One season of piggy salad bar pasture

Last June I wrote about what I called the "piggy salad bar" pasture mix. This was my first attempt at planting pig pasture. After reading all I could find on the subject on the internet, I planted about 1 acre of land to a mix of dwarf essex rape, oats and cow peas. Recently, I've been asked to write a little about the results of this summer's grazing. The pasture mix was grazed by our red wattle sows and gilts. I divided the pasture into three sections and the hogs were rotated to fresh pasture as the patch they were in was grazed down. All of the pigs did well and the gilts continue to grow at a good pace.As a group they ate about 25% of their normal feed ration. This made for a substantial savings on the feed bill. I have to say that overall, I was very happy with the planted pasture. I think the pigs were happy too. While I think it is fair to say that my pasture mix was a success, there are a couple of things that I will try to do differently next year. 

• First, I will plant more ground to an annual grazing mix with staggered planting dates. This way I can rotate the hogs into fresh pasture that is not overly mature. By the time I put them on the last bit, the oats were getting a little bit tough and the cow pea pods were drying up. 
• Second, I will try to expand the variety of things I plant. Maybe some turnips or beets for fall grazing. Or some corn to hog down. This fall, we were fortunate enough to get a couple of truck loads of pumpkins given to us. I may plant my own patch next year and let the hogs harvest them, thus eliminating all the heavy lifting!

Trailer load of pumpkins, gourds and squash for the pigs.

Guinea Hogs enjoying a couple pumpkins.

 
The vast majority of pigs today are raised in confinement buildings and fed a ration of corn and soybeans with low levels of antibiotics added to promote good heath and faster growth. This produces a fast growing hog that is profitable for the farmer and inexpensive for the consumer, but pretty much tasteless. The kind of pork you find in most supermarkets today! I firmly believe that the way to raise the best tasting pork it to raise healthy, happy hogs who get fresh air and a diet that consists of more than just corn and beans. After all, you are what your food eats!

Piggy Salad Bar

It wasn't really all that long ago when most pigs were raised on small farms, in small lots and pastures. This was how my grandfather raised his pigs, and how I had hoped to raise ours. A couple of years ago, I joined the growing number of farmers who are raising heritage breed pigs on pasture. Believe it or not, pigs will graze!


Up until now, the pigs had been grazing on old goat pasture. a mix of grass, clover and weeds....well, mostly just weeds. So, this spring I decided to try something different. I left the pigs on one area a little longer than I normally would have liked and let the pigs totally root-up about an acre of ground. I then used my trusty old 1955 Allis Chalmers tractor and disk to smooth out the ruts and prepare the field for seeding. I hand broadcast a mixture of oats, dwarf Essex rape and field peas. I had read about a similar mix online somewhere and thought it might just work. That was about 60 days ago.

Tonight, I strung electric wire around this new seeding, turned the pigs out into this pasture and stood back to watch. Would they go after the rape, the field peas or the oats first? Well, neither actually. To my surprise, they first tackled the giant ragweed growing on the edge of the field. I wasn't sure if this was because they preferred it to my seeding mix, or maybe it was just because it was what they came upon first.

It wasn't long before they realized there was more beyond the ragweed and began running through the 2- foot deep vegetation like kids in a candy store. This made me feel much better. After all, I planted this piggy salad bar just for them.