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.

Grazing our land

When we bought our property, it was severely over-grazed, the land nothing but earth and a sporadic blade of grass or two. Now, after two years of resting, the grass is waste-deep and thick again. It's time to reintroduce animals...

We don't yet have any grazing animals, not until our pond fills up this rain season, so we are borrowing our neighbor's cows. His land could use a break, and ours needs mowing.

Grazing makes the grass's roots spread out and you end up with thicker, more lush pasture. The trick is not to leave the cows in any one place for too long, as that will damage the roots. You want to try and imitate nature's herds, which move as one and keep moving.

With that in mind, we divided the southern part of our property into various paddocks, using electric fencing. We will rotate the cows each week, and then move them to the northern part of the land.

Our grass will be trimmed, fertilized and ready for the rains.

For more photos, click here.