This is what I want to share about one of my favourite Small farm enterprises.

Written for a neighbour of my current lease pasture.

Letting their instincts shine, raising pigs in a forest can give these intelligent and charismatic animals a wonderful life. Using Regenerative Agriculture practices, hogs work in the forest can disrupt invasive species, fertilize the forest flood, and allow higher quality naturally existing seeds to flourish.

The pigs can be honoured in life and in sacrifice. We can harvest them for delicious nutrition on a breakfast or dinner table, we can celebrate their work regenerating the forest and our health.

Forest Pigs or Pastured Pork meat is so much more nutrient dense and toned compared to their concrete dwelling cousins. “Let them express the pigness of the pig,” as Joel Salatin would say.

These are three videos that show the way I have learned to raise pigs.

This shows how fast pig chores can be done. John Suscovich is one of my go-tos, he is also Camps Road Farm (and distillery) and Farm Marketing Solutions:

How to raise piglets in 3 minutes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EK4DAfnDf6k

Here is my guru Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms - talking 9 mins about the WHY of pastured pork production:

Dr. Mercola Discusses Pigs with Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JjBtZxlkEDw

Here is a 20min video where Justin Rhodes (the dad I want to be,) shows a full tour of a commercial pastured pork operation.

How Polyface Makes $60,000/ year USD on 20 acres with pigs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sWYa53Z_NUY

From everything I have researched and practiced, I like to do a batch of 8 pigs on 1 acre. They arrive 6 weeks old and the next 6 weeks they go in a barn or shed while giving them a metal panel run where they are trained to electric fence. Then they move to the forest paddocks for 12 weeks before going off to the processor.

The 1 acre forest paddock is cross fenced and subdivided into cells. Every 5-7 days they are moved to the next cell, when they empty their feeder it is rolled by hand to the next cell and they follow.

Each 1 acre paddock only sees 1 batch of pigs each year so it can recover fully. Or multiple batches in a year go through one paddock before fully renovating the area for other uses.

In 2021 I hope to do 3 batches of pigs in East Wellington and 1 batch at Willows Bend Estate where I am doing two batches this year.

I wanted to share this with you because I see it as the best way to have a lot of fun getting your farm status and make use, regenerative use, of your forest. A nice combination would be some renovation to convert portions of the forest into walking trails, and leaving other portions for annual hog production.

Ben Glassen
www.GlassenFarms.com
604-831-6955
Nanaimo, BC