Visiting The Momma Sows

We suggest visiting the sows that are going to give birth to your own oinkers.  We visited Brotherly Farm Organic in Brookfield, Vermont.  

At left a young boar (male hog) tries to kiss a horse that was in the pasture next to it's own at the farm.  Besides this pig there are five others with him in the pen (not shown).

Anika and Caleb stand with Angela Russel the farmer who owns the sows that will give birth to our piglets in April.  (We will get them at the end of April or early May.)  We suggest getting pigs from a farmer who seems to know what the are doing and how to do it. Angela is an example of a good hog farmer. For example, she feed her pigs things that they like to eat, but things that would not make them sick.  She feeds her hogs a combination of grain, hay, and silage (chopped up corn).  As a result, her pigs where fat, happy, and healthy. That made us feel good about getting our pigs here.

Below are the pregnant sows.  One of these will give birth to our piglets. These sows were really fat, and they were about as tall as Anika's waist. (Anika is in the blue coat.)  

When we first got to the pig pen we only saw one oinker...then five more started spilling out of the calf hutch. At this farm they used plastic calf hutches to shelter the pigs.  The pig shelter we will be building is made out of pallets nailed to posts dug into the ground.  We will use electrified chicken netting that we will be able to move around.  The benefits of moving the fence is that the pigs will not get as bored so easily.  Also, they will have fresh ground to root around in.

Here's Caleb about to unload the pallets we got from The Valley News (our local newspaper) for free.  We will use these to build the pig shed.

Oink to ya later,

Caleb and Anika
The Bloggin' Hog Farmers
Blackberry Hill (Hog) Farm