Tag: pigs

It has been a while…

July 3, 2017

Well I suppose it has been a while…you might be thinking that we dropped off the face of the earth…but that is not the case…we have been busy here on the homestead. We have been working on settling in with homestead life. 

We have moved the pigs from where the garden site is located to a new location where they will most likely spend the rest of their summer until they fatten up for our winter meat. 

I have built a new generator shed (roof and posts) I plan on wrapping it with straw in the near future as that will dampen the sound of the generator while it runs. Currently the generator is housed over 100 feet away from the house. It will now be closer to 30 feet from the house (getting moved tomorrow if everything goes smooth).

I have passed my rough in electrical inspection of the electrical work I have completed. I rewired the complete house. I hope to have my final done this week. That means once that is complete I am able to start buttoning things back up in the house. 

We have a banty hen sitting on a clutch of eggs so in about 21 days from now we should have a bunch of chicks. Now we don’t want to have a huge flock of banty chickens however we want her to learn to sit and brood a clutch as she will be one of our incubators. In the long term plan we plan to use them to incubate the silver’s eggs.

We have been getting and eating quail eggs from our quail. I hope to build them a new run shortly. Their eggs taste good it is just a lot of work to do anything fancy with them.

We have planted part of our garden and will expand on it for next year. This year has been too busy and too wet to get everything in on time with starting from scratch and with other stuff that has come up. 

I know reading this that some of it doesn’t seem like much (some of it is a whole lot on it’s own) but between working full time and commitments to family, friends, and events on top of all of that I feel like we have been busy. Real. Busy…

I will try to post more again as we settle into our new crazy and find ourselves again. 

Until the next time…happy trails…

“Sit tall in the saddle, hold your head up high keep your eyes fixed where the trail meets the sky and live like you ain’t afraid to die and don’t be scared just enjoy the ride” – Chris Ledoux

Farm aches….already 

February 18, 2017

I love pigs!

We had a little pot bellied when we lived in town and I adored her. I mean that cute kissable snout how could you not.

So evidently pigs are in our farm plan- year 1. We looked and researched and found the ideal breed for our heritage farm- Berkshires on the critical list according to 2015 numbers from rare breeds Canada conservation with less then 35 sows being registered a year. Its a dark pig so not prone to sunburn, docile in nature , excellent meat quality and adaptive to different surroundings. Yup that sounds like our pig. 

In January before we moved I started the search purebred berkshire piglets, something weaning early spring. Oh the joy when I found just what I was looking for, born Dec 4th 2016 ready to go mid February ” Shane look that even gives us 3 weeks to settle in!” We dicussed back and forth and placed a deposit on 3 gilts 2 for the freezer and 1 for love …oh I mean breeding. I’ve been counting down the days until we get to pick them up.

The next challenge….. Where to put them in February on land we have never seen without snow that is currently waist deep? Well we have this.


It has alright bones and a steel roof it will get us through to spring. We purchased boarding for the sides, house wrap to keep the drafts out, plywood and 2x4s to make a floor off the ground.

Then I researched and researched feed settled on a premade organic for now, got a fun ball for boredom and was all set.

Saturday is our day and I am counting them down…At least I was until Thursday.

Thursday I got a message from the breeder and my heart sank alittle. Our piggies are coming from the Barrie area, they were born outdoors in weather similar to ours an ideal situation, the Barrie area however is struggling with a slight coyote issue. And alas our livestock isn’t even here and already we are dealing with predators. We lost our little piggies to a pack of coyote on Tuesday night. 

My exciting Saturday has now been put off until spring, nicer weather and new stock. 

 We are experiencing our first farm-ache.