Walter Jefferies Horrible, Terrible, Awful mostly bad year

Picture courtesy of WCAX, Vermont.  https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Vermont-farmer-recaptures-almost-all-runaway-pigs-558851501.html

Walter Jefferies has been having a pretty hard time over in Vermont.  You know it's bad when the local television station puts out a story with this headline:

Pigs on the loose plague Vermont town

Apparently Walter has had problems with pigs getting off his property repeatedly, last year and this year, and the local township is getting complaints - and issuing fines.    Full disclosure:  I've been issued fines by the local animal control for pigs off my property, related to my special neighbor Dale Shelton, but my fines are not even in the same planet as the ones that Walter has been assessed so far:  The local township reports that he's been fined 

$90,000

He's going to have to sell a lot of pastured pork to pay that kind of fine.  I think it's excessive, and it'll probably be reduced, but the local township is apparently pretty mad at him.  Here's the quote:  

"We can issue the civil tickets to him but we have no further control, the state and federal government and the state police need to take action to control the situation of loose pigs in orange" - Angela Eastman, Clerk for the town of orange 

Apparently this situation has been going on for weeks and despite the fines hasn't been resolved yet.  The news reports also state that they had pigs loose last year too; my guess is that everyone is getting kinda tired of chasing pigs around. 

Walter makes a claim that his fence was damaged by an ex-employee on his web page.   I've had my own experiences with bad farm help and I empathize with him on that, but apparently the police have been out multiple times and this has gone on for weeks, a couple of days I could understand, but weeks, well, a little harder. 

Walter did crowdfund a portion of his butcher shop project, and promised the backers their rewards in 2012.   So 7 years later some of those very very patient backers are getting a little fed up.  Given that Walter is probably roaming the hills with hotdog buns trying to get his pigs back, I understand it completely when he says it's impossible to answer questions like:  "Hey, how many people have

actually got their promised rewards" and "are you ever going to fufill your promises for this project?"

Full disclosure:  Kickstarter banned me from their site when I asked those questions directly.  I think that kickstarter is a great platform for the folks that get the money - there's basically very little accountability to the people they make promises to, and apparently no consequences if they just don't do what they say they're going to do as part of their project.  

Cheer up Walter.  You could always just shoot them all and make maple syrup!

Bigger and better

The pig business is pretty good these days; it's to the point that I don't advertise anymore; all of my production is sold to people who come to me from word of mouth, and I'm able to sell everything that I produce at my farm gate, or pretty close to it, which is nice.  

the 1910 wooden barn on the new farm

I purchased my current farm in 2013, as an upgrade from some land i was farming in the flood plain, and it's been a good 6 years here.  This property came with big barns and a 4 bedroom house, and while I do like having half an acre under roof I'm not in love with the county government taxing me to death for owning it, and my special neighbor is on her 6th year of harassing me.  I'll take my profit and move to something better.   

I'm going to put this farm up for sale soon; I'll offer it as four parts, and an interested buyer can buy any or all of it:  

  4br/3ba 2500sq ft house on 10 acres, with 4000 square foot horse barn

  35000 square feet of commercial barn, milking parlor on 10 acres

  45 acres of great, flat cropland

  5 acre building lot, off flood plain.  

I'll be moving my operation 8 miles to the east, to a larger farm (larger in the land sense), but smaller in the house and barn sense.  there's a single 1910 barn on the property, a wood barn, and a 1200 square foot house.  2 br, 2 baths.    

over the next year I'll be designing and building a farm that is purpose-built for my operation.  The last few years have been an exercise in trying to fit a pig operation into a cattle structure, and while i've done it, to be honest, I'll would never have built the barns like the guy did here.  he lost his farm because of it.  

I'll be doing all of the things I did here on the new property; a survey to figure out where the edges are.  Fencing along the property lines.   Remodel the house a little before I move - paint and flooring, update the bathrooms, make sure that it has proper insulation and ventilation.    

The new farm has a pretty substantial gravel deposit on it; a couple of million tons of it, and I'm going to take a stab at permitting a gravel mine on that property over the next year or two as another income stream for the farm, and I'll continue with the pig business, but I'll probably build a processing area as part of the new farm to accommodate those folks who like to process their own pigs.  

Life has had its ups and downs in the last two years, and I'm liking the direction its taking now. 

pet pigs and/or eating boars or older sows

Story and question from email:  

Hi Bruce, 

The summer before last my husband and I bought two pigs from you that 6 months later we butchered.  (Great pigs.)  We also left with 4 baby piglets that needed bottle feeding. I volunteered to take them so my summer camp kids could help raise them. (They loved them). You thought they would most likely not make it since they didn't get colostrum from their mother who had abandoned them. Well, two did die but two survived and they are now giant pigs. A male and a female. Friendly pigs that now I don't know what to do with them. The boy never got castrated, and the female doesn't seem to be pregnant. I am wondering what to do. If you have any advice or may know someone who would want them? A breeding pair? I don't have the proper set up for them anymore. They have plowed the extent of my pasture, using an electric fence and now in the barnyard..they have outgrown the barn space. I am told they are too old to butcher and that uncastrated male meat should not be eaten. Sorry to bother you I know you are busy but any advice would be appreciated.

So there's two possible questions here: (a) what do I do with a pig that I've become attached to and can't see slaughtered or  (b) is it ok to eat boars or older sows?  

There's nothing wrong with the meat from older pigs; it tends to be tougher than the meat from younger pigs, but cooked low and slow or braised and it'll be as tender as you want it to be.  Crock pots, pressure cookers, or just slow roasting will get you to the degree of tenderness you want in your pork.  Older animals will tend to have a higher amount of fat, and for things like salami or other charcuterie may actually work better than a younger pig that isn't as fat.  A good salami is about 30% fat in my opinion.  

The meat from boars can be eaten; the concern is with boar taint, which is an unpleasant smell which can be present in the fat of uncastrated male pigs.  But there's a couple of things you should know.  1) not everyone can smell or detect boar taint - I had one boar processed that I could not eat because of it, but my brother happily at it - I can smell it, he can't.  About 20% of the population can detect boar taint, and the other 80% cannot.  

  And not all boars have detectable taint.  The easy way to test this is at slaughter time - you slice off some of the fat and fry it up.  If you smell frying fat and no unpleasant odor either you can't smell boar taint or there isn't any in that particular animal.  

If there is boar taint you can use that pork in highly spiced sausages.  Chorizo or pepperoni being popular choices.  

With respect to keeping a pig that you're attached to, a full-sized sow or boar will maintain weight on 6lbs of feed per day.  They'll want more, but my feed price is about $0.19/lb, and so it costs about $1.20/day to feed a full-grown pig, about $36/month.  So that's the price of your very large pet.  

With that said, there are several pigs that have died of old age on my farm because I couldn't bring myself to shoot them.  Each had a particular story, and each lived a long and happy life.  

Holiday traditions - Moldova

Part of the business I do on my farm are people who want to have a pig and process it in the way that their tradition and culture has done for ages.   One of those groups that I serve is the the Moldovan community that lives in and around Seattle.  

What they like the best is a relatively large pig; 300lbs or so, with a good amount of back fat.  They aren't particularly picky on color, and do like to choose the pig that they are going to process, and see it live.  

It's often a little bit of a problem to make sure that they get a pig that they are happy with - I'm asking them on the phone what size pig, they're consulting (pig purchases are often a group endeavor, with 3 or 4 families splitting the pig) and it's a bit of a parlimentary process, and no matter what they tell me on the phone, they almost never pick a pig like the one that they describe.  So I smile, and talk slowly, and don't take careful notes; I know that the final decision will be made on the day they come to the farm.  

I bought a digital scale with a cage around it to help with their choice; after a decade of this I've got a pretty good eye for pig.  I can tell a pigs weight, plus or minus 5 pounds, consistently, but the customers are always skeptical, and so what I do now is ask what size pig they're after, find a pig that weight, and then put it on the scale to show them the weight.  

Some of the folks are skeptical about my scale, too, so I usually ask the person who is closest in weight to the pig that they're after to step on the scale and they usually see that it's pretty accurate, and then we put the pig on and discuss.  

So we put the first pig on the scale, and it's almost always too small.  There's a discussion about this, which I'm excluded from because I don't speak the language, but I can get a feel for each faction.  There's the "fatter is better" there's the "cost is most important" and then there's the "it's the holidays, lets get the best pig!" and the discussions are usually pretty good natured. 

So I show them the pigs they have a choice of, and they pick one, and I tell them that I need payment up front for the pig - after it's shot, there's no going back! - and after we've settled the pig is killed and stuck and they proceed to process it.  

They almost always bring a bottle of something to drink; whisky, schnapps, wine - it's the holidays, and this is a celebration for them.  they'll be eating well tonight, with friends and family, and another year past.  The older people show the younger people and I'm guessing that there's always the story about the really hard work that they used to do.  You know the deal - when we walked to school it was uphill both ways, in the snow!  that sort of story.  

After they've got the pig scraped they'll cut it up, and eat a bit of the back fat, with salt, directly off the fresh pig, and this is an important part of the ritual of the holiday pig.  I'm not a big fan of fat back, but heck, with a shot or two of whiskey, all things are possible!

It has become a part of my own holiday tradition now, and come november I'm looking at the herd and setting aside a few great pigs for these families.  

Happy holidays to everyone, and here's to a prosperous 2019 for you and yours!