Chapter 41

Bacon-omics

Chapter 41: Clients

Old habits die hard. Here I am rearing 160 chicks in the house. I was concerned that the barn would be too cold, so I started them off in the living room next to the woodstove. Gracie and I loved watching the chicken show.

I could see pig huts out on the hills that let me know I found the place to pick up my pigs.

When I brought these two pigs home, they had gaping wounds on their backsides. I treated them with lidocaine, and they hid shivering in the hay for a few days.

I'd let the pigs out a few hours at a time as they learned hotwire in the goat pasture.

Training the hogs to stay behind hotwire allows them much more access to more extensive pasture for healthy rooting and mineral collection. Hogs will occasionally dig a two-foot deep hole in search of minerals even when provided mineral blocks. It leads me to believe that science doesn't know what all hogs need in mineral supplements. Foraging and rooting makes for healthier and happier hogs.

After some basic training to sit, they would come to the fence for their buckets of goat milk, vegetables, and grain. I have never fed a pig bag feed. That goes without saying that I worked hard to provide them a more balanced diet than just oats and milo.

I buy grain in bulk. I cut the tops off old IBC totes allowed me to get grain from the grain elevators. The bulk grain is less than half of the cost of bagged feeds with fillers (often corn silage or cobs) and toxic chemicals to preserve the feed.

Chapter 41: Portfolio