Pigs

Probably every rural resettler who is not a strict vegetarian should keep a pig. As an omniverous dustbin for converting kitchen and vegetable waste into palatable food and high quality manure they cannot be surpassed. Anyone who has eaten their own home grown succulent baked ham or who starts each day with thick rashers of bacon from their own pigs needs no more encouragement to keep pigs. Whether it is economically worth keeping them or not depends on how much food you are going to have to buy for them. Much as they enjoy rooting and grazing they can't be kept on grass alone; they need barley or other starchy foods and they need protein from fish meal or milk. Below is a brief summary of the pros and cons of keeping pigs:

Pro:

They will eat almost anything, including skim milk or whey from butter and cheese making and all household scraps.

They are normally hardy and healthy animals. They love rooting and grazing and can help a lot in reclaiming rough or overgrown land. If you start with weaners (two at least,, as they like company) bought at say 8 to 10 weeks old, you have nothing to do but feed them. They grow fast.

They are very easy to cut into joints. The meat can be frozen or salted using a variety of recipes to give a variety of flavours. Keeping a litter of say ten weaners and buying in all their food you should end up being able to pay for the food by selling all but one, which you keep and eat.

Pigs need not use land and are happy in good housing so a lot of them can be kept on a relatively small area. Home-grown grain can be ground fine and fed to pigs. A lot of information on how and what to feed pigs, how to house them and on health aspects is available from MAFF, books, colleges, etc.

Con:

They need very secure housing - concrete blocks or double galvanised iron walls. Like people they don't like being too hot or cold, in draughts or in wet beds.

Pigs will eat meat, including children's hands or legs; so beware of their teeth.

Keeping pigs as a commercial venture requires very skilled management to get that extra bit of profit. Prices of young pigs to buy and fat pigs, to sell fluctuate, and in the short term it is possible to lose quite a lot of money.

There are strict laws on handling swill. Check with your local MAFF advisor for the rules and follow them. You can get into serious trouble if you are caught feeding inadequately boiled swill - to your pigs. This is on account of the danger of spreading swine vesicular disease.