Our farm is an approximately 70 acre section in the middle of our land consisting mainly of open fields with some shade trees and forest margins for hot summer days.
We began farming to provide meat for our own family back in the early 1990′s. Our desire grew out of concerns about hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides and humane handling issues related to factory farmed meat. We wanted to provide healthy food for our growing children and the best time to start that was prenatally. This was long before the government and Big Ag cooped the word Organic. It’s not a marketing phrase. It is a way. A Tao. This is what we raise to feed our family. NoWeirdStuff
Our farm expanded gradually from the homesteading level to a family farm over the next two decades. During that time we explored rabbits (delicious), ducks, meat chickens, laying hens, sheep and pigs. We discovered that we’re really good at raising pastured pigs. Unlike with sheep we had the market so that our farm would earn us a livable wage and pay the mortgage. Pigs also grow faster than sheep (250 lbs in ~6 months), have shorter reproductive cycles (~4 months) and more offspring per litter (>8 vs 1 or 2 for sheep). Pigs also have shorter generations at about 10 to 12 months. In the end, our pastured pigs bring home the bacon. They co-graze along side our sheep, chickens, ducks and geese. Together the animals make for a diversified, sustainable farm that enhance our soils. The whole menagerie is watched over and managed by our livestock guardian and herding dogs.
So where can you get our pork you ask?!? Purchase directly by the whole or half pig and we deliver to local stores, restaurants and individuals year round on a regular weekly delivery route. See the Retail section for details of our route and stores that carry our products. Check out the CSA for information on purchasing pork directly. We also sell roaster pigs for events and piglets for people who want to raise their own.
See these pages for more overhead arial photos of our farm:
2009
2007
1963
Hi fOLKS If you don”t mind I have a quick question for you want is the most stressless way to move pigs into the barn from pasture?
Les & Deb
Beaverbrook Farm
How do you capture a pastured pig?
I’ve got a whole post coming on this in my draft queue but here are some highlights:
1) Train the pigs to come – when you feed them anything call them. “Heeeerreee Peeeeeig Peeeig Pig!” we holler and they come a running down the mountain. They might be half a mile away in the far pastures but that will bring most of them in. Since we primarily feed pasture/hay and dairy the call in is for a treat of bread, some pumpkins, apples, etc.
2) If you are feeding grain or such then feed in the evening and do the call in then. Having a regular time of day they are called in helps. This also makes it so they eat more pasture and depend less on the grain or commercial feed.
3) Have a sorting area that you call them into for feeding the treat. This should have gates so you can sort pigs you want to the next pen for holding. From there they go up the chute to load in the truck.
4) Sorting boards make a world of difference. You can see our sorting boards in “Wee-Wee-Weaning All the Way Home”. The commercial sorting boards are expensive. We make our own out of plywood or better yet the plastic from 60 gallon drums. I’ll post more about those sometime.
5) Sorting flags are useful too although not as good as sorting boards.
6) A good herding dog can be worth five people.
All this makes for a minimum of stress for both the pigs and the handlers. We sort and load pigs each week – practice makes perfect. Check out Temple Grandin’s books and web sites[1, 2]. She does not have much experience with pastured pigs but a lot of what she says about pigs, sheep and cattle applies. Pigs are herd animals and handling them is much like handling other herd animals.
Ours are in one acre pastures so they always see us coming. I’ve found that carrying an orange bucket (which they associate with whey or acorns or other goodies) helps a lot . . . but carrying anything that looks interesting works almost as good to get them following me. Depending on the day, they seem to follow me wherever I go – I can usually get ours corralled into a smaller holding pen pretty easily. If a particular batch of pigs had to be coralled more than once or twice (for vaccines for example) they get nervous – leaving the door to the holding pen open and putting food in works if I’ve got time, otherwise I construct a run with cattle panels and walk them in from behind.
Getting them actually onto the truck seems to be a different game every time – sometimes they all go in on their own, sometimes we have to slowly push them in with a cattle panel making the holding pen smaller and smaller until they are all on.
I assume that if the baby pigs learn to be dog herded that they will still be able to be herded when they are moms? Right now our untrained sows just stand there and look at the dog like, you are kidding me…… Hoping to get the little girls herd trained before they get too big, but the dog needs some training. I have a border collie and don’t need a livestock gaurdian, so she is not in with the pigs all the time.
Also, a butcher friend of mine said I could feed too much whey. How mich is too much.
Yes, the dogs do train the pigs to be herded and ours will train even a new adult so an old pig can learn new tricks. We’ve observed this three times long ago when we borrowed boars for breeding.
I’m not sure what your butcher friend is thinking of in terms of feeding too much whey. Our pigs get all they want since we free feed the whey. It is available to them all the time. Perhaps if that was all they ate it might be a problem but the pigs are on pasture/hay and eat a lot more of that than the way. The pasture/hay is also freely availabe. Variety in their diet is good.
Did you name your farm after the song by Neil Diamond? I always loved that song.
Actually, no, but that is a great connection isn’t it. We named our farm Sugar Mountain Farm because we also have our maple sugar bush on the south eastern slope. I have been using a similar logo since the early 1980′s(?) for other work and it has evolved to Sugar Mountain Farm.
I have 2 questions that I need answers to in a hurry….can you deworm a sow thats nursing? OUR PIGLEST ARE 2 WKS OLD CAN THEY BE DEWORMED WITH INJECTABLE IVERMECTIN?
I haven’t used the injectable ivermectin so I can’t give you an answer on that. My understanding is that it is used with piglets but you should check the manufacturer’s fact sheet for details. Same for the question on a nursing sow. I would think it would be okay but check with the company.
On loading pigs. I do not have near as many as Walter. Just 5 sows, 1 boar and 10 younger ones. I have all of them trailer trained. My stock trailer spends a lot of time in pastures and pigs are fed in them often. Only problem is getting out the ones you do not want. If I move the trailer to a different group they get in before I can put feed in.
You are back up and running–good to see. I live in Alaska and I know a lady (the pig lady with affection) who raises numerous litters throughout the year in incredibly cold weather. The sows have sheds to go into that are not open except for the doorways. I was up at her place a few months ago in 20 below zero and the piglets were out cavorting; no problems.
The doorways being open are providing them with the much needed ventilation. People need to remember that the pigs, and dogs, run their bodies at a higher temperature set point so they can better handle cold. In fact, if you spend much time outdoors doing physical activity you too will raise your set point, burn more calories and be comfortable in cooler temperatures. Much of it is a matter of acclimation. It is important not to over empathize or anthropomorphize.
Walt,
I enjoy your site and love the fact that you’re building a butchering facility. We have a small 3 acre farm that I push to the limit where we are looking to develop our own breed of sheep (currently a mix of Icelandic, Jacobs, and Gulf Coast) and we have a few pigs.
I was hoping for some advise on my pigs. I have a 1 year old boar living with two 1.5 year old gilts and as far as I can tell neither gilt is pregnant. The last time the boar was caught doing his thing was a couple of months ago and thus I am hopeful that someone is pregnant but I’ve had these kind of breaks in action before w/o a pregnancy. It seems unlikely that two gilts are both incapable so I need to figure out how to determine if my stud is a dud. I suppose it could be his technique as opposed to his swimmers. Do you have a suggestion as to the best method for determining what is wrong? The critters are fed organic feed and as such cost a bunch to maintain. I would have some very expensive pork in the freezer if in fact my stud turns out to be a dud.
Thanks
If none of them are demonstrating fertility by that age then someone(s) is a dud. Not all animals are fertile. Females tend to have more incidences of infertility than males because their reproductive system is so much more complex and must carry the young to term. On the other hand, in this case the two gilts are out voting the boar. Without any of them ever having been proven before it is very hard to say who’s responsible. I think I would suggest eat these and starting afresh with a guaranteed bred gilt. Learn about farrowing with her. Then next winter do AI or otherwise breed her. This way you know you have a fertile female.
Walt,
I have an Amish neighbor that has offered his proven boar for some servicing. I will likely try him out before I butcher the lot as two of my pigs are registered Glouchester Old Spots and replacement is difficult. How difficult is AI?
Thanks
I have never done AI but I researched it carefully and talked with people who do it. They said it is very easy. I found the cost to be about $150/sow back in 2003. You want to do two shots per sow spaced about 12 hours to a day apart right on her standing heat. Have fun! :)
You mentioned on permies.com that you heat your greenhouse with compost heat. I am just north of Spokane, WA and want to do the same in a 15 x 30 greenhouse. I am going to put a 270 IBC tote holding water as a thermal mass. I was thinking of eventually running 1/2 tubing under the growing beds circulating through the compost pile. What is your arrangement for the compost pile and location? Also if you do not know of him, search Jean Pain on Youtube. He generates methane and hot water from his huge pile. Thanks for your help.
It does work well. I’ve done that in the past and will in the future but currently we’re greenhouseless. In past ones we had the compost piles right in the greenhouses and warm frames. In a future version we’re planning we will also have it surrounding the greenhouse in a double bottle design to capture animal heat as well. I’ll look up Jean Pain. Thanks, -Walter