Sooo excited we are so pleased with our gorgeous beautiful weaners, (9 wks old), we have one gilt and one soar. We have been naughty and named them, this is really the breeders fault as she called the male soar weaner The Ginger Ninja, and as my husband and son are kung fu/Judo mad we had to take him home also because he kept coming over to say hello and oinking at us. Our son has named the girl gilt weaner LemonGrass so our first pigs are Ginger and Lemon.
Ginger had a little car sickness on the way home, but they both settled really quickly. We just gave them time to let themselves out of the travel cage and to investigate and walk the short barricade path with straw bales to their new run and home. They had a few scrapes with the electric fencing which runs around the boundary line, this is just a extra belt and brace's measure as we do have neighbours and we would not want a stray pig wondering over to introduce themselves without warning...
Oh look what is that, well do you think we can eat it ?
How gorgeous are we.
Bottoms up!
Hello the name is Ginger, Ginger Ninja.
Love them, Love them, Love them.
Oscar meeting his new piglets, they were quite at home by now and really did not mind us having a wonder around their run. Ginger gave Oscar several grunts at first then came over to investigate.
peek a boo!
The pigs home, for now!
Ingredients...Ha ha, no not yet. This is the next step into our dream, we always wanted to raise ours own pigs, we had had our first chicken and were keen to move on to weaners, but daily life & family somehow just became busy and the dream got put to the back of our minds and it just became a memory, then thanks to my bestfriend who reminded us of our dream, we started to look for 3+ acres near where we live, so that we could have pigs and chickens, even maybe a few lambs, realising our small holding dream of growing and producing as much of our food ourselves. After some time searching & viewing we came to realise that we were probably not going to find our parcel of land locally, until it came on the market or when. This really upset us, we felt very despondent, we had done so much homework on keeping pigs and chickens and all year round vegetable growing with a poly tunnel, that it felt wasted.
After a few glasses of wine one evening & re-runs of the Good Life, we decided that with really good housekeeping and lots of home work, risk assessments, a belt and brace's attitude and after lots of really helpful information from small holders fairs and people in the know like Ardingly Arks and Oaklands Pigs we could do this in our own home garden!
What helped that decision was my friend said to me what is it with people's obsession about grass? Keeping a lawn all trim and tidy, there is no soul no passion no inspiration. This I found very fascinating, as our front garden is the only grassed garden we have, I must admit I have kept our grassed garden as a neat and tidy straight lined mowed lawn that I never used, I just look at and smile how perfect and tidy it is !
So with this thought in mind we just looked at the front lawn and changed our way of thinking. If we kept our pigs in the front garden and yes they will completely ruin the LAWN, is that really a big issue? It will grown back! So with this new found enthusiasm we have taken the next step to our mini mini small holding. This was it, we made the phone call to Oaklands Pigs who are very reputable registered pig breeders and booked our weaners. 7 Wks wait before the weaners would be ready, this was frustrating but brilliant, we were able to order our pig ark to be made by Ardingly Arks, who not only made us a fantastic ark, delivered to our door and assembled the ark for us, but then gave us so much helpful information and contacts we feel even more prepared.
We are really enjoying the welcoming fold of the pig community from The Accidental Smallholder, everyone has been really great with lots of information, and tips which has really made our very first experience quite easy, So Far !!!
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