Our Diet

Herself says that if you eat something do you ever wonder what it has eaten?

We are pigs so we are omnivores which means we eat basically the same as herself.  We love fruit, particularly sweet fruit like plums, pears and strawberries.  We eat them first and then later the other icky vegetables like carrots and potatoes and we are not keen on cabbage or broccoli.  Herself says we remind her of small children.

We also eat barley and we really love it.  Herself adds some water to it and we fight over who can keep their head in the pot longest.  Rasher usually bites me when I am greedy.

 Herself decided she was not going to feed us pig food because it has genetically modified soya and maize in it.  It actually says it on the label.  She asked a few feed manufacturers about getting GM free but only one even researched the possibility of getting some in.  It worked out to be about 4 times the price.

We have made a right mess of the garden and it's all mucky now with the rain.  But we root about under the grass and we find slugs, worms, grubs and roots.  This is why our noses are always dirty.  Herself says that people panic when they see the mess we make of land but we actually do a lot of good.  We turn the soil around very gently, aerating it and rotivating it.

When we become *whisper* "rashers and sausages" or even pork belly or ham we will taste more gamey because of our diet.  Our meat will be darker and have more flavour.  
diet
We are very happy with our diet so far and hope herself continues to get strawberries from the nice fruit and veg man.  He knows we love strawberries now and he always tries to give her some for us.

Tags: GM free feed  Pig rearing GM free  Pigs

Our First Post

This is our first post and we are very excited about it.  When herself first suggested we write a piggy blog, we didn't have a clue what she was on about.  But then she explained to us that there are lots of small people (and not so small) who haven't a clue that rashers and sausages come from us - shudder!  So maybe we should enlighten them.

She named us Rasher and Sausage (a bit unkindly we feel) however we are happy enough with our names now.  Sausage has a curlier tail and is slightly smaller than I am.

We were born in a lovely garden centre called Caragh Nurseries near Naas, Co. Kildare where Jo was our first "herself".  We had lots of brothers and sisters also called Middle Whites and we were a bit sad to leave them, especially as the new herself arrived down with a cat box to collect us.

When we arrived to Carpenters (the name of the old man who farmed in the traditional way with a cow byre, pig sty and stalls in the old barn for the cart horse).  Herself shoved us in a stable and shut the door so we couldn't escape. We had lovely deep straw and as we were tired we cuddled down into it and fell asleep.

After a couple of days she let us out into the walled garden full of lovely long grass.  We were very happy and straight away started rooting up all the grass searching for grubs and bugs underneath.  We get very dirty noses doing this, especially as it always seems to be raining here.

Now we have settled in and have turned our garden into what looks like a rotivated field.  But we like it like that.  We have permanently dirty noses and when we eat our barley bits of mud fall into it.  We love strawberries and when we eat them the juice dribbles down leaving rivulets through our muddy snouts.

We hope to write lots more posts about our adventures now and hope you will read them and make lots of comments.  After all we don't want to become breakfast really and we hope that you will help us stay as Rasher and Sausage.

Tags: Free Range Pigs  Middle White Pigs  Pig Farming