Berkshire Baby Buttercup

By the time we reached home after our day of errands, our van could not hold another thing. We left with six Lykoshes and a dog. We bought 300 pounds of feed at the feed store, and some cheese and fruit (and the last window unit A/C!) at Costco, and picked up three piglets, too.

What a good time! We spent about two hours talking to breeder Tom. He left DC about two years ago to start a small farm. He's settled on pigs as a favorite money-making opportunity, and it makes sense. As he said: "I can make $500 on a pig, or I can sell a piglet for $150. The economics are in favor of raising piglets."

That's what I've heard, too. Other than raw milk dairying, raising piglets is the most profitable enterprise.

So we bought a purebred Berkshire gilt (baby girl pig) that we plan to bring back to Tom in the fall so she can be bred with his new Berkshire boar. Berkshire meat is the "Kobe beef" of the porcine world; it wins taste tests because of more intramuscular fat than other pigs (more tender and juicy).

We bought two barrows (castrated boy pigs), too, and we hope to process them this fall (if we could avoid feeding through the winter again, I'd be really happy). One is a full-blood Berkshire, and one is a cross, so someday we'll do a taste test and see if Berkshire meat is actually better.

After we got home, we decided we wanted a more secure pen for the pigs than the cattle-panels we'd set up. So Phil scythed more of the amazing growth, and we set up poultry netting outside the pen.

This was prudent. Before the night was out, two piglets had escaped the cattle panels, but they didn't get any further. What a difference than the first time, with such horrific escapes! (Below, though, you can see that they weren't eager to leave their safe pen at first.)

And Phil was thrilled: as he was scything, he was amazed to find a dense stand of clover growing below the tall weeds. We think maybe the pig tillage last year improved the soil, and we are so pleased to have more of them.

They are smaller than our previous pigs: the bucket next to the three of them is the bottom half of a standard 5-gallon bucket. They are little!

And so cute. Because this is still a "B" year, our girl is "Buttercup."


Isaiah wanted the darker piglet with white feet to be "Socks," so we named the other "Fox," in honor of Dr. Seuss. Below you can see Fox.

In other news, on Michelle Bessette's suggestion, we put ten eggs under a broody hen, who has been hanging out in our barn. We didn't realize she was broody, so we took all her eggs, and she has been nesting, forlornly, on gravel alone. Maybe she will adopt these new eggs, laid today, and raise some chicks. That would be fun!