For those of you who have read the early posts, you will remember that we had 4 Berkshire weaners which we bought from a local organic farm. The first pair went to slaughter the other Friday and it is fair to say I was disappointed with the results.

Last year, our two pigs killed out at 76kg and 67kg. A bit too heavy for porkers. I was aiming for a weight of about 50kg this time. 50 to 60 is good for porkers (chops, roasting joints and sausages). 100kg is bacon weight – plenty back bacon, big hams and plenty sausages.

This years pigs killed out at a measly 38 and 35kg. Far too wee. I put this down to being too eager to get them away, coupled with not being able to get the same feed as I got last year. Last year I bought locally grown bruised barley, oats, and beans. This year I could only get bruised barley with the occasional bean in it. I think if I had held on to the pigs for say another month, they would have been upto the right weight, but too fat. Berkshires tend to carry a bit more fat than a commercial pig – commercial pigs are bred to be lean which, in my opinion results in tasteless meat. You need fat on the meat to hold the flavour whilst it cooks. If you don’t want to eat it, then just cut it off. Traditionally, pigs carried fat but today’s market does not like to see it on the meat, so ’stuff’ forbye water is injected into the pork to make it taste of something. Just read the ingredients!

I do think, however that we were a bit spoiled last year – the chops were massive! This years meat tastes just as good, but I really wanted more of it.

I have, after discussion with David who we buy the weaners from, begun changing the feed onto organic pig nuts. This has wheat, soya, peas, wheatbran, lucerne, molasses and prairie meal in it. Hopefully this will prevent the remaining two pigs from getting too fatty, and let them convert the feed into meat more easily. The remaining two are destined for bacon, so I need them to be just over 100kg before they go which I think will take until about January when they will be 11 months old. Commerically, they would be at this weight in about 16 to 20 weeks!

It is a joy to keep pigs, and we always remember why we have them. It could be very easy to forget, consider them as pets and not be able to put them away when the time came. I always see them with imaginary ‘cut here’ dotted lines on them….It astounds me that some people have really gone to town on me for eating my own pigs. They would rather buy theirs from the supermarket, over packaged, injected with allsorts, without thinking about the pigs, having their teeth clipped and their tails removed when they are only a few days old to stop them biting each other in frustration, being kept on concrete virtually in the dark so they don’t want to move around (even if they could!) so they don’t burn off any food and it all gets converted into meat. They are routinely fed antibiotics, ‘just in case’ and, like broilers (table chickens), fed a specific diet to gain the maximum wight in the shortest time.

I watched our two remaining pigs chase each other in and out of the trees at high speed this afternoon shrieking with delight at their game. It really made me smile watching them dotted lines move!