Chris & one of the boys on the big day.

After months of collecting fruit and nuts, setting up fencing, and letting the pigs teach us what they like and don’t like to eat, we’re finally eating what we like, PORK. Our two 3/4 Red Wattle borrows were finally taken to the butcher a few weeks ago and the last meat, the ham steaks, are back and it’s all ready to sell. We were anxious to taste our natural, hormone and antibiotic-free, free range, pecan/apple/persimmon/walnut/acorn/corn and forage finished heritage Red Wattle pork and are delighted to say that it’s all excellent! I’ve feasted on pork burgers, pork chops, bacon, pork steaks, pork chili, and of course ham and loved every bit of it. Now I can’t wait to share it with you, the customers.

We decided to keep a whole hog and we’ve already sold some so there is a limited supply left for those of you who read this. We’re selling by the pound, $3.75/lb for 20-22lb packs and $3.50lb for  a half that is around 70 lbs. If you check around, this a great price for what you’re getting. The variety packs are as close as possible to an even share of all of the cuts… so it will be approximately 3 pounds of pork sausage, 3 pounds of ground pork, 3 pounds of pork steak, 5 pounds of pork chops, 2 pounds of bacon, 1.5 pounds of spare ribs, 3 pounds of ham steaks (either fresh or cured), a pound of hocks, and some neck bones (which are optional and only $1/lb). That’s actually closer to 21 or 22 pounds, but that is more or less the breakdown and most of it is vacuum packed for a long life in the freezer.

Contact me at steven @ franciscanfamilyfarms. com if you’re interested, or if you have any questions.

When we were trying to decide whether or not to bring pigs onto the farm, we felt like it wasn’t worth doing it unless we could provide something really special to our customers and our families.  After some research on the typical practices in commercial hog farms, we knew that we wanted to produce pork in a more natural environment.  This meant not only avoiding routing antibiotics and questionable food, but also providing access to fresh air, green grass, and giving them the ability to root in the ground — all the same things they would be doing if they were out in the wild.

Pigs on Pasture?

Most pigs today live their lives on concrete floors with a roof over their head and metal bars at their side.  Unlike most cow/calf operations, commercial pigs don’t even start their lives out on pasture.  So we wanted to raise them out on grass as much as possible.  Not only is this more humane, it provides a great supplement to their diet – they love to eat the green grasses and legumes (especially clover) around the farm.  Just like grass-fed beef and pasture-based poultry, when pigs eat their greens, they end up providing us with healthier, leaner, and tastier food.

Pasturing pigs is never easy, because it’s nearly impossible to keep a pig in a typical barbed-wire fence.  We discovered a great product called electric netting – an electrified net fence that can easily be moved to fresh grass with relative ease (and no tools!).  So that makes it more practical to regularly move pigs (or poultry – which is the more common use) to fresh pasture.

Heritage Breeds

In order to successfully raise pork on pasture and satisfy our desire to create a truly exceptional product, we had to find a breed of pig that would work well with our system.  We discovered that most commercial pigs are not well-suited to pasture-based systems, because many of their foraging instincts may have already been eliminated through breeding selection.  Foraging and rooting aren’t necessary for pigs that are raised in a concrete cell (sounds kind of painful, actually).

Photo from Five Ponds Farm

So it turned out that the pigs with the qualities that we were seeking were heritage breeds — old breeds that a small group of farmers have taken care to maintain.  The one that really proved to be attractive to us was the Red Wattle breed – known for their ability to forage, their maternal instincts, hardiness, and their lean, flavorful meat.  The breed has won taste tests (judged by St. Louis chefs) against both commercial and other heritage breeds.

It turns out that the Red Wattle breed (and many of the other heritage breeds) is actually on the critically endangered list for the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy… so it might seem counterintuitive for us to suggest that they are great to eat!  But it turns out that eating lots of a certain breed is one of the best ways to preserve it.  By making it commercially viable to breed the animals, we ensure that the heritage breeders can stay in business.  This year’s pigs were actually 3/4 Red Wattle, but we may move to full-blooded Red Wattles in the future.

Harnessing the Power of the Pig

Many farmers look with disdain on the idea of pigs rooting around their farm.  We’ve found a great way to harness that power for our benefit, suggested to us by farmer Joel Salatin in Virginia.  All winter long, our cattle eat hay inside the barn.  We constantly add bedding materials to the mix to help absorb the manure and urine.  We also add a bit of corn into the bedding throughout the winter.  By the time spring arrives, the cattle have left behind a lot of nutrients on the ground, and it is all packed down under their feet (along with the uneaten corn).

Once the cattle have moved out onto the pasture, we turn the pigs loose inside the barn.  They can root to their hearts’ content, and the corn provides good motivation.  Once the pigs are done, the packed bedding is aerated and ready to spread on the pasture in the fall.  So the pigs get to do what they love to do, and we get some free labor along the way.

So that’s the story of how we work with God’s design to help create a pork product that we can feel happy to feed to our families – and yours.