My new arrivals.

[Hepsibah]

Our first pigs. They are ten week old Gloucestershire Old Spots. We've already learned a lot although we've only had them for two weeks, the first thing being that they can get through really small gaps hidden in the nettle-covered fencing. The second thing we learned was that chasing piglets around the farm is extremely tiring. The third thing that was a lesson purely for me was that piglet piddle is very pongy once it has dried into your clothes.
As I lay exhausted on the grass in my piddle-soaked clothes, the piglets safely shut into their new home I realised that now I am really a smallholder.

[red]

cool! whats the plan - are you fattening these up? or plan to keep some from breeding or what? why did you choose this breed?

[Hepsibah]

These are all for the table, three for us and one for swapping for mutton and lamb. We chose them because we wanted an outdoor breed that was relatively docile and going to be fairly forgiving of minor newbie mistakes. That gave us about four breeds in the short list. The GOS breeder lives very close by us so we chose them.

[Millymollymandy]

They are cute! I do love piggies. Sounds like you are having lots of fun (?!) with them!

[Wombat]

Cute, Hep!

[shiney]

Nice piggies and Glos Spots too. My favourite name for a pig breed!

I hope they are now behaving themselves and you have sussed out how to control them.

[Chickpea]

They're cute, but they sound like hard work. Just like human babies really.

I envy you being a real smallholder. That'll be me one day. It will.

[the.fee.fairy]

they're so cute!!

I don't think i could eat anything i'd raised...i feel guilty enough eating things that i've seen alive (cockles, mussels etc) let alone things i'd cuddled and fed!!

Good luck with them!

[Hepsibah]

I feel more guilty when I eat shop bought meat. It's never easy to kill anything and I had to do a lot of serious thinking before I could bring myself to eat home grown chicken. In the end I realised that taking responsibility for the lives of the food I ate may lead to a bit of suffering for me but that I would rather have that than be blindly responsible for the animal's suffering. I'm not looking forward to sending these little guys off to slaughter because although they are hard work, they're a real joy to be around, but when I do I can console myself with the knowledge that they have lived a satisfying, real piggy life with their snouts in the earth, the sun on their backs and a keeper who truly cared about them.

[the.fee.fairy]

i like the idea of that, i really do, but i know i couldn't do it!

I think its absolutely brilliant that there are so many people prepared to put as much as possible into an animals life before it meets the end, and i really admire everyone who can do it.

I've always made sure that my pets have the best life possible. And i'd do it for eating animals too, but i'm too soft...i'd cry!

I do really admire your principles though, and wish that i could harden up a bit to keep chickens for food. I don't eat a lot of meat, and what i do is organically grown locally - i've regularly seen the christmas turkeys escaping their enclosed field for a run around the neighbouriong field and the road (they're always caught nicely too) so that's nice because i can see them haveing a nice life before they get stuffed and added to the plate!! I just couldn't raise my own for food though!!

[greenbean]

Hi Hepsibah,
Your pigs look lovely, they look quite big already for weaners. As an ex pig keeper I am so jealous, I do miss pigs they are great fun, so very melodramatic and very clever. I found myself fixing fencing pretty much every day, they will work at a tiny wee hole and the next thing you know..escape! I recall one christmas day when I had to round up approx 70 escaped pigs after a big lunch - I didn't find them so cute that day!
Good luck, the first time you take one to slaughter will be difficult, it will get easier and I totally agree with your ethics about shop bought meat vs your own - I have had people say to me in the past, 'How can you eat your OWN pigs?' Funny isn't it, not funny ha ha, just queer.

[Millymollymandy]

Fee Fairy - I'm the same as you. I really, really wish I wasn't though. I even have the space for some pigs or sheep. And I'm a farmer's daughter, for god's sake!!!! My dad would be turning in his grave if he knew I had hens with names!

[Hepsibah]

It's funny isn't it? My husband used to be a slaughterman and he has no trouble seeing animals as potential food. He doesn't lose a wink of sleep when he dispatches surplus cockerels for the table and although he likes them very much when they are alive, sneaking treats out so he can hand feed them and sit them on his lap, he thoroughly enjoys eating them when the time comes. I still feel kind of awful every time but try to focus on making sure it's as stress free for the animal as it can be. Afterwards it doesn't worry me any more and I just make the best use of it I can and waste as little as possible.
I have chickens with names too MMM. There is Daisy, my favourite pekin (AKA Dinky-Daisy-Doo ), Raven and Blackie, the first hens I ever hatched myself and Cleopatra, the Maran who looks like she has on eyeliner. I also have a muscovey duck named Penelope.

[Stonehead]

Brilliant, and welcome to the Swineherds Guild!

But Gloucester Old Spots and relatively docile in the same breath? We had Gloucesters and they were a right handful, almost as much as a Tamworth.

Our Berkshires on the other hand are sweeties and easily kept in by two strands of electric fence where the Gloucesters and Tamworth need five.

Saddlebacks, which we also have, are inquisitive but also easy going, and so quite fun to have around, too.

For really docile (and really big), though, you have to go for a Large Black. But what out when a big sow decides to slowly lean on you!

Anyway, enjoy your pigs - both in the keeping and the eating.

[Stonehead]

Oh, and as for pig names, we currently have:

Ginger - the Tamworth boar
Dolores, Doris and Delilah - the Berkshire dames
Snooze and Flooze - the Saddleback dames

Previously, we've had Honey, Crackle, Snag, Hambone, Backy (for bacon), Curly, Boris and Twinkle (short for Twinkletoes).

As for the other animals, we have two cockerels called Wilbur and Orville (they can taxi but not fly), then there's Yellowlegs, Rustygate (the sound he makes), and Randy (the smallest but most vigourous!). The hens tend to acquire and lose names on a weekly basis, although the two smallest hens are Sweetpea and Violet.

We have no problems with eating them and it's a bit of a family tradition to name the animals anyway. My great uncle in particular had a very large dairy farm in Queensland. Every single cow (several hundred of them!) had a name and he knew every one of them. Same with the bulls.