Planning Ahead

This week we welcomed some new faces onto the farm, bring out total pig count to a record breaking 62 animals.

I mentioned this winter how we were beginning the process of bringing our pork all the way to Certified Organic, which for us means having the baby piglets here on the farm. 

Way back in the late fall/early winter of 2024 I began learning from and talking to a pig breeder in Indiana, who was recommended to me by a few different producers. By February of 2025 we had put in our order for a group of breeding animals to be delivered this summer, and eventually give birth in the spring of 2026.

That is some serious planning ahead.

And here they are. Twelve lovely ladies, called guilts in the pig world, they hopped off the trailer from Indiana and immediately put their noses in the dirt.

They are primarily a breed called Duroc, and we will cross them with a Berkshire Boar. Both breeds are prized for their meat quality and heartiness on pasture. 

I asked Wade, the breeder of these fine animals, what "old line genetics" meant, and he told me with pride that some of the frozen semen he used this year was taken from a boar back in 1987! 

They will settle in for the summer and we will plan to have our first litters of piglets in the spring of 2026!

Thank you Wade and Jeremy for a successful delivery.

Nathan