Hey.... Porkarena!

Yes, it is just like the "Macarena" song.  Hubby named her, I didn't. 

So, meet Porkarena!  This year, folks were wanting bigger pigs, as it is hard to justify the cost of mobile slaughter truck, plus butcher cut and wrap for a small, little homestead pig.  When you are processing them yourself, you get almost free meat, if you work it right and rotate them on land, but if you want someone else to do the "icky" part, well, then you need a bigger pig to make it worth your money spent.  Totally understandable.  So, to make our herd a little bit more user-friendly, hubs did an experiment and bought a Hampshire Duroc gilt 8 week old weaner pig from a good friend of ours that has pigs and Highland beef cattle outside of Centralia.  He deliberately picked the runt of the litter, his theory being that she would  still stay small enough for me, a short older woman, to manage her.  If you watch the video here on this page... we have spent the time taming her.  I don't think it's gonna be an issue. LOL 

So she was getting bullied by the other piglets out of her food, so she spent some time in the barn stall, touching noses through the gate with Betsy and her buddies.  She got fed the lion's share of milk from the goats that I have been TRYING to stop milking.  They are Holsteins, I swear.  I just milk enough to keep them from getting sick, and feed 

calf until he is grown up, probably for the first time in her life. It is not cost effective, what we're doing with Betsy, but I feel good about it.  And her calf is HUGE.  He is big and beefy, staying on mama's milk, and the same size at 4 months, as our 1 yr old Jersey cross. 

So the other calves... there are 2 bottle calf steers Big Boy, and Jersey Boy, a year old as of July 2019, which we will be scheduling for the mobile slaughter unit to come and process in Fall of 2020. { We originally named them after my daughter's old boyfriends, but when we started to actually like the calves, that no longer became applicable for the calves.  It seemed an injustice, really+.  I  will be updating this page when that time gets closer.  Our plans are to offer half, whole, or quarter from those two for sale, with pickup from the butcher.  These guys are fed a minimal Excel Barnyard Buffet ration from Lael's Landscape Supply in Centralia (we always support local business, first), and plenty of forage and local hay from our neighbors' field across the street and down the road from us. .  No feedlot for these guys! Grass fed beef!  We find that the growing young ones and lactating animals do better with a grain ration, and those maintaining can do all right on just grass, depending on how hard winter is, and what their body condition is.  I'm not going to let my animals get super bony for the sake of the "grass fed" model.  That would not be humane.  

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P. Colvin, Beggs n Achin