Why Pigs?
Why
2 Corinthians 10-11: This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God.
A question we have received many times after starting our farm and pastured pig operation is “Why pigs? Don’t they stink, and aren’t they destructive?”
The answer for us is really quite simple.
Raising pigs on pasture not only provides a higher quality and healthier cut of meat, but it also eliminates most of the stereotypes associated with pigs as well as promoting their natural habits. For example, don’t pigs stink? The answer is absolutely not when managed appropriately. When rotated on healthy pastures, pigs will actually graze much like a cow and the manure is spread over a larger area which cuts down on the stench people normally associate with pigs. The same goes for the “destructive” stereotype. Of course pigs root and tear up the ground, but when rotational grazing is implemented, this so-called destruction is limited and is actually quite beneficial to the soil.
Growing Up
James showed pigs through the Future Farmers of America (FFA) club in high school and thoroughly enjoyed handling the pigs, interacting with them as they developed personalities, and watching them grow. They are highly intelligent animals, believe it or not, and because of this intelligence, they develop very unique and individual qualities that make them an overall very enjoyable animal to be around.
Not to mention, who doesn’t love bacon?!
The combination of these two things is exactly why the pig is what we have built our small family farm business around.
The Reason
With the amount of land that we live on and as parents raising two incredibly active and HUNGRY kiddos, we felt a calling in our hearts to use both aspects to our advantage. We wanted to feed our children top quality food and raise them on old principles and values.
In beginning to open our minds to harvesting our own animals, we quickly realized our orders were rather tall: we wanted a hardy animal that would thrive on any kind of pasture and in any environment, but also be fairly low maintenance, plus a good animal for our young children to handle.
Pigs fit this profile rather perfectly.
In Closing…
Our opinion, the pig is the perfect animal for our small family farm and just what we needed to get ourselves in the trenches of farming.
Pigs are very effective at turning forage, pasture, and any other form of feed or browse into highly nutritious protein. They are friendly, energetic, and overall, fun animals to be around. They are very docile, which is incredibly important to us with our young children.
Above all else, nothing comes close to the great feeling we have as parents watching our children interact with the pigs and learning the valuable lessons that come with farming.
