Not all hope was lost, though. In the early 2000’s, another pasture raised breed of pigs came about. They are known as the Idaho Pasture Pigs or IPPs. Like KuneKunes, they eat primarily grass, but they grow much larger in a shorter time frame. The processing age for an IPP can be as little as 10 months with a live weight of 250-450 pounds. Amazingly, 80-90 percent of their diet is grass with a small supplement of grain being given in order to distribute necessary minerals like lysine.

Because we were already up to our elbows in other animals and projects, we started out with 2 barrows (castrated males) from the same litter. Nearly all farm animals hate to be alone, but we didn’t want to overdo it and spread ourselves too thin. It only took about a day for them to warm up to us and we were in love. We loved their little tails wagging when we came to pet them, we loved their grassy diet, their noises, their personalities, really just everything about them. So, we contacted our breeder and decided to add two more to the mix. In the photo above, the girls are the more pink color and the boys are blacker. I don’t know if that holds true across the breed or if it’s merely coincidence. Left to right (above) is Massey, Ham, Bacon and [barely visible] Ferguson.

The only unfortunate thing about them so far is that they do root some. Superman does not appreciate the idea of anything jeopardizing the quality of our hay fields, so we knew we needed to move them immediately. At first, we used their rooting to our advantage and put them in our garden to help rototill it for the coming garden season. As the days passed, garden season was upon us, so they needed to move yet again, without taking out our garden or our pastures. After a little research, we learned that pigs can thrive in the woods. Providence Pastures has about 10 acres of woods that are unused other than for wood heat and hunting, so we decided to give it a try.

We could not be more pleased, and we have never seen happier pigs! They absolutely love being in the woods, especially the shade they are getting in this hot summer. And, we love the clearing they are doing for us! I think it is safe to say we will expand our pig production next year. On a side note, if you have put off pigs because of the smell you think they bring or other uncleanliness, pigs are actually quite intelligent and no dirtier than other farm animals. We move them at least once a week, more if they have run out of forage, and we do not smell any foul odors from them. So if you are considering owning pigs, let me encourage you to take the leap and try out rotationally grazing pigs. Take a look at what one week in the woods can do:

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