The summer heat finally arrived! I am not fond of the heat but most of the fruit trees we planted are. The first of the fruit trees to ripen this year are the plums. We planted plum trees our first year here on the farm but it has really only been in the last few years that we’ve had plums to harvest. This year, despite the strange weather, we have a heavy crop from several trees. Both red and yellow plums.
So what do we do with the plums? My father eats a few fresh off the tree. Alejandro and Ruben eat a few fresh off the tree. The rest? We feed them to the pigs.
We plant food trees – fruit and nut trees – because we love trees. We love growing edible things. But we don’t eat everything we grow. We don’t eat a lot of jam, don’t love of prunes, don’t eat most baked goods, don’t like pickled plums, etc. 10 plum trees will eventually produce a lot of plums for 3 people who only eat the fruit fresh. So, we harvest plums and feed the pigs farm-grown fruit instead of store-bought rations. We get to enjoy the trees and the pigs get to eat desert for breakfast.
Anyone else have fruit trees they love but don’t eat the produce from?
La cosecha de las ciruelas
¡El calor del verano finalmente llegó! No me gusta mucho el calor, pero casi todos los frutales le gustan. Los primeros frutales a madurar este año son las ciruelas. Plantamos las ciruelas cerca de 2014. En los últimos años, empezaron a dar fruta, y las cotorras comieron más que nosotros. Este año, no importa el tiempo raro, tenemos una cosecha pesada de varios árboles, ciruelas rojas y amarillas.
¿Qué hacemos con las ciruelas? Mi padre come algunas frescas. Alejandro y Ruben comen algunas frescas. ¿Todas las otras? Damos a los cerdos.
Plantamos frutales y nueces porque nos encantan los árboles. Nos encanta cultivar cosas comestibles. Pero no comemos todo lo que cultivamos. No comemos mucha mermelada, no nos gustan ciruelas secas, no queremos ciruelas en vinagre, etc. Diez árboles de ciruelas van a producir muchas ciruelas por solamente tres personas que no comen mucha de la fruta. Entonces, cosechamos las ciruelas y damos a los cerdos la fruta del campo y no raciones compradas. Disfrutamos los árboles y los cerdos disfrutan una desayuna dulce.
¿Cualquiera de ustedes tiene frutales que le gustan mucho, pero no come la fruta?
During September, in between the storms (and power outages), we started, and finished, new farrowing pens for the pigs. A project we’ve been working towards for several years. To say we are excited would be a vast understatement. It’s been a month and I still get excited talking about the new pens.
Pastured dry sows
We pasture our pigs year round. We’ve always pastured our dry sows and boars pigs but tried varying options for housing lactating sows, nursing sows and their litters, and weaned piglets. We tried enclosed farrowing pens, weaning pens then free ranging piglets, letting sows farrow where they wanted to, not supplemental feeding weaned piglets, enclosed grow out pens, moveable farrowing hutches, large permanent free-choice housing, the whole range. We disliked them all – from filthy and smelly to too hard to manage to very high predation rate from eagles. We’ve read what various other farms do, we’ve talked to farmers here, we’ve debated most of the available options.
We finally concluded several years ago that permanently pastured pigs are happy, clean, easy going pigs which, when harvested for the table, taste fabulous with great texture in the meat. However, farrowing free on whatever pasture they happen to be on doesn’t work well. The piglets don’t have enough protection from the weather (extreme temperatures, sun, rain, or wind), the mothers don’t like having us move a shelter OVER their new litter, and the eagles hunt the new piglets constantly. We found that when we rotated the expectant sows into the wind breaks they almost always chose to farrow under the protection of the tree limbs. But there wasn’t an easy way to move sows, or litters of piglets, in and out of the windbreaks without mixing up the litters and the competition for food between the mothers was extreme.
Fast forward to this past September. As part of the fencing projects, Ruben and Alejandro moved the fence dividing the main front pasture and the start of the olive orchard to the opposite side of the windbreak. The fence was the only interior fence on the farm when we bought the land. 10 years ago we planted a windbreak of trees at the top of the ridgeline with the trees on planation side of the fence. But the pasture for farrowing is on the front (or pasture side) of the fence. So we moved the fence. And the gates. And the electrical for the fencing. And then created, small, individual pastures for the pigs.
The result is a wonderful, efficient system which the sows are loving, the piglets don’t wander out of, and the eagles don’t hunt in. It has been amazingly successful. We started small, with only four farrowing pens built out. We had expectant sows ready to farrow and wanted to get them moved quickly. Also, why invest in a large number of farrowing pens when we weren’t sure they were going to work. The underbrush of the windbreak was cleared out, a small lean-to shelter was added for wind protection, dry pasture provided for next material, individual feed stations installed, and electric fencing partitioned the larger pasture into smaller rectangles for the pens.
The result has been so wonderful we are slowing continuing to build out more pens. The sows are happy to move into independent but communal spaces for nesting, the piglets don’t have to compete against older litters for food, and no one wanders away or gets eaten.
Nuevos potreros de cría & lechones
Durante septiembre, entre las tormentas (y cortes de luz), empezamos, y terminamos, los potreros de cría nuevos por las cerdas. Un proyecto que avanzamos poco a poco sobre años. Para decir que estamos muy excitados sería una subestimación grande. Hace un mes que terminamos y todavía estoy muy excitados cuando hablo de los potreros nuevos.
Nuestros cerdos están al pasto todo el año. Siempre dejamos las madres sin lechones y los padrillos sueltos al pasto, pero habíamos probado muchas opciones para cuidar a las cerdas madres, madres con lechones al pie, y los lechones recién destetados. Probamos casitas chicas, sin potreros, recintos por los lechones, dejando las cerdas madres al pasto suelto, casitas portátiles, casitas grandes pero ficto en los potreros: todas las opciones. No nos gusta ninguna opción – estaban muy sucio, muy oloroso, demasiado a manejar, o demasiada depredación de las águilas. Leímos lo que hacen otros establecimientos, hablamos con otro campesino, tuvimos discusiones sobre muchas opciones.
Finalmente, decidimos hace algunos años que cerdos sueltos al pasto son cerdos felices, limpios, y fácil a cuidar, y cuando carneamos tiene un gusto muy sabroso con una textura de la carne muy buena. Pero para dejar las madres sueltas en los potreros grandes por la cría no funciona bien. Los lechones no tienen protección suficiente – de las temperaturas altas o bajas, del sol, de la lluvia, o del viento; las madres no les gusta cuando pongamos un alero sobre sus lechones, y las águilas casan a los recién criados sin pares. Descubrimos cuando las cerdas preñadas tuvieron la oportunidad de estar en los cortes de viento para dar cría, siempre eligieron a quedar abajo de las ramas de los árboles. Pero no había un modo fácil para mudar las cerdas, o los lechones, a o afuera de los cortes de viento, sin mezclar los grupos, y la competición entre las madres por la comida fue muy fuerte.
Llegamos a este septiembre. Incluido en los proyectos de los alambrados, Ruben y Alejandro cambiaron el alambrado que divida el campo en dos – entre la pradera del frente y la plantación al fondo. Ese alambrado fue el único alambrado adentro del padrón cuando compramos el campo. Hace 10 años plantamos el corte viento contra el alambrado al lado de la plantación. Es precioso el corte viento. Pero el pasto, y el potrero para las cerdas, estaba al otro lado del alambrado del corte de viento. Así que cambiamos el alambrado. Y las porteras. Y las conexiones de electricidad. Y después de todo eso, construimos potreros chicos – potreros de cría individuales – por las cerdas madres.
Encantamos el cambio. El resultado es un sistema maravilloso, muy eficiente, que les gusta mucha las cerdas madres; los lechones no escapan, y las águilas no casan. Muy exitoso. Empezamos lento, con solamente cuatro potreros de cría. Tuvimos cerdas preñadas prontas para dar cría y queremos no dejarlas sueltas. También, pensamos mejor a probar la idea con pocos potreros si no sabemos si va a funcionar. Limpiamos la mugre en el corte viento, pongamos un techito contra el viento, agregamos pasto seco por el nido, pusimos comederos individuales, e hilo eléctrico divida los potreros.
Nos gusta tanto que seguimos a construir más potreros de cría. Las cerdas madres están muy feliz a estar en sus espacios individuales, pero cerca sus compañeras. Los lechones no necesitan competir con los otros lechones más grandes por la comida. Y nadie, ni las madres, ni los lechones, salen afuera de los potreros chicos.
The pig yard really needed help. Jon knew he needed to separate the male from the females and the female mamas from the other females and from the young weaned piglets . They had all lived together in an area where there is a natural spring so water and mud and vegetation are available year round. Things were a little scarce in the summer, but still adequate. But as our pig population has grown and continues to grow we needed some major changes.
Then in the middle of the olive harvest, a mama pig had a litter. The mama squished a few in the night as she slept, and the eagles had a few for dinner, and then mama abandoned the last two. One little one died, but the other I was able to rescue. The small chicken house became the piglets home. I took it milk and food and gave it scrap wool to nest in. It liked to be held and have it’s head scratched. It grew. It took to scrounging in the dirt and trying to eat anything it could. It came when it heard voices or the sound of the dog collars jingling and would talk at everyone. Even our guys liked to scratch the piglet and talk to it. We had a pet piglet! I can now totally understand why someone would think a pigmy pig would be a delight. But, when our little guy got big enough and was tearing up the chicken yard and went under the fence to the rooster area and ate everything in sight, it was time for him to go home. The guys took him back to the pig yard. He is doing fine.
Jon had a plan and the guys were beginning to construct fencing when the pig yard turned into a lake with the heavy rains of our early winter. Luckily, there were high places for them to get out of the flow of the water, so no harm done. The first issue was to get the feed out of the mud. They built a raised platform to set everything on. It will eventually have a roof and sides; it is a work in progress.
The guys built new fencing to separate the old pig yard into four new separate yards. Also a new yard was built at the bottom of part of the olive plantation that is really too wet for the olives but ideal for the pigs. This new area is used for the weaned piglets. Here is the view of the new pig area.
We can walk and get the truck between each of the pen locations.
The pig yard is located next to a creek and a lake between our two varieties of olive tress, so they are in the back part of the farm on the other side of a hill from the houses. Which is why I probably think they are so cute.
We did send our first set of piglets to freezer camp awhile ago, and the next set too. We have been enjoying having pork. It is harder to find in the butcher stores than one might expect. Pork is very popular around the holidays but not so much the rest of the year. So here are pictures of the guys having a good time working together first preparing and then enjoying the first home grown pork asado.
It was a nice afternoon to celebrate a job well done.
Our little piglets are growing bigger and bigger. In about two weeks they will go to freezer camp. YUM! Suckling pig is big here in Uruguay (as one acquaintance put it, think roast piglet with an apple in their mouth and you’d have the right idea).
Our newest set of piglets are just as cute as the first, but their “daddy” keeps others away. There are 11 in this litter of all colors.
They are so cute and curious. And will hopefully taste great when their time comes as well!
We purchased some pigs in December. They went into the back pasture where there is a natural spring, so that no matter how dry it got, they would have access to water to cool off.
On routine feedings one of our females looked to be growing much larger than the others and Jon told our workers that she must be pregnant. Oh, no, Jon was mistaken; he didn’t know anything about pigs. The day she delivered, Jon practically yelled, “I told you she was pregnant!”
Our mama has 12 little piglets. Alejandro did a fast math calculation of number of babies and the price of 5 week old piglets and came to the conclusion that we just paid for the purchase price of our pigs, any more babies would be profit.
This surprise birth was truly a surprise. We are still waiting for a male for our herd. Our animal broker had found us a large black male, but before he could close the deal and deliver, he had a motorcycle accident. He was in the hospital for a few weeks and lost the opportunity. So despite missing half of the breeding equation, we have piglets.
We have once again added “a little of this” and will most likely turn into “a lot of that”. When I made comment that this was the last addition to our menagerie, I was reminded that we still have not acquired our guinea fowl (but not for lack of trying).
So let’s begin our picture show with the delivery vehicle getting stuck, with the animals inside. We have a collection of stuck vehicle pictures. And no, the truck driver did not run over the sheep water trough, but almost.
After putting out the word that we were looking to purchase some pigs, and much discussion about the breed of pig we were willing to purchase, we got a call from an animal broker. He had three Large Blacks and an Iberian. So four pigs have joined La Piccolina. The Large Blacks produce good bacon and the Iberian produces great ham, or so we have read. An important ting for us is that they do not get sunburned.
In the back corral.
How can you not fall in love with the floppy ears and round snout?
Can you find the Iberian in the mud?
Now we are looking for an older male so we can have/eat/sell piglets.
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