Two Little Piggies

There are two little piggies here at Fernwood. Two young sows who love to root and roll in the greenery out behind the barn. They can plow sod just as fast as any farming implement.
The pigs always have access to both indoors and out. During the hottest part of the day they like to be inside the cool barn stretched out in the hay. Early mornings they fly out the door, sprint a few laps around their paddock, and then get right down to business rooting up the ground looking for tasty morsels. Pigs are the ultimate recycler. They are omnivores ( although we don’t usually feed them any meat scraps), their diet consists of food leftovers ( mostly bread, potatoes, sour milk, and rice), grain, and whatever they forage on their own. Fresh water is always available, pigs do drink a lot. We find that we do need to check on their water several times throughout the day. Not because they run out, but if you put a pail or bucket of water in with pigs, they’ll drink their fill, then step in it or turn the whole bucket over and then proceed to play with the bucket. Their antics keep us very entertained. We raise pigs every year, and we often position their run in an area on the farm that needs clearing. This year they’ll be cleaning up an area where the Jerusalem artichokes have been given too much freedom. We are counting on them being ‘earthmovers in residence’ while digesting some of the sunchokes. Free food plus rototilling, who can beat that?