Food, Shelter, Friends and Space – It’s a Free Range Pig’s Life
It’s really exciting watching our pig herd evolve. I haven’t had a lot of exposure to large groups of pigs before. To watch a group of pigs in natural surroundings is like watching a group of kids in the playground at lunch; some are sleeping under trees or trying to hide in the bushes, others are chasing each other around squealing with delight. There are bullies, there are loners, and there is the ‘cool’ group. Some are grumpy, some just want to scratch, and some are eating leftover breakfast. These pigs have a great life; plenty of food, shelter, friends, and best of all…space!
With the pigs doing well we have looked further afield to boost numbers for the ever increasing demand for Free Range Pork. In the coming months we hope to introduce you to other farmers who are supplying us with their product. It’s great to see other farmers enter the industry and we are committed to sourcing our produce from family farms.
In Sydney and at the farm we had an early start to Winter this year. The cold snap that came in May ‘turned’ all the feed at home. The summer grasses don’t like the cold and start to die off after the first frost or bout of really cold weather. The grasses are still edible, but they provide limited nutrients to the animals. As winter deepens they become worse, breaking down to become organic matter for the soil, but they are beneficial as a sort of canopy to protect the growing winter grasses. With rain only falling in the last few weeks and another front of cold weather upon us, Autumn seemed only to stay a short while, and as Winter has already dragged his big bags through the door Dad will be organising feed to be delivered. This season I’d say that we will be sourcing our animals off farm. With limited pasture on the ground, ‘finishing’ animals will be very hard, if not impossible…the little buggers will be busy enough just keeping warm!
