Wednesday 14 July 2010

Husbandry

Here at Blackberry farm in Lancashire we see ourselves as micro-producers producing only small qualities of the very finest produce up to the highest possible quality.

Luckily we're not short of space so we decided to adopt a rearing method similar to what had been traditional in Hungary and Austria. Rather than keeping a car pigs in pens are Mangalitsa pigs and Mangalitsa Iberico X are free to roam and grazing up to a family groups over large areas (about20 acres). Because of the low stock to acre ratio means that most of the day are pigs on the round grazing their diet is supplemented with apples ,fruit, grain and acorns which were lucky to be able to collect in large numbers locally.

We believe in this way of slow growing healthy happy pigs with a natural diet that is not reliant on manufactured feed as most outdoor reared pigs are is the way to produce the absolute finest product.

The best part is in the evening when we call the pigs and they come running!!! They blending so well with the undergrowth sometimes you can't see them... then suddenly it's like aMangalitsa x piggy race. I'm always surprised how fast a big pig can run!!

Clarissa with her summer coat in full steam. I will try to put a video up soon

No comments:

Post a Comment