Pigs moved into Maternity Wing

Hello Everyone,

As you can see above, two of our lovely Pedigree Tamworth Pigs, who are pregnant, are now living in the barn. We moved them from the field, last Wednesday, with a lot less trouble than we thought…..it is called food bribery.

Bob and I presumed that we would be using most of the day to entice each ‘mum to be’ into the pig trailer. How wrong we were. It is amazing how easy it is to move pigs when apples and potatoes (favourite food) are involved. To be honest, our biggest problem was stopping the boar walking the ramp into the pig trailer. The boar doesn’t really have a favourite food, he just likes food!

The trailer was driven, from the field, around to the barn. The trailer gate was opened and a pig casually walked down the ramp and quite happily moved into her new home.

The same procedure for pig number two. Luckily, once again, an easy process.

Both girls each have a quarter of the barn to live in. They have food, water and bedding. Already the pigs have rearranged the bedding to make themselves cosy. During the day one of the barn doors is kept open allowing the pigs light and fresh air….O and company….the chickens and ducks wander in and out for a chat.

We have shredded all the green waste from our field and polytunnels. This is quite therapeutic. We have lots of lovely smelling compost and, later today, lots of not so lovely smelling poo will be mixed in creating a huge amount of good stuff for our beds, and the next vegetables we will be growing.

We are at Jesmond Food Market on Saturday, the weather is looking very sunny but very cold. If you are going to visit, please wrap up well, we will be wearing lots of layers.

Take care,

Ann