Saturday, October 22, 2016

Our First Summer with Pigs


This spring we bought 3 pigs.  1 for sausage and 2 to start a breeding program.


These pigs were fun to watch and we enjoyed them.


So when Darling Husband heard of 3 more for a great price we got them.



They were cute but not fun to watch.  They didn't love playing in the water or happily chase each other they just ate and slept.  Great for fat pigs but I like happy animals.  - proof I'm not a great farmer 

So when I wasn't working we had 6 mostly full sized pigs.  I get a lot of food for the piggies through my work so having 6 pigs during summer when I am not working was expensive.  I was also buying normal commercial grade food for the pigs instead of making sure everyone is mostly grass fed because - pigs eat A LOT.  The 3 Little Pigs were ready to go to Freezer Camp by middle of summer.  We had decided to try to do the butchering ourselves with Darling Husband's friend.  The problem is we needed a free weekend and we were super busy.  Finally end of summer we were all ready to process the pigs.


I wanted a lot of sausage.  I looked up premixed sausage seasonings and realized most were expensive and many had preservatives that I didn't want so I spent days looking for sausage recopies and made the seasoning mixes myself.   

Don't keep scrolling unless you want to see graphic pictures!






Notice the happy dog under the table in this picture.  




The fodder room was a great sausage making room.  We made 120lbs of sausage in one day.  Butchering 4 pigs in one day was a huge job we will never do that many at once again.  
I have discovered the joys of making sausage and I can't wait until I have enough fresh pork to do it again.
I still have a lot to learn.  
We were using a commercial grain instead of me watching the diet like I do with the sheep and cattle so instead of having a meat that is rich in Omega 3 fatty acids I have ended up with a really high in cholesterol pork.  I am thinking of adding flax seeds to the fodder mix and increasing our fodder rooms production.  Don't tell Darling Husband yet! 
All because I LOVE homemade sausage!





Darling Husbands favorite picture.



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