The Beauty of Raising Heritage Pigs

There are a lot of reasons to raise heritage pigs instead of the highly bred for production conventional varieties. One of these reasons is their ability to forage for their own food on pasture.  Conventional hogs pretty much live off commercial feed all their life while heritage hogs eat whatever they can find.

Our hog pasture is dry right now, awaiting the rains to sprout grass and weeds. BUT, we do have a nice crop of weeds growing in the "pig garden" just outside the pig pen. The goal is to put away pumpkins and squash for later, then let the pigs in to harvest all the plants they want.  Until then, we are pulling hte larger weeds from the pig garden and feeding them.

These Large Black and Black Wattle pigs LOVE these weeds! Especially the wild mustard that grows easily here.  They munched these weeds as fast as we could pull them.

Saying thank you to the bringer of the weeds

The young boars enjoying a community stalk

Mom and baby eating together

Here is a quick video here you can fully appreciate their eagerness for the greens. Be sure to turn the volume up!