Smoker

A couple of weeks ago we smoked the hams and bacon from the pig we butchered. They had been curing for 2 weeks and they came out absolutely delicious.

Abe made us a smoker beforehand. It is cut into a hill. The fire area is downhill, with bricks around it and backfilled with dirt. There is a piece of stovepipe that leads rom the back of the fire box to a levelled out area uphill. Over the top of the stove pipe is a metal barrel with top and bottom cut off. He made a rack for the meat that sits inside the barrel and a lid to cover it. The smoker worked great.

For photos of it's construction, click here.

Freezer's full again.

Last week, we butchered one of the two pigs we've raised for this purpose. Abe killed and processed the carcass by himself. I bagged and weighed the meat, and then the following day I rendered the lard and made the sausage. We have the hams and bacons curing.

It was a tiring two days, but it all went very smoothly. We ended up with 100 lbs of meat, and boy is it good! What with the pigs and rabbits, we never have to buy meat, although we do sometimes buy fish for variety. Next year we hope to introduce fish to our homestead.

The number of pigs on the property is dwindling. We sold Gloria this week, and we may have a buyer for a gilt and our boar. That will just leave us with the one remaining butcher pig. We'll then be pigless for a while (until June, when we get two feeder piglets). It'll be sad to have no pigs around, but it just seems better for us to buy and raise two piglets than to have the whole breeding operation here on the property. Leo's teacher is the one who bought Gloria, so we will be able to have two of her piglets each year, which is great.

And something else that's adding to our culinary pleasures is, of course, the mushrooms. There's little better than fresh pork, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes, all of which we have in abundance.

Weaning pigs

Gloria's second litter are now six weeks old and weaned. It was something else catching them all and putting them into the weaning pen, but we eventually got it done, after a few tries.

Abe made a trap for them in the shelter in which they were born. When they were all in there, Nico and I walked the big pigs down the hill and kept them out in pasture (so the sound of squealing wouldn't make them crazy). Leo had to make sure the little guys didn't jump out of the trap, by scaring them back in. Abe caught them and put them in the weaning pen.

We have also separated Amigo from the others for the time being. Gloria is now in heat and we don't want her bred until February. Poor Amigo can smell her and it's making him crazy. Oh well, he'll get his chance soon enough.

Wanda is due to have her 2nd litter in the next week.

For more photos, click here.

Grubage bin

A while back an online friend sent us some Black Soldier Fly Larvae. We put them in a bucket that Abe rigged up to meet their needs. However, their population has been growing, and so Abe has just finished making them a bigger home, out of a half barrel.

Black Soldier Flies (BSF) are the homesteader's new best friend, as useful as earthworms. The larvae eat all kinds of "putrid" or stinky waste (like rotting meat and manure of any kind) and they eat it FAST, before it even starts to smell. Then, as the grub gets ready to transform into an adult fly, it will walk up a ramp and drop itself conveniently into a collection vessel, which makes a great, high protein treat for pigs or guineas (or other omnivorous livestock).

You want to allow some of the larvae to make it to adult stage, so that your population will continue to increase. However, do not assume that "fly" is synonymous with a household pest. These flies exist only long enough to reproduce. They do not eat, and so are not interested in coming into your house. What's more, they see other flies, like the house fly and fruit flies, as competition and so secrete a chemical that deters them from laying eggs anywhere near them. So, once your BSF population is established, you will see a marked decrease in other competing flies.

We have not yet started to feed our pigs these grubs. We are trying to get our population well established before we harvest them. Once they have settled into their new home, and have converted rabbit, pig and guinea poop into more BSF, we will begin that process. Pigs, of course, eat anything, but it is protein that makes them grow faster and that represents the biggest cost in feed. Fresh BSF larvae have a protein content similar to soy meal (45%). Once the BSF are in full swing, we will empty the contents of the self-harvesting bucket into a solar oven and pasteurize them (to make sure any bad bugs contained in the poop are killed) and give it to the pigs. Apparently, they love them!

For more photos of the Grubage bin, click here. We will shortly post a full how-to on the website too.

Piglets

Gloria had her 2nd litter of piglets yesterday. We knew they would be arriving, as she had milk that morning, had made a beautiful nest and was panting.

The first one was born at 4.08, the last (which was breech) at 5.45. There were 13 in total. One was stillborn and the runt didn't make it through the night, so we are left with 11 healthy little piglets. And they are beautiful. You forget how small they are, and how cute.

There are 6 females, 5 males; 3 black spotted, 1 red, 7 white.

For more photos, click here.

New Pig Pasture

Abe put up a new pig pasture this week. We like to rotate the pigs fairly often, so as not to eat down any one pasture too much. And seeing as this year has been so dry, we decided to move them off their last pasture after a month.

This one is much larger and should keep them happy for a while longer.

They are now pros at the whole pasture thing. When we got our two sows (then gilts), they weren't sure what to make of pasture, having spent their lives in concrete pens. Now, Abe opens that gate and starts walking into the pasture and they snap to his heels, munching all the time we walk them round the new paddock. They are happy as pigs!

For more photos, click here.

Pig Update

Well, we sold all the piglets we wanted to, and now we are left with Wanda and Gloria (the two sows), Macho and Amigo (the two boars), and two piglets that we’ll be fattening up. They’re all growing like weeds, but the three adults are especially huge. Luckily they are all very tame, otherwise they would be scary (as is, we keep the baby away from them until they’ve been fed!).

Sad to say that we will be getting rid of Macho soon. It looks like the girls are definitely bred, so we no longer need to keep him. We will be using Amigo as our main boar and he will be old enough by the next time they need to be bred. In the meantime Macho is just eating food. It’s a shame in a way, as he is such an intelligent and calm pig. Hopefully we’ll find him a good home - good boars are in short supply around here.

Abe and a couple of lads from the village have spent the past couple of days making a new pasture for them all. Abe cut a bunch of limbs off the Juniper trees, so that the pigs can get under their shade without being cut by low branches. The boys then trimmed them up, so that we can use them as posts in some upcoming projects. We now have a BUNCH of beautiful posts (which the rabbits are cleaning off for us, as they like to chew the bark off) and the pasture looks awesome. Now that the rains have come and the grass is growing, the pasture should provide a little more of their food.

For more photos, click here.

Boars

Well, I guess we are now officially in the pig business...

It is getting time to wean Wanda's first litter, and thus time to breed her again. So we started looking for a boar. We found a couple of people who will rent their boars out in exchange for a piglet born of each sow bred. However neither of the boars were that great. Seeing as we have two sows that we will be breeding twice a year, we figured we should buy a boar and keep him permanently. We started looking around.

There was very little locally, but we eventually found one for sale. He looks like a Spotted Poland China and Tamworth mix and his name is now Macho. He is not very big - 10 months old and only 80 kilos - but he is beautiful, calm, and very hardy. He has been free-ranging over the mountains here and obviously knows what he is doing, as he is very healthy. We put him in a pen on his own until he and the girls get used to each other, but he already escaped and went to find them in their pasture. Luckily, they all seem to get on well and he is very gentle with the babies. But the girls did not appreciate him trying to mount them, so we separated him again (with a few amendments to his pen). Once the babies are weaned and the girls go into heat, they will all be able to run together, although we haven't decided yet if we will keep him for very long.

In the city, Abe also found a beautiful little boar, but he is only two months old and thus not able to do the job yet. He is a Landrace and Blue Butt mix. He is very intelligent and long in body. He will make the kind of babies that will sell well locally (while our older boar will make better pasture pigs). He is Leo's pig and Leo named him Amigo. He feeds and plays with him each day (several times a day!) and the little guy is getting real tame and tolerant.

[Please note that Macho is the only one of our pigs that looks clean. That is only because he is not yet hooked up to the water system, as we only brought him home yesterday (Abe is hooking him up as I write). As soon as the pigs have water, they make themselves a mud pool and roll around in it!]

We have also been looking into buying a milk cow, to give us and the pigs milk and cheese. We've found a couple of options so far, but haven't settled on anything. Will keep you posted.

Next major project on the property is a proper barn (with its own water catchment and tank of course).

For photos of our boys, click here.

Gloria's first litter

Gloria, our second sow, farrowed yesterday morning during our first stormy night. She had 8 babies in total, but two were stillborn. Of the 6 remaining, 4 are male, 2 female.

Once again, they are cute as can be.

Wanda's piglets are now much bigger. It rained yesterday and they were frolicking around in the mud - happy as pigs.

Pig Pasture

This week we made a new pig pasture. We used three strands of electric wire (doesn't need to be very tall as pigs are not good jumpers) and tied off to trees instead of corner posts. It covers a large area, with lots of clumps of shade tress included. Seeing as the pigs root around, we followed the contour of the land, so that they can create swales for us (as they push the earth downhill, it levels off a patch that then collects water better).

Leo enjoyed the work. He walked around with us at times, got us each tools we needed or water, and then went and sat under trees and played with some toys when he got bored. He was good as gold.

It was super hot weather, and we were both pretty exhausted after finishing, but it had its own rewards. When we let the pigs out, they started exploring all over. Our previous, younger pigs were very cautious and it took them a long time to really explore, but these girls had no such inhibitions. Having spent all their lives prior to coming here on a concrete floor, the allure of real dirt and trees was too much. They followed us around all over the pasture. They seem to respect the fence pretty well, having both been shocked a couple of times (the shock is not painful, just uncomfortable enough to make you want to avoid doing it again).

It really is great to see pigs on pasture. Can't wait until the rains come and it all greens up.

For more photos, click here.

New Sows

This week we've been doing some work on the gardens, but most of our efforts have gone to the pig pen. We mucked out the toilet area (we would place hay on top of their poop, which keeps the smell away and makes for a better compost), and put it in a pile in a garden bed we won't be using for a while. While Abe and I did that, Leo carried rocks and filled in a hole they'd made under their water nipple (they quickly learned how to push the nipple so that water would pool up into a lovely mudbath, which had grown incredibly deep). We then put a shade up and made a new hoop house, so that each sow would have a nesting area.

Once everything was ready, we went to the city and bought two beautiful sows. They are still young (born in July 2010), but already showing signs of the immense size they will grow to be. Both are pregnant, one due about 18th May, the other beginning of June.

They had a stressful day yesterday with the 2 hour journey to our place, and when I went to take a photo, they were asleep under the shade in some hay and did not even stir. Notice how their front legs are intertwined (we had considered getting just one due to the cost, but decided that the company would go a long way to keeping them both happy and healthy).

We need to fence a new area for them to graze, although there is no rush, as we will keep them penned up until they are used to this as their new home. This is the first time they have lived with dirt and grass under their feet, so we don't think it will take them long to call this home.

We only went a few days without having pigs on our property, but we are glad those days are over. These two are the beginning of our herd, and we hope that they will long be a part of our family.

For more photos, click here.

A freezer full of pork

On Wednesday, we processed the pig we'd saved for ourselves.

A couple of friends came and helped Abe with the nitty gritty. We had prepped pretty well and things went very smoothly. Nonetheless it was a lot of work. They began at 7am and finished at 12pm. All three were pretty tired, but a hearty meal of, yep you guessed it, pork helped out.

I weighed and bagged the meat before putting it in the freezer:
7lbs 14oz ribs, 1lb 5oz back strap, 12lb 4oz steaks, 17lb 12oz roast cuts, 1lb sidepork, 2lb 1oz stewing meat.

On Thursday we rendered the lard, which took a LONG time, but produced 9 liters of lard, and some leaf lard (we're rendering that today, so not sure how much, although considerably less than regular lard). Plus there was a bunch of cracklings, over 7 pounds.

Also on Thursday we ground up all the meat we'd put aside for ground pork and sausage - 7lb 4 oz ground pork and 8lb 11 oz sausage.

Not sure how much the hams and bacon weigh. We will weigh them when we take them out of their cure in 10 days.

The guys that helped us took the head to make tamales, the skin to do crackling and the liver. Plus we'll give them some steaks when we cut them up and some sausage and ham when they're done.

In all, a year's supply of meat for us, and extremely tasty meat too from what we've already sampled.


We'll be posting full instructions on our site soon:
http://www.velacreations.com/pigs.html

For more photos, click here.

This little piggy went to market

This week we sold two of our three pigs.

We had set up a ramp into our little Toyota pickup a couple of days beforehand, where we started to feed them. In hindsight, we should have done this sooner, for they were not quite comfortable enough with it when the time came to load them up. We spent about an hour with Abe trying to push them up the ramp, when they wouldn't go voluntarily, and that just stressed everyone involved out. So he then tried something he'd read on a pig forum - he put a bucket over their head and pushed them (without too much force) backwards up the ramp. They were trying to get their head out of the bucket by running backwards. In fuve minutes they were both loaded and calmer, looking for food.

We have a formula to estimate their weight, using their length and girth, but we had obviously been doing it a little wrong, as they ended up being 10kg lighter than we had thought. Oh well, you live and learn.

We have kept one pig, which will be for our family's needs. She was the smallest of the three, so we are going to let her gain a little weight first. I had been worried that she would pine for her siblings, but she actually seems very happy. Being the smallest, she was always the last to the feed and mud pit - now, she's king of the castle and seems to really enjoy it.

It will be very sad to see her go and be without pigs - they truly are a joy and benefit to any homestead - so we have decided to buy two breeding sows. They are already bred and are big and beautiful. We will pick them up over the next couple of weeks, once we've moved their pasture and pen.

For photos click here.

Property Updates

I haven't written much about the place recently, so I thought I'd do a little update on how things are doing.

Building
We haven't done any building since we finished the bathroom and hot water system. We really have everything we need, so no need to hurry on to the next construction projects, at least until well after the baby is born. We'll probably make the pantry (a big cupboard in the entranceway) and another shelf or two, but that's it for the next couple of months.

Hot Water system
This has really changed our lives and is the greatest luxury on the place. There have been a couple of small issues to work out, but Abe figures them out and fixes them. Unless it's cloudy for several days or unless we use the floor heaters a lot, our tank temperature sits happily at 130 degrees and will almost burn you!

Compost Heater
This did not work out as well as we had hoped. Although it heated Leo's wall a lot at the beginning, it does not do so steadily. We will have to tweak the idea to make it more effective. At least we''ll get a big old pile of compost out of the experiment.

Pigs
The three pigs are growing at an incredible rate. They more than doubled (and one of them almost tripled) their weight in the first month we had them. We made a pasture for them and they love to run around in it, root up the dirt, eat grass and play. When you arrive, they come running up to be petted, scratched and fed scraps. They consider Leo one of them. Photos

Chickens
We replaced most of our chickens a little while ago with some young layers. They have recently started to produce eggs. So far we are getting about two a day, but that will increase with Spring. It's Leo's treasured job to collect them (although he is only allowed to carry one back to the house).

Rabbits
The rabbits are amazing. We have kept a lot of the best females to pad out our breeding stock. We now have twelve females, four of which are still not ready to breed. By March, when they are all of breeding age, we will be getting a litter a week. Right now we have a little over 40 of them, of all different sizes!
They are truly the easiest animals in the world to keep and a joy to watch. Photos

Gardens
We didn't plant anything for winter outside. There was a lot going on at the time and we decided to let it go for this year. The inside dining room planter is on the other hand doing great, with all kinds of herbs, greens, carrots and garlic going crazy. We will shortly be doing soil blocks for the living room one.

Road
For the grand old price of $15, we got our road graded the other day. Most people don't understand what this means, but to sum it up for you, our road is long (2 miles), dirt and was in terrible condition after the rains we got this year. It now feels like a super highway, and my increasing belly is very grateful.