I love to eat pork but wanted to avoid supporting the conventional pork industry in this country as much as I could so we raised our own pigs. The pigs were fed non GMO feed, garden vegetables & weeds, and were allowed to free range some of the time. The pigs also got the whey and other excess milk from our Jersey cows, and the pork was delicious and tender!
We sold it locally to friends and neighbors who loved the breakfast sausage, the hot italian, bratwurst and fresh chorizo as well as the other cuts. They benefited from our delicious pork and we benefited as it is helped pay for our daughter’s education.
There are no pigs in the pipeline currently and I really miss them. Piglets are not hard to raise to butchering size and change from being cute to not cute, so it is not difficult to send them to the butcher, and that was their purpose in life anyway.
It takes about 9-12 months or so, and then you have pork from pigs that had good lives, and a healthy diet. There are many breeds of piglets available on Craigslist, and all of the ones we raised turned out delicious! Breeding piglets is not really worth it as sows and boars can be dangerous, so unless you want to get into pigs big time, just buy the piglets!
old orchard farm va 