Features

We’ve got piglets arriving thick and fast this month - there are 300 sows living outside and they used to all farrow (have piglets) at the same time twice a year.

Imagine gathering over 2000 piglets from the fields, putting them in trailers and taking them to their new homes in the barns.

It was a heck of a job so we’ve changed the system so we now have 60 sows farrowing at any one time producing around 600 or so piglets.

Each batch of 60 sows farrows every five to six weeks. The idea is that we get a more continuous stream of piglets being born throughout the year.

It makes the weaning, moving and selling process a bit less intense and it’s also more cost effective as the barns where they go after they leave their mums are occupied more continuously.

It also means that when we start selling direct we have a continuous supply of outdoor piglets throughout the year.

When the piglets are born outside they live with their mums in a pig hut. The huts are shaped like a half moon and filled with straw.

For around two days after they are born we put a small barrier around the hut about six inches high.

Mum can step over and out into the field, but her piglets stay inside where it’s warm.

The reason for this is that if very tiny piglets wander into the field they are likely to get very cold and die.

After two days they’re strong enough to get out and about and go exploring and the barrier is removed.

The farrowing pigs and their piglets are on top of the hill near Eston Nab, so walkers can see them all galloping around.

Last week a very kind walker came down to the farm to tell us that a pig was farrowing on a steep hill and the piglets were struggling.

It took a while to find her as she’d escaped the field and was literally farrowing on a cliff face!

Two of the piglets had died, but we managed to save the others and move mum and babies back into the field and a hut.

She’d got in such a pickle we had to cut down a fence to get her out and she was very tired.

You’d think they would prefer to fallow in a warm hut but, when the sun is out, some mums want a very natural birth, probably because they are so used to being outside, but unfortunately, even when it’s quite warm, very tiny and hairless newborn piglets struggle outside and need to be in the warmth of a hut for a couple of days.

Luckily, we have a brilliant pig man who helps look after the outdoor pigs with Mike.

His name is Steven and he does a fantastic job with them all.

The trick appears to be not to tell mum to do anything, as she gets very cross, but rather make her think it was all her idea in the first place, which is quite a skill.

Ben and Jerry are on good form and apparently both are getting quite good at sneaking milk off their aunties as with two hungry mouths to feed, Mum’s milk isn’t as plentiful as it might be, so they go and help themselves off their friends’ mums.

Very cheeky and they’re lucky to get away with it as cows develop a close bond with their own calves and aren’t know for their tolerance of other calves suckling off them.

 Not quite the same with pigs as with a family of ten or more, it’s all a bit tricky to know who are yours and so quite a lot of sharing goes on! 

We met with the planners last week to discuss farm shop plans in more detail.

They seem reasonably sympathetic to the idea and are going away to discuss access off the main Middlesbrough Road with the engineers.

At the moment we think building a new, purpose built building for the shop is the way to go.

That way we’ll have plenty of space and, while it will be on the farm, it will be kept away from the tractors and muck of everyday farm work.

We’re also planning a local delivery service for boxes of meat that could either be ordered over the phone or on the Internet.

Watch out for the pigcam (which will be coming soon to BBC Tees) that has been set up in one of the rearing barns.

These barns are filled with straw and the piglets in there at the moment are about five weeks old and will stay there until they’re around 15 weeks.

You won’t believe how fast they grow!