Bringing home the bacon

Bacon!

When I first thought about keeping pigs, I dreamt of bacon, sausages, gammon and ham on tap. For these were the products which lured me away from veganism many years ago!

The sausages came, but the other products weren't so straightforward. So up till now we've been eating a lot more pork chops and joints than we ever used to. Not that they aren't totally tasty.

From our second litter, though, we kept two girls to the grand old age of almost one year. Their fate, to be salted and cured.

Unsuspecting

The morning they went away

Safely delivered to the abattoir

And on the afternoon before I jetted off, they came back from the butchers.


I managed to get the 150 or so packs of sausages into the fridge and freezer, but I had to leave poor old Sue to deal with the rest of the two pigs. T
here were four whole sides, which she cut along the length to separate the loin from the belly. These were destined to become back bacon and streaky bacon. Pork belly has proved very popular with our customers, so some of that went into the fridge ready for collection. This was fortunate as all four of our freezers are bulging at the seams!

There were also four gigantic legs to be turned into smaller gammons.

That's a lot of meat to sort out.

Sue spent the rest of the evening cutting the meat into manageable chunks and she then set about the ancient art of curing the meat.

We had ordered two prepared dry-cure mixes from Surfy's Homecuring Supplies - one traditional curing mix and one smoked. We thought that for our first effort it would be safest to rely on a ready-mixed cure.
Essentially a cure is a careful mix of salt and sodium nitrite. The latter gives the cured product its pinkness. To this are added the ingredients which give the distinctive flavours and characters to be found in the vast range of hams, bacons and gammons.
The drycure mixes are carefully weighed out and rubbed all into the meat. We chose to do this in tupperware boxes, but zip-lock bags supposedly work very well, if you can find big enough bags. A vacuum packer is the professional's choice.
Each day the meat is turned and rubbed again. How long this is done for depends on the thickness of the slab of meat.
The instructions that came with the Surfy's cures were excesslent, as was the e-mail support Sue received when she asked them about wet-cure procedures.

We decided to take off the skin on this occasion. Not only does the cure take longer to penetrate the skin, but the rind is a real obstacle when it comes to slicing the bacon. We have plenty of crackling from our pork and can't really see the point of rind on bacon.

For the gammons, Sue followed a Hugh F-W wet-cure recipe - curing salts plus lots of sugar, juniper berries, spices...

And now, on my return from India, the bacon was ready.

And so began the job of bacon slicing. I borrowed a slicer from a friend and we proceeded to massacre the meat!
Well, it didn't take long to get used to it. The first lump of cured loin came out a bit ragged, but we ended up with some rather rustic slices of back bacon plus a good quantity of bacon scraps - they'll be delicious in omelettes - and a couple of wedges we've called bacon steaks.

But by the end Team Bacon was running like a well-oiled machine and we now have a mountain of fine bacon in the freezer, enough for us for the next year. We ended up with a much wider range of bacon slices than you find in the shops.

And for a late dinner, of course, bacon sandwiches. DELICIOUS!

Gerald. In Memory.

R.I.P. Gerald

Gerald was the boar who several times came to visit Daisy. He often overstayed his welcome, but he really was a very gentle giant.
It's been a while since he's come to stay on the farm, but yesterday I heard the sad news that he passed away a few days ago. He was still at a pretty young age.
Apparently he had been off his food for a while and the vet had called, but quite out of the blue he was found dead the next morning.

We will have fond memories of him.

Hamming it up.

Two girls survive from Daisy's last-but-one litter. One has a distinctive eye patch. She was always the friendliest of the litter.
These girls were born on 12th March last year, so they are nearly a year old. They were not sent off at seven months old with their sisters, when they would have weighed just about 50kg.
No, for these girls there was to be a different outcome. For they were destined to become what is known as baconers - our first attempt at curing meat, the art of turning pork into bacon and gammon.

So we have let them grow, until they reached quite some size.

Daisy and her daughters having a snooze.

But tonight the livestock trailer came out. And that's probably not good news if you're a pig!

We had a very long day sourcing materials for the ongoing house renovation, so did not get home until just gone 5. Fortunately it's now still light, just, at that time so Sue rushed down to lock up the chickens while I got the trailer ready.

It took some effort to get the two young girls out of the stable and to keep Daisy in, but eventually they were in the small yard, within about 10 foot of where we wanted them to be.

But these pigs are now BIG and take no bossing. Time marched on, light faded, tempers frayed and the pigs steadfastly refused to go near the trailer ramp.
Efforts to hurry the process involved sections of metal fencing gradually closing down their space, but as the walls closed in  they became clasustrophobic. One of them just lifted the fence, with me standing on it, with her snout and they muscled their way through.

To cut a long story short, off course we won in the end!
I would like to say that patience was the victor, but mine was a bit pushed this evening.

Guess who's inside!

When a pig has an ear-ring, it's curtains!

After tomorrow morning, the next time we see them they will be neatly packaged up for us. Thirty packs of sausages are already sold. And the curing mixes are on their way from Mr Internet.

Doubtless there'll be a post on this alchemaic process in the near future.

Meanwhile, anyone like a seepstake bet on how much they weigh? I'm going for 86kg, but I could be way out!

Girl, girl, girl...BOY!!!

See if you can work out what's going on with this picture.

On November 5th Daisy gave birth to 11 spotty piglets. I eventually managed to count 7 girls and 4 boys - a bit of a result. So far I've sold the 4 boys and one of the girls, until today when a couple of new pig keepers turned up to collect their two girls.

These piglets are the friendliest I have ever raised, maybe because they've been bought up in the stables and get more human contact. So catching them is not too much of a problem. Just put down a handful of food to stop them nibbling my wellies then grab the desired piglet by the back legs and carry to the waiting car. They squeal loudly at first, as their feet leave the ground, and wriggle a bit - they are surprisingly strong, even at this age - but this is the best way to pick them up and they soon settle down in the back of the car.

After sorting out the relevant paperwork (all on-line now) we headed off to the stable and it wasn't long before I had the first piglet dangling by the back legs.
But boy was I in for a surprise. For I was holding a boy!!

I don't know how this happened.
All I can think is that they did keep moving about a lot when I originally counted them. Since then, without marking them, it's not been possible to get them all in a line, facing the right way to easily tell boys from girls.

Anyway, I now have three girls and a boy left. Not a disaster.

These ones get to stay at Swallow Farm.

To celebrate the successful completion of Operation Shiftapig, we ate our first ever duck eggs (yes,that's plural as there was another one waiting for us this morning).

And delicious they were too!

Daisy. No Daisy. Daisy. No Daisy.

I remember in my childhood plucking the petals off a daisy one by one. "She loves me, she loves me not".
In a cruel play on words, I now find myself virtually flipping a coin over the continued existence of a pig called Daisy.

Daisy, our sow.
She has reason to look so worried.

Here's the story behind it.


A couple of months ago I was offered two breeding sows for nothing...and I turned them down.
If I was more cold-hearted I could have taken them straight to the butcher for sausages. But then so could the person who was offering them to me. That's not what small scale pig-keeping is about.

But the economics of keeping and rearing pigs are becoming harsh. For in the two years we've been here, animal food costs have gone up by 50%. I can not put the price of my pork up by that much.

But, more seriously, the price of weaners has plummeted. I hear tales of them selling for £1 each at market. Nobody can afford to feed them up any more.

Surely worth more than £1 each at market.

Daisy with the baconers.

In the past, the cost of feeding and maintaining a sow, plus getting the boar in, would be offset by the sale of maybe half the piglets. The rest of the pigs could then be brought up to slaughter weight. In fact, I'd worked out a system whereby a couple of boys would go at 6 months, the girls a couple of months later, and a couple would be kept till the ripe old age of one year as baconers.

Daisy looking very skinny at the moment.
Well, she has only just finished feeding eleven piglets.

But when the price of feeding up your own pigs is going up and up, the last thing you need is to be stuck with eleven - and that's if you only breed the sow once a year.
I am too small scale to be able to deal with the meat from that many pigs, let alone the cost of getting them there.



So I have come to a very difficult decision. Daisy has to go. I was speaking to my animal feed supplier yesterday who was agreeing that this is such a shame, as Daisy is a good mum, a healthy pig and has a lovely temperament. She would not be easy to replace further down the line.
But, at the same time, I cannot justify keeping her just as a pet.

Besides, it would be so much more convenient just to buy in weaners as and when I wanted them. That way I could much more easily respond to customer demand. I could plan for periods when the ground could be rested and Sue and I could have more freedom to spend time together away from the farm.
And I could try different breeds of pig. Maybe Tamworths or Large Blacks, curly Mangalitsas or even those Iron Age pigs. What's more, the weaners cost next to nothing at the moment. My very problem could be turned to my advantage.

So, as you can see, it has taken a while, but I have come to a very difficult decision. Daisy has to go. (If I keep saying it, it will get easier). Daisy has to go. Daisy has to go.

That was it...till today. When things got a bit more complicated again. And now I just don't know. I am genuinely torn. I can see all the advantages of going over to buying in weaners. But breeding pigs has been such a fantastic thing to do and Daisy is such a lovely pig. But then she will have to go eventually, and the longer we have her the harder it will be.

So what happened today to make the decision harder.
First, this...

Lured by food, the three in the cage
at the back were not difficult to catch.

A smallholder friend of mine took THREE piglets off my hands. I didn't even charge him. More of a favour between friends. He has already given me a whole load of electric fencing to use when I strip graze my sheep next year.

Now, I was expecting him to take two anyway, so three did little to change my mind. But he does know somebody who may take the other two boys. Right now, I'm not even worried about getting anything for them. It just saves me money in food bills every time one moves out.

But then, not half an hour after he had gone, I sold another TWO. A couple from just down the road who want to try their hand at pigs. They won't be going just yet, as a few arrangements have to be made. I have even offered to take them back if it does not work out, and to help with the first few bags of food. And to help out when the time comes to send them off.
For things would have been so much less stressful when we started out if that level of support had been there for us.

Irresistible

So we're now down to six piglets left, two boys and four girls. And we may even get down to just the four girls. That would be ideal. I never wanted to be spending all my time trying to sell. We would have enough for our own needs and some left for a few regular customers.

All I need to decide now is... Does this mean Daisy stays???    I really don't know. It's on a knife-edge.

...   ...   ...

I don't believe it! I've just left composing this blog post to answer the door. Somebody else interested in buying a piglet.

But I still think Daisy will have to go... Just keep saying it.

No Rash 2013 Resolutions

This morning I let Sue feed the animals while I enjoyed a very long lay in bed! For this is a new year and I don't have to get up to see the sun rise every day. For, unlike last year, I have made no rash resolutions.

And I am looking forward to 2013. Already things are looking up as today a warm, drying wind has been doing its best to dry the land. It's still muddy, but the mud is stickier and less runny.

Getting muddy was the order of the day, for there were big events planned for the pigs.
The eleven piglets are now 8 weeks old and big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves. So I opened the stable door and let Daisy chase a couple of potatoes into the next door stable. I quickly shut the door again and that was it. Piglets weaned!

Daisy finally enjoying some moments of solitude.

The beauty of this system is that they can still hear mum's grunts. In fact, within a couple of minutes they were preoccupied with eating the step ladder I was using to take down the heat lamp. I gave them a new bale of straw and a new water trug, which kept them thoroughly entertained for the rest of the day.

Mum forgotten already.

Outside it was a glorious day, blue skies and sunshine. At one point a huge flock of woodpigeons arrived from the east. A Great Tit was belting out its "teacher, teacher" song as if it were spring already and the Little Owl spent most of the afternoon quietly hooting.


A huge flock of woodpigeons wheels around under a blue sky.

Buoyed up by the success of the weaning manoeuvre, I decided that now was the time to move the two baconers (the last two of Daisy's previous litter) out of their giant mud-wallow and down into the stables.

First obstacle was opening the gate, which required me to climb into several inches of liquid mud to shovel the gooey mess out of the way. I eventually managed to open the gate a couple of feet, enough room for a pig to get through. But past experience has shown that pigs can be very, very difficult to coax through small gaps. They prefer to stay in familiar surroundings.





However, this was a day for smooth operations. For one of the pigs followed the bag of pignuts with great enthusiasm, and the other followed. Out of the pig enclosure, along the fenced corridoor up the land towards the stable block. In fact, at one point they even trotted along ahead of me.

Wrong way!

Half way. Keep going!

A brief pause for grass intake

Nearly there.

Even the turn and the gate at the end only provided a short obstacle and a brief respite to munch on some lush fresh grass. But the lure of pig pellets sprinkled in the stable yard was enough to coax them one stage further and the gate was closed behind them.

A smooth final turn.

The pigs could stay here, safely cordoned off, for as long as necessary. For the last stage, into the enclosed and unfamiliar surroundings of the stables, has often in the past proved a difficult step for the pigs to take. Even the concrete floor is a problem for animals more used to mud, grass and straw.




A family reunion

But two years of experience is finally starting to pay off. I let Daisy out of her stable and she came out to see what was going on. She seemed pleased to see her two girls, but even more pleased to find a sprinkling of pignuts on the floor.





Then all three pigs took me completely by surprise. For as Sue appeared from cleaning out the chicken houses and walked into the stables, Daisy followed her, closely followed by the other two. Straight into the stable at the end.


Mission accomplished with not a hitch, not an ounce of stress. Pigs sorted.


I threw in handfuls of whiffy old potatoes to keep the three of them occupied. The two piglets need some final fattening up and Daisy needs feeding up too after 8 weeks of feeding a litter of eleven. In fact, I was amazed that the two piglets were not substantially smaller than Daisy. They looked a lot smaller in the big open spaces and under the expansive fenland skies outside.




But they weren't big enough to be put down a peg or two by Daisy. 

Learning to get along






Pigs may be intelligent and highly social creatures, but Daisy is a matriarch who does not apprecieate competition for food.

She put the two youngsters firmly in their place. In fact, they were a bit shell-shocked.


But I'm sure they will learn to get along. There is just a hierarchy to be established.

Still Here (and rejuvenated)

 

Even the Huffington Post got it wrong!
For I am still here. More importantly, so is this... the sun... and... the world



Wednesday 26th December 2012
Boxing Day

The first proper sunrise for quite some time and it did a lot to lift my spirits.
You may remember a couple of weeks ago I alluded to having man flu. Well, it's bugged me ever since. Clearly a severe case, as even Sue has got it now, and she never gets ill. So all our plans to get on with the house while the builder takes a break have been scuppered as neither of us has had an ounce of energy.
Even getting up for the sunrise, late as it is at the moment, has proved a challenge. Yesterday was a very subdued Christmas day, though we did treat ourselves to an untraditional leg of lamb which was absolutely mouth-watering. I guess we're not really breaking with tradition, as we couldn't have chosen anything more special than a leg of our very own reared lamb. I think it was a front leg, though I didn't check if it was left or right. And no idea whether it came from Number Ten or Number Eighteen.

Getting back to the matter, touch wood I finally felt better today and got myself busy catching up with things. The water has receded a little, though the rain returned with vigour this afternoon.

First job was to plant a few cheap fruit trees I picked up a while ago. Not for the orchard these ones, but dotted around the more permanent beds in the veg plot and the soft fruit area. Just a couple of apples, pears, a plum and an apricot.

Next on the agenda - get the Piglets For Sale sign up. We've almost certainly shifted four or five of them, but nothing is signed and sealed yet. It hardly seems like seven weeks ago that I witnessed Daisy's third litter being born.









And so to the next job - clearing a room in the stables so we can separate Daisy from her litter. They've pretty much weaned themselves anyway and Daisy gets most grumpy when they steal all her food, then try to suckle from her as well! I'll bring the two baconers in to keep Daisy company. They've had enough of wallowing around in liquid mud and the ground needs time to recover.

 

Last job on the list was to begin rehousing the poultry.

The guinea fowl have, for some unknown reason, moved roost fences. I so wish they could discover that the Ash trees would afford them much better protection.

 

So I had a little move around of the houses. One of the old enclosures got dismantled so that the chickens now have a door straight through to the orchard. The duck house got moved to make way for the blue house which will become the new home for the Cream Legbar trio. Elvis has well and truly moved on from her ten chicks now and has gone back to old habits, spending most of her time sat on eggs clucking broodily. So as soon as the young Legbars start laying Elvis will be most grateful for some eggs to tend. I await our first blue egg with anticipation.

The ducks' house may have been moved today, but as soon as I have fixed on a new door they will be getting a brand new home. And they will be moved into the veg garden to start attacking the slugs. This will stop them muddying the chickens' drinking water too.

 

While I've got the woodwork gear out, I'll build a shelter for the chickens, somewhere dry for them to hang out. The gang led by the Welsummer cockerels have discovered the dry stables, but the others continue to get soggier and soggier!

 

And I have plans for the geese too. I have hopefully sourced four females to keep the boys company. The gander who lost his mate will be offered out, since the other two do pick on him and he genuinely seems very lonely.

 

 

So you'll see I am back in the swing of things. I'm looking forward to the final five sunrises of the year, hoping they are a bit better than yesterday's.

 

Tuesday 25th December 2012

And then, on January 1st, a sleep-in...Probably not!

 

Just no more crazy resolutions for next year.