Sometimes I have a dozen pictures but yesterday because we took three hours out of the day to collect the new piglets the work became hurried. And I just forgot to take photos. 🤭
But our first group of piglets have arrived and they are great!
The piglets are all very active. One just started running in circles – the rest immediately started in on the edible weeds and multiple fallen mulberries.
My small farm helper asked if I was going to name them. I said no. We will be raising them for pork so no names. How about Charlotte, he said, from Charlottes Web? I shook my head. He remembered about no names then thought again for a minute. How about we name them all Charlotte – they can be The Charlottes.
I gave this serious thought.
That sounds fair, I said.
He smiled, pleased with his success.
So there we have it. The Charlottes have arrived.
(You can see the zinc in this one’s ear). They came out of a commercial hog operation. The woman who runs it now, with her cousin, is the great grand daughter of the founder.
I am not sure how big the hog farm is because we were instructed to meet a mile down the road from the facility so there was no risk of contamination. We are all super careful of spreading disease from one farm to another. We drove to a quiet country road and after a few minutes we saw a truck and trailer approaching. They parked at a short distance from us. R jumped out and paid them, I opened our trailer door then they carried our five piglets from their trailer to ours, kept their distance for a chat then drove off.
It felt like a covert drug operation but with pigs!
The pigs are about 25-30 pounds in weight. Cost $42US each and are a White Landrace/Duroc cross.
And they are really white. I will be anointing them with zinc every day – we are going to have to be vigilant about sunburn until they acclimate to the outdoors. And of course today has dawned fine and clear and dangerously sunny again.
I wear long sleeves and long pants and a hat when I am outside in the sun. But I cannot dress my piggies like scarecrows!
Their food and water and wallow are under the trees. The weeds are long. I will coat them in mineral sun protection and hopefully they get into the wallow as soon as possible.
For sleeping last night they had the choice of the old stock trailer packed with straw or that blue plastic pig house packed with straw, but they chose an old corrugated iron culvert deep in the weeds in the side room of the Trailer Park Pen that I left there for them to play in. Maybe because they have known nothing but metal all their short lives it felt familiar.
Who knows.
Good morning. Today I am creating a daytime, outside run for the ducklings. It will be a work in progress! But they have outgrown two tubs now and need to develop their running muscles.
I cannot bear to lock animals or birds (or me) in cages.
Take care and Talk soon.
Celi
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The Kitchen's Garden 
48 responses to “The Piglets have Arrived!”
great news and I love the name solution. my daughter’s 2 black cats look exactly alike to me, both very athletic, sleek and shiny, and so I just call them both ‘the Nathans,’ and it works for me, though they each have different names, and I have no idea what they are
That is so funny! The Nathans! I love it.
I love how you had to collect the Charlottes, like a covert operation! Your farm family is growing. Those ducks grew overnight!
The Charlottes! Great name(s). It’s good to be careful where farms and animal health are concerned. Very smart to meet away from both farms as to not cross contaminate.
Commercial pigs have a whole cocktail of inoculations to keep them all alive. It is just not natural – and very hard to manage those big stinky houses – I won’t eat pork that is not raised by me. We have not had bacon in months!
I can’t even imagine the stink! Our favourite local small farm bacon is $12cdn for about 6 rashers. We don’t indulge often.
Plus they feed those pigs reconstituted animal fat – which makes really stinky poo!
🤢
I’m sorry, am I understanding correctly – that’s 2$ per SLICE of bacon??
Yes! It might be even more now since prices everywhere have gone up and I haven’t bought it in quite awhile. Very bougie!
How exciting and I bet the piglets are thrilled to bits! Charlotte sounds like a suitable name, especially after the last one. They will all come when they are called!
I’m sharing a worm farm and all of them are called Billy.
I love the worm farm!! All called Billy!
…and they like to eat melon!
Who knew?!
Those Billies! 🤣
The Charlottes, brilliant, sounds like a band! I’m sure they will settle into their lovely new home and be SO happy. How those ducklings have grown. It all looks so good.
The Duklings are outside. Hopefully we don’t get any hawk attacks. I will take a video for tonight. They are quite happy out in the daylight.
They look very happy.
This post is a lovely companion to the Take Ten from last night! Love the closer looks to the Charlotte’s in their space. The story about the exchange is something I would never have thought about but it makes so much sense.
I never wear my farm boots on another farmers property. But these people were extra careful due to the delicate nature of crowded hog houses. They all wear masks and disposable booties and gloves in there.
I wonder how many people would be truly shocked to realize how their food is raised in these large commercial enterprises vs the small organic farm. I know some-many perhaps- would not give it a second thought but… I will say again how grateful I am that there are farmers like you C.
I think people know but they don’t care. So sad.
Good Day,
So great to see the farmy coming back to bustling life. And who knew that pigs were the new illegal drug… ! Now it’s a tossup as to which group is the cutest…I’m still in the duck pond .
Have a wonderful day everyone.
You will love tomorrow then because the ducklings are out in their run today!
That’s a great price on the piglets! Good weaners out here in the PNW go for around $150 each!
I think so. It was a great deal. The Guinea Hogs are going to be 75 each – then the farm will be full!
The Charlottes look like fine, healthy piglets. I’m sure they were just delighted with being in a more natural setting. I know white horses will sunburn quickly and it makes sense that the piglets would too – the perils of white livestock with thin fur/hair. A friend had a white pibble (pit bull terrier) who wasn’t allowed out in the middle of the day because he would sunburn and he had a special hat and coat or sometimes a tee shirt to protect him. Stay cool.
Luckily they have a very shady field. And will sleep under the trees most of the day – being pigs and all! But I will keep an eye on them and once they are tame it will be easier to spray them with sunscreen. There is a special one for show pigs I can get
I can remember one farm I saw when I went with my uncle delivering chicks where the farmer had the pigs wearing old grain sacks so the didn’t sunburn. As a kid it never occurred to me that pigs would have a problem with that. They sure looked funny in those grain sacks.
That is an incredible memory! I never thought of that. I wonder how he got them on the pigs!
The covert Charlotte caper ! I love it ! A children’s book !
yes! That would be hilarious!!
Another Substack friend named her anxiety Charlotte and now we have a group of pigs named The Charlottes. Must be something in the water. I think I like sharing a name with pigs better than anxiety. Though tending pigs is likely very good for anxiety.
an Anxiety called Charlotte! Ha!!!
Some of us have been around long enough to remember Charlotte. Wow. It has been a minute, hasn’t it?
Yes! It made me gulp when he suggested Charlotte but R was calling them the Charlettes! Which is kind of fun too!
I’m afraid I would have a hard time sending them off. It may be hypocritical, I like to eat pork but I don’t want to meet them beforehand and I really like pigs. I buy all my meat from certified humane B corporations since my local friend has gone to only selling beef and only as quarters or halves – too much meat for one person. I don’t think I could go back to grocery store meat and I’m fortunate that each of the two nearby small towns has a local butcher shop that processes all their own stuff if I need something between times. On a sad note, on Saturday something killed two of my chickens, during the day. It was a gray dreary rainy day but still seems odd. Whatever it was tried to pull them out of the yard through the combo cattle panel. Problem is the girls were too big to fit through the gap so whatever it was tore their heads off. Bit of a grizzly find at feeding time.
I can almost guarantee that was a mink. Wet day – low light – dragging them by the head. Hmm. Let the dogs out often and plug up any holes you see. Damn it. That is terrible news. I live in fear of the bastard mink.
No holes to plug. They free range in a fenced area where Percy and Fanny the goat live, right in front of the house. Just bad luck I guess
Huh. That is bad luck. Maybe it won’t come back. Usually at this time of year they are feeding their kits then later in the month they roam back off. Are you close to waterway?
The river is a ways off across the road but between the road and the pen is a pretty brushy strip so I ran some welded wire fencing with smaller holes along the cattle panels down there in case it was something larger like a fox or raccoon. Hopefully it was frustrated enough at not being able to take their prizes home
haha, the only dog I have now is pushing 15 and almost deaf but I did take him down there to ‘water’ the fence
That does make a difference. I take boo for a walk to try and see mink tracks in the evenings and that makes a difference.
I think i have something in the barn killing chickens. I have found quite a few old (and new) bodies while shifting hay.
I guess the old saying: “if you have livestock you’re going to have deadstock” rings true but it will always make me sad.
So true. But . Yes. Sad.