In the Barn on a Rainy Day

It may have been a rainy day outside, but it was all nice and cozy in the piggery. 

We give the pigs lots of fresh-cut sugarcane each day.  They really look forward to their daily treat and squeal with delight and anticipation when they hear the wheelbarrow approach for their afternoon feeding.

Pigs are very good at chomping on the stalk and extracting the juice. 

For the younger pigs, we chop the cane into smaller pieces.  The leftover stringy bits, called bagass, become part of the bedding.  The microbes flourish on the leftover sugars in the bagass, breaking it down quickly.  A bonus for us: we don't have to refill the pens as often!

Meanwhile, outside, the plants grow quickly in the winter rains.

Crunching Numbers

To keep us occupied while waiting for Spot's litter to arrive, we've been going over some of the basic costs of raising the previous batch of pigs to butchering size. Here's what we've come up with.

In the last 2-1/2 months, we've saved 42 pounds of feed by utilizing the feedcrops we're growing: sugarcane & the protein plants (mulberry, moringa, and cassava leaves). In two more weeks, these pigs will be six months old and weigh between 180-200 pounds, and they will sell for $5 per pound, live-weight.

When you consider the total amount of organic non-gmo feed we've given them over their 4-1/2 months since weaning, it comes to $3.00/pound, which will leave us with $2.00/pound profit to offset other costs of raising them, such as tools & equipment, gas to pick up the feed from the docks, and such like.

So basically, we're making about $12 a day on this little venture, or $2 a day per pig.

It'll take many, many years to pay off the costs of infrastructure this way. And of course, all our labor is free because, face it, farming is pretty much a labor of love. You must love what you're doing to make this lifestyle worthwhile - and we do.

Feed Crops & What we Feed Our Pigs

Not much to report for September. I was injured in a car crash so not a lot extra got done around the farm besides the daily animal chores. But everything kept growing during all that time, of course!

Now things are beginning to happen again. Lots more clearing out the jungle that had regrown out back, to make room for extending the rows in our "protein field" : moringa, mulberry, and cassava. The leaves of each of these plants are very high in balanced amino acids, thus making them excellent feed crops. We have more sugarcane ready to plant, too.

Big Mama & Spot are both pregnant and due soon. Big Mama's next litter is due at the end of this month, just in time for Halloween. Spot is due mid-November.

The six young ones from Spot's previous litter weigh between 120-125 pounds each. They now occupy two of the pens, as seen in the second photo below, with three pigs in each pen. These will be butchered sometime in December when they reach 180 pounds.

We are in the process of putting up bird netting over all the open spaces of the piggery. Those greedy wild doves and pigeons are eating far more than we can afford to lose!

There have been several farm tours coming through these past months. In the photo above, Mike is telling a group of college students about the sugarcane, cassava, and mulberries we use for part of the pigs' diet. The pigs are also currently getting moringa leaves (dried; they don't seem to like it fresh - too spicy, maybe) mixed with their organic non-gmo feed, fermented together with IMO4, and small amounts of OHN (Oriental Herbal Nutrient), LAB (Lactic Acid Bacteria), FAA (Fish Amino Acid), & FPJ (Fermented Plant Juice). These last are added along with a bit of water to nicely moisten the whole mixture. It gets covered loosely with a paper feed sack, and then ferments for 12 hours. Sometimes the piggies get eggs, kabocha, or guava as an extra treat since we have a lot of these right now. And of course, they get lots of scratches, pets, and attention.

(PS: We can hardly wait until the 'ulu and papaya (seen in the first photos of this entry) begin to produce in abundance. Should be soon! And when that happens, the pigs will be getting a share of those crops as well.)

Book Review!

 

Word is starting to spread about the farm book. Yay! We took a boxful to the local Natural Farm meeting last month, and online orders have been trickling in. And of course, folks who come to our farm for the tour have been snapping them up!

Sonia Martinez, Big Island food writer and blogger, wrote a great review of my book for Hawai'i Homegrown Food Network.

Go ahead and take a moment to read the book review here!

It's Here!

August 8, 2013:  I added an ordering link to the bottom of this post for those of you on mobile devices. Thanks for letting me know, and huge thanks to those who have ordered my book already!

The farm book, Hubbell's Hog Heaven & Liz's Happy Hens: A Farm Tour, is finally here, all printed and bound and ready to go!

The back cover:

And the Table of Contents:

A link to the first review.
And here's what others have said about the book:

"It's all about their farm, the tours and how they chose to farm the Korean Natural Way...no flies, no odor!... The book is not just for farmers and it should be interesting even to people who don't farm!" ~ Sonia

"Healthy bacon!" ~ Noel

"Super informative yet easy to read, and translatable to wherever you live and whatever you want to grow/raise." ~ Lori

"Speaking as a former pig farmer, the system in the book is so practical and worthwhile to do. You can retro fit or use it as a starting point either way...it works." ~ Galyn

There's a link to order on the sidebar of this page. You have options: You can order from Amazon OR directly from me. If you order your copy directly from me, I will split the shipping costs with you (for only $2.50) AND you will get it autographed. How can you resist? 
  
EDITED TO ADD: Many have mentioned that they cannot see the sidebar from their mobile devices, so I'm adding a link here in the text for you.
You can order the book directly from me, here. 
Thank you so much!

Bringing in the Feed

One of our main farming goals here in Hog Heaven is to provide the best feed for our animals. Our own farm is producing more and more, but at this point, there's not enough to keep up with two mama sows, their litters, the few piglets we keep to raise up for meat, and a flock of 70+ chickens. We are still supplementing with stuff from the feed store, and still planting more and more feedcrops all the time, to take up the slack. Eventually, we hope to be able to provide all the feed our animals need, and most of our own food as well, right from the farm.

We have found there is not much choice in organic feeds available on this island. The stuff at the local feed stores is USDA-certified organic, but it all has corn &/or soy in it, and most is distributed by Cargill. Not good enough on all three counts.

So we started looking online. We found a wonderful mill in Bellingham, WA, Scratch and Peck Feeds. It is the first--and, so far, only--mill in the US to offer Non-GMO Project certified animal feeds. Their products come from farms in the Northwest (and since that's where we come from too, it's kind of nice to have that connection). There is a distributor on Maui, but they didn't seem much interested in forming any sort of working relationship with us on the Big Island. No problem. We'll bring it in ourselves.

Since we have to order it by the pallet-load (one ton), and we want to maintain the freshness of the feed, there will be extra to sell. In talking to a few farmer friends, we figured there is enough interest out there that this could work.


We will be bringing in Scratch and Peck's Naturally Free line of chicken layer feed and scratch grains, as well as the pig feed -- all organic, non-gmo, no corn or soy, high protein, and well-balanced feeds. You can click on the labels below to enlarge and read the ingredients.



 

The first shipment is already on its way. I can hardly wait to start giving this quality feed to our animals! And I'm looking forward to touring the mill while I'm in Bellingham later this summer.


In the meantime, Mike is designing and building a moisture-resistant, rat-proof storeroom for the incoming feed sacks. Because, you know, we really needed another project around here.


*Still waiting for Spot's litter... only a couple more days.
*The farm book is currently being formatted for publication. Won't be long now!

More Piggies Soon!

My goodness how time flies when you're busy busy busy!

Big Mama is almost ready to burst! Only two weeks to go until her third litter is due.  After a short break, Spot will have her piglets in mid-June.  I, for one, am very glad that there will be a three week break between litters this time.

We have been working hard to get lots more planted: sugarcane, mulberries, cassava, moringa, sunn hemp, and sweet potatoes--all food plants for the animals.  We are currently feeding the pigs a third of their daily feed with these plants that we're growing.  Considering how quickly things are becoming well-established, it shouldn't be too much longer until we can produce all our own feed--a day we are greatly looking forward to!

Speaking of feeding, Mike rigged up an automatic feeder of sorts, just using bits and pieces we had lying about the farm: a rotisserie, a timer, scrap wood, metal strapping, a rope, and pulleys.  The timer has a battery back-up.  Basically, he loads up the feed pans with greens, pellets, a split coconut, sugar cane... whatever is on the menu for the day... and then sets each pan on its own shelf above each sow's pen.  At the appropriate time, the timer kicks in and starts the rotisserie which winds up the rope until - voila! crash bang! - the shelves dump the feed into the pens, and it's dinnertime for piggies!  The sows have learned to listen for the click of the motor switching on.  They then move away and wait a couple minutes for their food to drop so they can chow down.  We now can be away from the farm all afternoon, for whatever reason, and not have to worry that our girls are hungry.

The book about our farm (the pigs, chickens, tropical feed crops, and Natural Farming) is coming along.  It's being edited now, and we are looking at a mid-summer publishing date.  I'll keep you posted.

All the photos for this post were taken by our daughter, Kerry Hubbell, and used with permission.  Mahalo!

Late Winter News

We continue to be busy with the pigs and farm tours.  All 13 piglets I wrote about in the last post thrived, grew quickly, and were sold off after weaning.  They weighed an average of 40 lbs at that time.

We changed our minds about expanding the herd at this time due to the high cost of feed.  Our food crops are coming along nicely, but pigs eat a lot and it takes a lot of feed each day to keep them in tip-top shape.  So, we're back to just Big Mama and Spot as our breed sows.  Both of them have recently been bred, with three weeks between them, so we should have an easier time of it come May and June when they're due to farrow again.

Freckles got adopted by another farmer just starting out with breeding pigs, but Penelope filled our freezer (and those of a few friends, too).  She was such a noisy, loud pig that it's doubtful we could have kept her for breeding anyway, due to the fact that we have neighbors close by.

The biggest news is that I've written a book of our farm tour!  It is at the editor's now; we are aiming for its release later this spring.  Those of you who have been to our farm will like the book for remembering all the information presented on the tour... and those who have not had a chance to visit will be able to see more of what we are doing here.  Of course, I will let you know when it is available.  Meanwhile, we continue to plant food!

Second Litter of the Season

The waiting time is over!  Spot had her babies last week.  Eight more healthy piglets!  This time it was 7 males and 1 female, just the opposite of Big Mama's litter.  The birthing went well.  Spot was restless at first but after a while she finally just lay down.  Only two required a little help from us.  We sprinkled extra IMO in between babies to help keep the flies down.  The whole thing only lasted about 5 hours.  Way to go, Spot!

These were from a Hampshire-Yorkshire cross boar, so two of the piglets are mostly black, with white forefeet.

Mama Spot and all eight piglets are doing really well.  Looks like we finally have the good mothering instincts we were looking for.  We will keep two of the gilts from the first litter to increase our breeding stock.  The rest of the piglets will be sold off at weaning time, at about 6 weeks of age.  This means that the first litter is ready to go now, and many of them have already been picked up and headed off to their new homes.  These little new ones will be ready in another 5 weeks.  It's amazing how fast they grow!

Announcing the Second Generation Natural Farmed Pigs!

The piglets are here! Eight healthy piglets were farrowed May 16, 2012 by our sow Big Girl. (Those who have read past posts may recall that Big Girl was born here last year, on the 4th of July, in the first ever litter of NF pigs!)

Farrowing began at 1:35pm and continued all afternoon until about 7:00pm. After the first five, there was a pause of an hour or so before the other three came out. The placentas were all delivered easily and buried with a sprinkling of IMO4. No smell, no flies!

This litter has 7 females and only 1 male, so we won't have to do any castration this time. Normally, we would do this at 7-10 days old.

Big Girl, now Big Mama, is an excellent mother with her natural instincts intact and an ample milk supply. We couldn't be more pleased about that! All the piglets are thriving, even without heat lamps or creep area. There is enough room for mother and babies in the pen, and Mama is responsive to the babies so no worry about her squishing them.

 

Big Mama's appetite came back the next morning, and she is now getting extra feed to accommodate her extra nutritional and caloric needs during lactation. We divide her feed so she gets her usual amount in the mornings and an extra feeding in late afternoon. She has been sprayed with LAB a couple times to help prevent disease. We don't give inoculations, but rather, let the IMO's keep the animals healthy. The entire pen was sprinkled with IMO4 and sprayed with LAB, both before and after the birth. So far, so good. All the piggies are healthy and thriving!

Time to Catch Up, Part 2: The Pigs

Our original two sows, Lola & Suey, made delicious additions to our freezer and our diet. Not being one to waste food, or a life, I have learned to make use of as much of the animals as possible. I make bacon with the belly meat, render beautiful healthy lard, and we've ground some of the meat into breakfast sausage. Pig trotters make a lovely addition to stew and broth... but I have yet to tackle head cheese. There are a few other choice bits still in the freezer, for future use. The bones, after being boiled for nutritive bone broth, are picked clean by the chickens, then charred to make Water-soluble Calcium Phosphate, one of our Natural Farming inputs.

Last fall, we had a big mahalo lu'au to thank everyone who helped us get started on our pig-raising venture. Hulihuli was delicious!
 

We kept Suey's two biggest daughters, Big Girl & Spot. They have both been bred via artificial insemination. We've been using semen from the boars at UH-Hilo's Panaewa research farm. Big Girl is due next week! Spot has another 6 weeks to go. We keep getting asked how long a pig's gestation period is. The answer is a fun one to say: 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days.

You can read about the pen preparation in the previous post. Here, I will tell about what we are currently feeding our pigs. Every morning, each sow gets 4-1/2 lbs commercial pig feed. (NOTE: This is why we are working so hard on raising our own crops, to replace this commercial feed and still maintain the proper protein, amino acids, and nutrient levels. We're getting there, but not there yet. Mostly, we're waiting for the plants to grow bigger, and of course, planting more crops.) To this feed, we add a handful of IMO4. They also get at least 1-2 lbs of fresh greens -- honohono grass is a current favorite, or whatever else we gather that morning. And they get a half a coconut each. Sometimes, later in the day, as a treat, there is papaya, avocado, kabocha, or whatever might be in abundance. We don't feed these fruits and vegetables exclusively though, as many hereabouts do, because pigs need protein and fats to really thrive, and that's what we're aiming for -- their long term health.

When the sows start nursing, their diet will change to accommodate their increased needs to ensure a good milk supply. Their feed increases to 5-6 lbs commercial feed each, plus another 1/2 lb per piglet she's nursing. More greens will be added, too.

 When Big Girl lays down these days, we can see the babies inside moving around! It's so amazing! Her teats are getting huge and all the signs of birthing preparation are beginning to show. But she has yet to begin digging her nest, so we have a little time still. I'll let you know when the piglets are born. Won't be long now!