamb. Pepperfield Farm in North Yorkshire is owned by two teachers, Terry and Joanne Laheney who, for the past four years have been dedicating their free time out of the classroom to the care of Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, Tamworth pigs, Wiltshire Horn sheep and Buff and Blue Orpington chickens.

The main purpose of our visit was to gain more information about pig breeds following our pig keeping course back in October, particularly in relation to the Gloucestershire Old Spot. We are keen to get a couple of weaners, but were still deliberating as to which breed would be the best for us. Our discussions with Terry and Joanne encouraged us to take a closer look at the Old Spots because of their reputation as a very friendly breed of pig.

We were fortunate to be able to get up close to the pigs, armed with a bucket of carrots and were treated to a mini-stampede of Old Spots and an occasional Tamworth, who were only too happy to relieve us of our load! The Old Spots certainly looked more like a traditional pig, with big floppy ears that conveniently acted as umberellas over their eyes to keep out the driving snowy rain. The weather reinforced the stereotypical view of being as “happy as a pig in muck”, as they squelched and rooted through the rain-soaked ground. The younger pigs were very inquisitive, jostling for their carrots and taking an occasional nip from the older pigs! They were absolutely gorgeous.

We are hoping to get a couple of piglets in the springtime and today’s visit certainly provided food for thought! We really took a shine to the Old Spots and think that they would be a lovely addition to our animals. In the meantime, we will be looking forward to sampling some of their produce and tucking into some sausage and mash for dinner tonight - thanks pigs!

Diane
www.AnimalLoversWeb.com

So are we, which is why we spent today on a pig husbandry course in Northumberland. It is a fairly new course ran by a pig farmer and breeder Sarah Dodds, who specialises in Tamworth pigs. These are a gingery/golden red colour pig with a lively character and are thought to be the oldest pure English breed of pig. There are said to be only around 200 in existence in the whole of the UK.

I went on the course together with Diane and Laura, my 10 year old daughter, as we wanted to learn more about pig keeping to see if it might be for us and also to have some fun. The course kicked off with some of the rule and regulations about keeping pigs required by DEFRA and Trading Standards here in the UK, before a look at some of the equipment required in keeping pigs.

It wasn’t long though, before we got to the really interesting part – off to meet the pigs. The pigs were fantastic. They were much larger than I had imagined, although, I have been up close with pigs before I had forgotten just how large they really are. One of the many interesting facts we learned to day was that a fully grown pig will weigh up to about 25 stones! They were indeed very lively and noisy, making incredible squealing noises and they were intriguing to watch (see an example in the video below). We were then told all about the fencing, housing and feeding requirements of the pigs.

Then it was off to see the piglets and weaners and to learn about the farrowing (delivery of the pig by the pregnant mother) and to view the facilities required for the process. The young piglets were wonderful, lively and cute and must rival lambs as one of the loveliest young animal. We also had a demonstration of tattooing the weaners (marking their ears for pedigree purposes) and an offer to have a go, which we all declined, we were happy to watch the experts. Following this we fed the pigs and learned about the feed requirements at various ages.

Finally we had a demonstration of the products of a butchered pig, together with some interesting revelations about the financial difficulties in commercial pig production and why it can be fairly difficult to make an adequate living from it.

In addition to all of the interesting information and advice that we obtained on this course we were well catered for from a culinary perspective too, with a lovely lunch and afternoon tea and cakes included.

We certainly learned a lot about pig keeping and are going to go off now and do some further research before probably getting a couple of pigs of our own, possibly in the spring time. We will keep you posted on any developments, both here and on our animal website.

John
www.AnimalLoversWeb.com