Our Pork…

In early 2022, we introduced two pregnant berkshire sows, Ethel and Emma, and their male companion, Borris, to our farm. That spring we had our first sets of piglets. From there, we have added more heritage breed sows to keep Borris happy.

Our piglets are born outside on pasture during warmer times of the year. They remain with their mothers for a majority of their time, letting the sows wean the piglets themselves when they choose to. Their pasture is a large area consisting of grassy meadows, low-lying areas and natural bush. The pigs have access to all sorts of grasses, forbes, legumes and other plant life as well as can exercise their natural instinct to root. They love digging up and munching on dandelion roots!

Pigs are monogastric and as such, grain is an important part of their diet. We supplement them with grain that we mill ourselves on the farm. It is usually a mixture of oats, peas and hemp, although sometimes contain other grains that we have on hand, such as wheat, flax, or barley. We are committed to never using GMO grains in our ration. We also partner with our local grocery store to pick up food waste from their produce department. We get to divert this produce from landfills and provide our pigs with tasty treats. They absolutely adore cantaloupe, tomatoes and apples.

Because our pigs are raised differently than conventionally raised pork, the meat will be different. Most notably, our pork has more fat than the cuts you will find in the store. Of course, this lends to the delicious flavour of our pork. Pigs also store vitamin D in their fat, outdoor reared pork fat is supposedly nearly as good of a Vitamin D source as cod liver oil! Since ours get exposed to lots of sunshine, a few slices of bacon in our short winter days is arguably good for you. Utilizing the fat from our pigs has been a fun project for us and we have been learning to render our own lard and make our own soap which you can now buy direct on our website. We’d be happy to pass along the “how-to” of these activities to anyone interested.