Perhaps you have a healthy kitchen garden and chicken coop, and you are ready to move onto something a little more challenging. How about pigs? In The Washington Post, food writer and backyard pig farmer Tamar Haspel writes in fascinating detail about what it takes to set up your own backyard habitat for pigs.
Anecdotal evidence suggests small-scale pig farming is on the rise, says Haspel, which may have to do with tough economic times, or backyard gardeners who are looking for livestock beyond chickens, turkeys and ducks. Haspel and her husband decided to raise three pigs this year — one for them, two to give to friends — and she is detailing the process on her blog, Starving Off the Land, which includes a "Live Sty-Cam" of the pigs.
Her article for The Washington Post details the fence-making process, the challenge of creating a suitable shelter for creatures that will grow ten times in size, and the choice to buy local, non-purebred piglets. Her description of the process is interesting enough to provide a vicarious thrill, even to an apartment-dweller who won't be raising pigs anytime soon.
Read the article: The Pig to Table Project at The Washington PostSee the pigs: The Live Sty-Cam at Starving Off the Land
Have you ever thought about raising pigs?
Related: Home-Raised Eggs: Raising Chickens and Putting an Egg on Everything
(Image: The Washington Post)
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Awe, sweet little piglets! Pet them as you think of slaughtering them so you can have some salty fat on your tongue.... How can you do that? I am sorry if this seems rude, I just don't get it....
@TA, are you a vegan?
I think chickens are more challenging. Pigs do need more space.
We always name ours but the names are a reminder of the pig's future: Hambone, Chops, Bacon, etc. It worked for us when the kids were younger.
Yep! Once I realized how poorly animals are raised (and how unhealthy it is to consume them) in my early twenties, it was hard to put the blinders on and continue eating them...
okay, so why are you saying it's bad to treat animals well if they're going to be eaten? i would think any meat eater would want the animals they eat to be treated particularly well.
Well, my original comment was referring to how one can raise an animal, pet them, get to know them, then kill them.... It is something that perplexes me...
okay, that i get. though i will say this: i honestly feel every meat-eater needs to be able to look their potential meal in the eye before eating it. there's too much of a plastic-and-Styrofoam disconnect between our food sources and our plates...and i really, truly feel there would be a legitimate drop in animal mistreatment if this became common practice.
i respect people who don't eat meat because they can't stand the idea of eating something with a face. i respect those people far more than those who can't stand the idea of meeting the animal they plan on eating.
I grew up in a rural area and would befriend the neighbour's cows and chickens. It didn't take long for me to make the connection - I would cry at the dinner table thinking of my bovine friends. I was a vegetarian for 18 years.
Many years after I moved to the city I started to eat a little meat. Always pastured, never factory farmed and eaten rarely. I agree with falnfenix, if more people had to 'look their meal in the eye' fewer animals would be eaten, and fewer animals would be mistreated. If we all grew our own vegetables would we cover them in industrial chemical pesticides and fertilizers? The more we produce our own food the better. For ourselves, the animals we eat and the planet.