Our first rare breed Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (see blog post Oct 2016 the start of our self sufficient life for our full story), meet the pink ladies, Splodge, Pinky, Delila and Squealer, aptly named for when we carried her from the trailer to the ark she squealed and squealed and squealed, fortunately as soon as you put a pig down they stop and start to rootle and investigate! These ladies were 11 weeks old when we picked them up from our local long time experienced breeders Mark and Debbie Dallaway at Trewint Farm in Hawkhurst, Kent the garden of England.
The journey back to our small holding was full of excitement with a hint of positive/scary hesitation that we are really doing it...we have just brought four pigs!!! But the excitement won with the great feeling that we as a family are fulfilling our dreams and doing exactly what we have been aiming for, the next level to an almost totally self sufficient life, along with the privilege of being able to spoil our animals and enjoy every day with them, great for them and great for us too.
We are now becoming as fully self sufficient as we can, along with foraging and trading with other self sufficient folk, we may be able to remove the shops from our life, well almost I suppose if we are honest we can not do without loo roll! We do make all our own deodorants, shampoos and soaps, moisturises, toothpastes, mouthwash, laundry detergent, household cleaners etc, but I still have to buy the natural organic ingredients for these, making our own just helps us know what is in what we are using.
Knowing that we will be giving our pigs, sheep and chickens the very best pampered and loved lives and a longer life as they will be ready when their ready or when were ready and knowing that our animals are eating a natural diet from the fields they live in along with foraged acorns, apples, pears, homegrown carrots, cabbage, parsnips and supplemented with the organic river cottage feed we are really finally living and working our family dream life,
Meet Pinky she has such a personality and a very mothering attitude, this has made an easy decision for us to keep Pinky to be our future breeding sow next year.
Pinky always like to come over for a face rub and to say thank you for their afternoon treat
Our pink ladies are now eight months old and that mixed emotional time has come where two are leaving the farm, we work on the facts the biggest go first, therefore it is not up to us to actually choose, whom I kidding !!! Each time we go through this process we do get a bit more accustomed to the buffet of emotions, a little less emotional sensitive and a little bit more comfortable ish! there is a lot of excitement for the pork that will feed us, sadness and guilt for the life we are taking, justification on the life we have given them and so many more feelings that do go on for a few days.
All the research we did and the so important great information from the breeders with all their experience (this is so important) on raising pigs has been a huge benefit helping us raise our ladies to the highest standards. Even though we had done all our homework and new how to raise our pigs it is a great benefit to hear real long term experienced information from your breeder on behaviour and tips on pig attitude and handling.
Meet our four new weaners, these are Oxford Sandy Black x Gloucestershire Old Spots and one Duroc x Gloucestershire Old Spots, the chestnut pig in the middle, eight weeks old and a bundle of trouble already! No respect for the electric fencing and giving us great entertainment, these guys are adorable and now eating from our hands and getting used to being brushed and pampered.
Coming soon our Old Spot Sausages!
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