Laertes, Lady Lavinia and the Little uns

The happy family

Laertes the boar (son of Oldfarm's Polonius) and his misses, Lady Lavinia produced nine lovely, healthy piglets on the 28th January. It was one of the coldest days of the winter so far with snow on the ground. I saw her in the morning briefly before leaving for work as she was dragging in wet, dirty grass into the new house we had moved into the field for her (nesting). It was to be the designated maternity wing. 

We had awful trouble with the last house as neither would sleep in it for days. They actually slept out in the cold rather than go in. This was despite me climbing in to show them it was safe and desperately hoping they wouldn't decide to come in on top of me. But they just looked in at me as if I was mad (which I probably am.)  So I was surprised to see that she accepted the new house so readily. Laertes was much more wary and didn't venture in at all. 

When I got home that day I sneaked down to have a peep. I could see her back and just assumed she was still in labour, so I went to get her some more straw as it was freezing.  When I came back and started to put the straw in, I saw a piglet peep up from behind her. At that point she jumped up and there was a lot of squealing as she blundered about, not being sure where to put her feet down without standing on a baby. But don't worry; those squeals. Even new born they were well able to let her know if she had hurt them.

She started to nose up the straw in a pile around them to keep them warm and then came out for some food and a drink. She was surprisingly relaxed with me being close but I didn't tempt fate and try and get a photo of them until the next day. 

One day old

They reminded me of guinea pigs I had when I was a child who grew to number 24 from two. Their colouring and markings resembling Dolly Mixtures. Lady Lavinia is half Irish Grazer (Tamworth) and a Gloucester Old Spot cross. Laertes has Saddlback, Duroc, Hampshire and Landrace in there so you can see they are a good mix.

Then I was given all the old advice, so much that my head was in a spin. I consulted Oldfarm and was reassured that I did not need to pull their teeth, dock their tails, keep Lady Lavinia in a cage so she wouldn't squash them or carry out any other barbaric practices. I was even told they would need an infra red light. Actually, if I had had one that mightn't have been a bad idea but I'd say mum would have over heated. But no, they are a hardy outdoor breed and when I put my hand in gently on them when they were asleep, they were as warm as toast. She hasn't any cut nipples although she is a bit bemused at my inspecting them when she's eating and she hasn't squashed any. And this is despite her being a new mum.

I separated Laertes for the first few days just by a strand of electric fencing and he was thoroughly miserable and stood looking over it at her and his babies. So when he actually stopped eating I let him in and he just did a lot of sniffing about. He seemed to know what was going on and was very gentle with his babies as they cavourted underneath his 300kg frame. The big softie lies outside the house during the day and then at night quite happily returns to his own house in the next field.

Playing in empty buckets

These piglets are unlikely to see their first birthday as they will probably be ready for slaughter around 8 months or when they reach 75kg. But, they will have a lovely life outside as nature intended, rooting and wallowing and sunbathing and living in a family group. And they will produce the most amazing tasting pork and bacon, the like of which you have probably never tasted before.

If we eat meat then we should raise animals with dignity and respect. They deserve no less.

Buy free range, buy organic, pay a bit more for meat from animals that have had a decent life and haven't been kept in the dark in a concrete shed their entire life prevented from behaving naturally. How can meat from pigs raised like this be healthy?

Life is Good

Since Laertes is a lazy article - to quote herself, I'm taking over our social media accounts. I'm getting bigger and stronger every week. Only trouble is so is himself and he is able to head butt me into the middle of next week.

My name is Lady Lavinia. I nibble herself's boots and she shouts "stop nibbling" at me.  I suppose we can relax here now and enjoy the sunshine as herself says she's keeping us for breeding (whatever that means).

We are loving this warm sunny weather and spend a lot of it sleeping.

The ground is dry and dusty now. It was awful in winter. I hated getting into bed with mucky trotters.

This is himself and this is where you find him most days now. He gets sunburned but he doesn't seem to care. I don't because I root up a big hole and surround it with dried grass and mud and snuggle down into it.

We get fed twice a day now. Breakfast is barley and organic pig nuts. She's been adding garlic powder for a few days now. We are not keen on it but are usually so hungry we eat it.

I try to nibble the grass under the hurty white stuff. Herself keeps saying she is moving us to the next field. Wish she'd hurry up.

Then in the evening she wheels out the wheel barrow and gives us fruit and vegetables. Laertes love avocados, beetroot leaves and tomatoes. I love tomatoes too so we fight over them. We both like melons, grapes, in fact everything sweet.

We get another bucket of barley and pig nuts with more garlic powder in the evening.

Every time a human appears we gallop over because you never know what you might get. We are always on the look out for food.

We have to learn how to wallow yet. Herself keeps saying she'll show us how to do it. Can't wait to see that.


Pigs have the life.

Give me an oul follow over on Twitter. I'm @rasherandsausag and I will be a lot better than Laertes at twittering.

Laertes, son of Polonius

Allow me to introduce Laertes. He is the son of Oldefarm's Polonius. He is a gentle giant. I also had his brother who was black with thin brown stripes. I actually preferred the colouring of his brother but he was a cranky character. Laertes is the exact opposite. We realised that once he was separated from his brother that he had been bullied by him. He now has the luxury of leaving his food until later. He never had that opportunity before.

When the day came for them both to go to the abattoir we loaded his brother relatively easily.  But Laertes was cute and evaded loading. Because of this he got a reprieve. My son convinced me it was an omen and anyway he had "Lestat" eyes. He was full of reasons as to why we should not kill him. I was between two minds but, having already killed a sow I wished I hadn't, I was dithering. Later that day I got him into the horse box but something stopped me from closing the ramp and rather sheepishly I walked back up the field.

Now we have decided to keep him as a breeding boar. He has a lovely gentle nature and even as he gets fully grown I can't see this changing. And although he was not unduly lonely I decided to get him a companion. Mini me arrived and he was so gentle with her it was really heart warming.

She is the boss. She learned the routine so quickly. The only time I have seen him get mad at her is when she tries to eat his veg. Today he head butted her through the electric fencing because she tried to steal something he was eating. I don't think he intended to do this but he is so much bigger than her she's easy to send far.

She's a real squealer. She never stops and sometimes I think he looks at me as if to say "can you take her away before she wrecks my head?"

But I think in spite of himself he is happy with her company.

Laertes, son of Polonius. You were lucky.