"Do you want my leftover bacon?" -Said no one ever.

What happened to Farmer Phil? Well, if I thought summer was bad for blogging, at least it was a good time to get out of the heat for a little while. Suddenly it is the middle of September and you realize you have barely any hay in the barn and no firewood for the house or the sugar shack. And many of the animals need to have some major life changes coming their way- breeding, weaning, processing, moving. So begins the fall sprint. When the days are nice enough to work on all of the things you blew off all summer. It is my favorite season though and with a little luck and help from good friends and family, it somehow comes together enough to make it through to another year. Anyway, here is some info on our piggies and how we raise them. Thanks for reading!

Pastured Pork: Our definition.

Pasture Raised Pork is a name that really has no definition. Similar to Free-range and organic at one point, the name can be applied to a wide variety of methods of raising pork and as such, can be misused. At Coombs Farm, we have a method we have been refining since we started raising pigs and we wanted to explain it.

Our mothers have been raised outside from the day they came to us at about 8 weeks old. From this day, we began to look for ones who were independent, yet social enough to work together. From this, we have raised our breeding stock of three sows. We have a Berkshire boar that is on pasture with the girls for two months when breeding time comes, otherwise, he gets his own pasture, which we think he prefers!

Our girls Wendy, Michelle, and Pinky.

They all give birth to their piglets on pasture in individual huts. As the time nears, they begin to choose a hut and separate from each other. They will make a “nest” of hay and shavings that we provide and pregnancy begins. This is the harder part and why many don’t pasture birth, or farrow. If you took a sow and put her in a field and just waited, it would end badly. Through the careful selection process, our mothers are attentive to their litter on the pasture from day one. We rarely have to assist in the process but we do stand by and watch closely. We also take the time to clip the piglets needle teeth if they have them so they don’t hurt the sow.

About a half hour after the last piglet-all nursing away!

 

Often within a few days, she will bring the piglets outside and nurse in the sun and play in the dirt. Eventually, they merge into one big ball of piglets that run around the pasture like 6 year olds playing soccer for the first time. They will nurse for six weeks while they learn to eat and drink on their own. After they are fully weaned, they get a pasture of their own until they reach market weight. While our method is more labor intensive initially, the result is stronger piglets more resistant to disease, weaned earlier and overall more adjusted to pasture life than other pigs. They can grow quickly but with less fat and more muscle, making for superior pork. As we like to say, “A happy pig is a tasty pig” and ours are ecstatic!

“Why does this matter?”

To some people it doesn’t. We began farming to raise better food and in doing so we believe that giving an animal the best life possible while it is on earth is the best food.

 

Three days later, Wendy began taking the litter out and enjoying the sunshine!

What our pigs don’t have:

Iron Shots: Iron occurs naturally in the earth which is part of the reason why pigs root in the ground. In a normal operation, a shot must be given because the piglets can’t root. This can damage the meat long term at the injection site and some can taste a tin like flavor.

Growth Hormones: We feed grain, grass and water, (Also our goat’s milk when the seasons allow). There is no reason to cheat with a drug that no one can say is safe and we don’t need!

 Antibiotics: Other piglets are born sickly and need medicated feed or anti-biotic preventative shots. While we would treat a sick animal if needed, we don’t do it as a precaution because our method keeps the animals healthy naturally.

 Junk: Ever see the farmer with loads of bread or day old donuts in the back of his truck? Guess what he is raising? Fat, gross, pigs. We pride ourselves on the end product being lean and delicious. Not something you get from stale hot dog rolls and moldy cookies. Garbage In, Garbage Out.