Feast or Famine

We are sorry we have not been keeping everyone updated lately.  We are getting nice and fat now; well Sausage is still fatter than me, but I'm catching up.  The food in this joint is for the most part not bad.  We get our barley every morning but it's the nice stuff that's a bit hit and miss.

By nice stuff we mean bananas (our new favourite), melons, grapes and pears.  We still get a few strawberries but not as many.  Our next favourites are apples, tomatoes, potatoes.  But we really don't like Broccoli, even herself says she doesn't blame us that she hates it too.  She says that when she has some of her lovely purple sprouting broccoli from her garden she will let us try it.  We are not keen on turnips, peppers, lettuce, cabbage or onions.  And worst of all - oranges and lemons.  We really can't see the point of them.

Herself got in a bit of a panic as there was no barley in the feed supplier.  She went over to get it when her daughter was at home to help her lift the bags.  It makes us laugh watching her lugging the bags up the steps and then trying to wrestle with it into the bin.  You should hear the curses - we cover our ears!

Well anyway this day she went over and Sylvester the big man in the office took her money and gave her the docket.  She drove over to the other yard and the man there walked around looking at pallets and scratching his head.  Then he rang the boss.  The boss man came down to talk to herself and said that the weather had been so bad they couldn't get in to cut the new barley.  But he thought they might have a few bags over in their other place.  He said he'd ring her next day.

To cut a long story short he got some bags in, but then told her it doesn't keep well at this time of year when it's freshly cut, so not to buy a lot of it.  He threw in two bags into her boot and the car was almost on the ground with the weight.  Herself then had no one to help lift it in.

Now she says she heard on the news that it's going to get very expensive as the weather has been so bad the harvest is poor and also they keep putting up the price of fuel.  She told us we will be eating a lot more potatoes when the potato people near by start harvesting.  She said we better get to like potato as much as melon - some chance!

We will keep you updated a bit more now as we are getting the hang of this blogging and it's making us famous!

Trespassers

We had lots of excitement over the last few days.  We woke up one morning to discover these looking in at us. They are Limousins.

They had broken out of their field and had got into the field beside us.  We couldn't figure out what they were but figured they were just big pigs that ate grass.

Then herself discovered that we were in a paddock not owned by her out laws at all!  She had to ring the farmer and ask him was it okay to leave us here.  Luckily he said, "sure what harm will they do".  He hasn't looked over the wall recently to see obviously.

Then the handsome fruit and veg man started giving our strawberries and melons and all the other nice yummy stuff to some other pigs.  He gave her yucky broccoli that had gone yellow.  She said she wouldn't give it to us.

Sausage is a lot fatter than me and she bullies me so now herself has started giving us our own bowls.  It's very confusing though because I keep thinking that Sausage's food is a lot nicer than mine and she thinks mine is nicer than hers. 

You can see how fat Sausage is in this picture.  But at least I have the bigger bowl.

We have really rooted up all the garden now and even uprooted an ash sapling. We hide in behind the rest of it when the sun is out and we get too hot.  It's nice and cool in there.

Herself says we have to get our ears pierced and tattoos on our shoulders next, but she is just waiting until she gets the stuff sent out to her in the post.  This is for her herd number and so we won't get lost or mixed up with other pigs.  We think we are going to look like punk rockers.

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