Saturday, February 28, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Vegetable Culls
One of the most amazing characteristics of pigs is their diet.
Primarily, our hogs gain on organic grain (some of which we dry-farm), but as mentioned before, they also spend a great deal of time foraging and rooting for food available in pasture; whether the meal be nuts, grass and other vegetation, or insects.
To round out our hogs' diet, ensuring they receive a diverse base of nutrients, we also feed them our vegetable culls (sorted, damaged produce and trimmings). During winter, the hogs munch on root vegetables, such as beets, potatoes, carrots, turnips and radishes, and leafy stuff, like kales, cabbages, broccoli, leeks, and trimmed tops of various veggies.
In one of the photos is a flowering patch of brassicas. The pigs devour the mustard cover seeded in pasture, so we picked and fed a few lugs of the stuff and figured they would enjoy rabe...
Our hogs loved it!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Rainy Days
The recent rain sure made things wet and muddy. Even on flat ground I had trouble with footing, but the pigs had no problem traversing uneven terrain.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
New Pasture for Our Hogs
On February 6th, we moved some of our gilts and barrows into the pasture above. It's carpeted with lush green grass and bordered by oak and black walnut trees. The pigs spend a good time of their day foraging on the grass and rooting for acorns and walnuts.
Our hogs do eat organic grain feed, but they appear to be instinctively searching for fallen acorns and black walnuts. It's a thrill for us to watch our pigs be pigs!
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