We must really be farmers now!

I love gardening and this year I have ambitious plans to really expand my plantings. I have a small flock of chickens that will soon grow due to the perseverance of my little broody hen. We have a herd of horses. But yesterday we became real farmers when we bought not one but two PIGS! Yes, we have ventured into the world of swine. Pigs are nothing new to DH and I. We both grew up raising a pig each year to put in the freezer. But this is the first pig adventure for our DGS. Both the pigs are young. One is a sow and the other a boar. We are not sure of their contributions yet. We may eat one and sell the other. Or sell one, breed the other and sell and eat the offspring. It's all up in the air at the moment. They are definitely not pets though they will be treated with all kindness and will be very much appreciated for what they add to our lives.

So, without further ado (sp?) I give you Spare Rib and Pork Chop.

very nice, I to want to get some pigs but have to wait and see. Love the names.

Spare Rib, Pork Chop, and Handsome!! Jealous here! What kind and where'd you get 'em?

Sheeesh: When the time comes I sure hope your not going to butcher handsome also are you?LOL Great names !!! I think. The future sounds so bleak with names like that. I just don't know Cajun! Your always talking about food, stew pots, I mean look what you did to Jellybean! He's still in hiding and all. When you decide to keep one and butcher one, whats the butchered one to think??? Something is really wrong with this pic. Guess one's gotta do what one's gotta do. Haystack Hmmmmm I just dunno.

They sure are nice looking pigs. But DGS is much cuter! We bought our pig. DH would like to raise one a year for butcher. I am not so sure. Once I give it a name and feed it...its family. ugh! So, I will just buy mine from wonderful people such as yourself who can raise things without bring it into the livingroom to watch TV. hehehe
I guess that DOES make you a farmer now. ;)

I do not have a problem at all giving my dinner a name. When we had goats, I named them, the ones I knew were going to be dinner, pork chop, pot roast and dinner.

LOL I am just not farmer material. I want to keep everything.
We would starve if I were born back in the day!!! Well, no, I guess we would have eggs. hehehe

I started raising much of our own meat when I realised how comercial animals were treated. I feel guilty eating comercial meats, but never do with the ones I raise. I give them a good life and a humane death and truly respect their contribution to our family. I have a niece who has fits because I eat what we raise, but she will go to the store and buy a chicken that has lived in nothing but misery it's entire life.It always seems kind of hipocritical to me. I think everyone who can should get involved in raising their own food. It makes you respect and appreciate the animals all the more. We are so far removed from the reality of the food chain, even with non meat items. We don't want to know how they were treated or who had to work in the hot sun for a few dollars an hour to produce it.

People have always laughed at all the work I put into my garden and the animals and ignored the warnings of the economic crisis and the problems with our food supplies (contamination and food born pathogens). Now that half of them are out of work this year their tune is changing. There isn't a reason in the world that every yard cannot have at least a small garden or flock. At least it would get people off their butts and doing something. I really like the ideas for change coming up in the US. People just need to keep in mind that change has to begin with us. One person can work their butt off and make only a little diffrence, but if everyone made even a tiny effort, the whole world would change!

Ok, enough soapbox. Congratulations on the pigs! They are wonderful and I LOVE the names. We have been thinking of stashing a pig or two in the garden over the winter with a hoop house. Nobody is willing to wade through all the snow in Michigan to see if we have an illegal pig!

Keep it up!

Wow.. great looking pigs and a super darling boy!

I love pigs..

I have never butchered, except one chicken recently.. after seeing how clean and healthy the organs were.. and how fantastic the meat tasted.. I have a new attitude towards it. I don't LIKE it.. but what a wonderful gift it was.

Congrats on your new venture!

I'm with Jyl. On the soapbox. How many animals will have much better more decent -contributing- lives if we take responsibility for them ourselves instead of letting factories, super chain markets, and trucking do it!!

Calm down Gro: I'm gonna have to recommend anger management for you. See now don't you feel better already.Arghhh. Easy gurl.

Great looking pigs! Keep us updated on their progress!

I'm also with jyl, though I don't think I could eat my own. I buy em from the local farms. Commercial industry is disturbing. That cheap chicken at the grocery store was pretty cruelly treated IMO. It would HAVE to be in order to be so cheap. Taking care of animals decently is not cheap.

Congrats on the oinkers Cajun! They're....well they're not really cute to me so they might be easier to part with! ;) At least you'll know they're well raised and treated.

what a cutie your GS is.
Cute names also on the pigs.
good luck ! :)
i can't wait to raise our own food .

taynors!!! How is the place going???? Do you have updates?

Actually you would be suprised to know are treated fairly well during their confinment. the only thing i consider cruel is the debeaking.
They are kept in the large chicken houses and have all the food and water they want and are continuously watched to insure they don't get too hot or cold.
They are only there 7 weeks and then are processed the houses are cleaned and they bring in more chicks.
Laying hens however are treated cruely and are forced to stand in pens with other hens theres not even enough room to stretch their wings.
My son works on a farm where they have breeding chickens for fertile eggs and they are kept in chicken houses free roaming hens and roosters. Theres a woman who watches them all day and the lights are on a timer and goe's off at a certain time every night so they can rest. Theres nest boxs in the middle and the eggs fall on to a belt that moves them to the collection room.

Well. {{grumble}}. I still like home-loved best.

And OWSHayM?! You've never seen me wild....that I remember;-)

Nice little piggies, Cajun! I envy you for sure. =0)

I'd suggest "Compassionate Carnivores" for those who'd like to know more about the difference between industrially produced meat and home-raised.

And I am totally on board with you Jyl. Raising one's own meat creates a whole new level of respect and appreciation for interdependence. And no, it's not easy and I don't like it, but I like even less the idea of masses of chickens being poured down a chute, hung upside down on a conveyer chain and their heads being dipped in electrically charged water to kill them... except for the ones that pull their heads up and get to go to the knife terrified and kicking.

I'd much rather deal with the discomfort of killing them myself than than the discomfort of that system, which doesn't even get into the dangers of the slaughterhouse for the people who work there... America's most dangerous jobs.

See, Jyl, you're not the only one with a soapbox...
though I think we're preaching to the choir. =0)
Jay

This message was edited Jan 23, 2009 8:12 PM

Nice to hear there's more effort at being humane though -least where Har is...wish I had faith that that was common...

Really nice thread.

I'm afraid I'm with sewin. I have not eaten chicken since I received my baby chicks in april. I quit eating pork a long time ago because I noticed I felt bad afterwards. I still eat beef. If I continue to eat beef, I want to buy one that was raised on a pasture, not in a feedyard.

I think most of our beef comes from the feedyards these days. Any animal forced to stand in it's own manure all day in a small confined space can't be healthy. If the animal is toxic, why are we eating it?

From the soapbox I say: Our food is being poisoned. That's why so many of us are sick. We need a revolution for safe food. If that means raising our own, so be it. I may eventually be brave enough. Depends on how hungry I am. I'm sure I could do it if my family needed food.

{{{well, it kinda sucks, but I feel self-righteous....:) ok. and convinced it's the best way}}}

Cajun what kind of piggies are those ? ( city girl minds want to know ) LOL :)
No updates on house really , i guess i got some pics i can put on the log home thread ? i just kinda got busy with and stuff.

I'm not sure what kind they are. Might be a durock (sp?) cross. Their daddy weighs right at 600lbs and their momma around 400lbs.

wow that is alot of pork ! that bacon will be so good . mmmmm

We won't let ours get nearly that big before we butcher it but it's nice to know we'd have a big sow if we decide to breed for piglets. There were 13 piglets in the litter ours came from. At $50 a suckling pig that's a pretty good deal.

I actual raise some animals that we eat, I can't remember the last time I bought anything other then chicken at the grocery store. I feel so much better knowing that my kids are getting meat with "nothing" in it. They look like what we call Blue Butts. Yes, they make wonderful pets right now I have 2. They are the 5th smartest animal in the animal kingdom, they eat very little for their size. They are usually slaughtered at about 6 months of age and about 250 lbs. I'm glad to see other people trying to be "self sufficient" its really not hard but some people don't have the space. I'm originally from Los Angeles so I've come along way for a city girl.
Have fun,
Lisa

O. You and taynors have a lot in common! Citygirl gone country.

Okay everyone has had their time on the soap box on animal cruelty number one on my list is veal calves.

1 I see these little calves confined to these huts out in fields and i just want to cry!!!
2 Dubbing banty roosters for show how would you like for someone to cut off a ear lobe with no pain medication!!
3 laying hens in cramped cages if they can let the breeders run free in the chicken house and collect the eggs why oh why can't layers have this for them!!

Now thats my rant and i'm off the box now.

YA!! I don't eat VEAL!

I don't understand #2 - Chicken edumaction?

ANd YA!

gone country ,back to her roots . Country her she comes. Yah whoooo.
well actually Harmony if you look at some of them kids at the malls. YIkes . I think they got in fights with a nail gun on their faces. Ouch. it makes you wonder don't it ?

Jenks
Trimming a rooster means to cut the ear lobes, comb and wattles off. It is common practice in game cocks and other breeds in very cold climates. In cold climates to prevent frost bite and in game cocks it started in the fighting ring to keep them from being torn and has been carried into the show ring to maintain the look. Much like trimming the ears on a Dane or docking the tail on a cocker.

I have not eaten veal in my life that was not raised myself. Veal is suposed to be a calf that is young enough to have only been milk fed. What you buy in the store is baby beef that has been forced into anemia to keep the meat white and imobility to keep it tender. What those poor calves go through is worse than horse slaughter.

Ugly, ugly thoughts there....

Can you imagine a soapbox thread?! In addition to the blather ones...phew...

They trim the OEGBs for show thats why i don't show i just can't do that to a rooster.....

Maybe I could stand on my soap box to get up on my tall horse?

What is an OEGB?

Out onna limb here....Old English Game Bantam?


I keep my highhorse (we called it that anyway) out in the living room for easy access...soapbox ottoman

$50 is a great price for the pigs! The market around here is $75-$90 for an 8 week old piglet and that's when you can find them. The price of feed went up so high it put some people out of the business(hobby). That's why we supplement raising ours with fresh food from the garden.
I also name ours but after over 15 years we've stop w/ the pork names. Last year we had Red(for the red duroc-total nut job,by the way!), Betty and I can't recall the other one. They always get nice meals, fresh water, plenty of room, a splashing-in mud hole, daily rubs and treats through-out the day(apples, carrots, and they love spaghetti!). I love the pigs and appreciate their contributions to us. Yes, I talk to them just like I talk to the rest of our animals! :-)

I explained to an aquaintance that I believed it was more humane for me to eat the roos from my own backyard than from the store. She honestly couldn't understand what the point was in giving them a good life before I ate them since I was going to kill them anyway. This is the type of thinking I'll never understand.

I ate veal from a restaurant once and ended up with terrible gastric problems that lasted for a week (I'll spare the nasty details). that taught me to never eat veal again!

We get alot of nose wrinkling faces when people find out that we raise livestock for our freezer. So I know what you mean. Of course I get the same faces from the same people when I tell them we drink goat's milk!
I think I'd stay away from that restaurant as well, Patch! The only 'veal' I've ever had was when I was a teenager and Burger King had veal parm sandwiches. I wasn't aware of how the animals were treated and looking back, I wonder if it was even veal...

It's a sad strange world sometimes. Do people ever stop and wonder where their burger meat came from? Surely they don't believe it grew from a tree. Sometimes I just want to bang my head against something whilst laughing uncontrollably, but then I'd never get anything done, lol!