Of all the culinary adventures I've had over the past few years, at River Cottage and elsewhere, one of the most satisfying - in the field, in the kitchen and, not least, at the table - is the rearing and processing of my own pigs. From the day of collecting a pair of wriggling, squealing piglets, to the consumption of the last sliver of dry-cured ham from the same animals (anything up to two years later), I have found the entire process a complete joy.
Rearing your own pigs is not such a wildly impractical option as most people might think, though equally, like all stock rearing, it's not to be undertaken lightly. Pigs are not wilfully aggressive but they are big, greedy and not necessarily able to make a distinction between the carrot that is offered them and the hand that is holding it. They have powerful jaws, which can give a serious bite. There is no reason why small children cannot enjoy looking at and even touching your pigs but they should be supervised at all times. Contented pigs are quiet, happy animals and shouldn't give you much trouble. Your neighbours may be more sceptical but, provided they are forewarned, they may come to enjoy the presence of your pigs as much as you do. A little bit of noisy squealing at feeding time is the worst they will have to put up with.
The best way to get started in pigs is not to commit straight away to a breeding sow, but to buy two or more 'weaners' - piglets of seven to ten weeks old that have been weaned from their mothers and are ready to live independently. Buy them in spring and you can take them home, then fatten them up throughout the summer for slaughter as 'baconers' in the autumn. A baconer is a pig of nine months or older and is usually at least 70kg carcass weight. 'Porkers', by contrast, are killed at four to five months old and traditionally used entirely for fresh meat. Ironically I have found the fresh meat from my baconers to be better than any commercially reared pork. If you choose a pair of pigs (and as pigs are sociable, gregarious creatures, you absolutely must have at least two) of a hardy breed, you will find them quite self-sufficient, and you won't have to worry about the finer points of farrowing (looking after a breeding sow and her piglets). Give the weaners the space they need, a proper shelter, clean fresh water every day and the right diet, and there is every chance they will remain healthy and happy from the day they arrive to the day you take them to slaughter. If the pig bug bites, so to speak, and you have the confidence, time and space, you can get yourself a breeding sow and take your porcine husbandry on to the next stage. But before you do that, get yourself a good pig manual, and talk at length to an experienced small-scale pig breeder about the art of successful farrowing.
Choosing a breed
If you are planning to keep your pigs outdoors (which is the only way to do it that is of any interest to me), it makes sense to think in terms of a hardy breed that is well adapted to outdoor life. This includes just about all the old or 'rare' breeds, such as the Gloucester Old Spot, the Saddleback, the Middle White, the Berkshire, the Tamworth etc. These traditional breeds are very self-sufficient and far less susceptible to health problems than the modern commercial hybrids. Of course, unless you are interested in breeding and showing pedigree pigs, there is no reason why your chosen weaners should be pure bred. The old breeds cross with each other extremely well. I started with a pair of pure-bred Gloucester Old Spots, but since then have been experimenting with rare-breed crosses: Tamworth/Old Spot and Saddleback/Duroc. All have loved the outdoor life, and, to date, touch wood, I have had no health problems with any of them. Ringing the changes with different breeds, and discerning the resulting differences in the taste and texture of their meat, is all part of the fun.
These kinds of pig will tend to be slower growing, and fatter at the finish, than the commercial hybrids. But that shouldn't worry you in the least; they will taste outstanding, retain more moisture during cooking, and your bacon especially will be all the better for the extra fat.
Where to keep them
Because you will be providing them with other sources of feed than grazing, pigs do not need nearly as much space as sheep or cows. They do, however, need some room - enough to break into a trot every now and again - and ideally a little variety in their environment. For a pair of pigs you should fence off an absolute minimum of 150 square metres. Light or free-draining soil is preferable to heavy clay. In wet weather any pig run is sure to become a mud bath, but your pigs will be more comfortable if it dries out fairly quickly. The perfect pig run for the smallholder would be a little copse or patch of rough ground with a few trees in it - trees provide a bit of shade and something for the pigs to rub against (they love a good scratch). An orchard or the corner of an orchard would be heaven.
Not everyone has such a perfect porcine habitat at their disposal. On the other hand, with a bit of ingenuity, any patch of ground that is big enough can be made to work for you. A featureless patch of pasture can be made more pig-friendly by the addition of an old tree trunk to rub against and a large pile of brush wood to rest up in (pigs like to have alternatives to their regular shelter). An old dead tree dragged into their pen is better than no tree at all. An old tractor tyre will provide amusement - but take it out again if they start eating it!
Shelter
Pigs must have a secure shelter to sleep and rest in but it doesn't have to be fancy. The specially made corrugated-iron pig arcs are not the prettiest of things, but they are economical and very practical options. The entrance of the arc should face away from the prevailing wind, and the inside should be well bedded down with fresh straw. More straw around and outside the entrance will help to keep the inside clean. Pigs like to keep their beds clean, and tend to toss out any soiled straw. Give them fresh bedding every three to four weeks.
A traditional brick-built sty, or a stable or another suitable outbuilding are other options for keeping pigs, but they are harder work to maintain as they need weekly mucking out. They must also open out on to a decent outdoor run of soft, rootable ground (i. e. not concrete). A dedicated outbuilding of this kind, which should ideally have a supply of electricity, is essential for farrowing sows.
Food
One of the great attractions of keeping pigs is that they will thrive on your kitchen and garden leftovers. They will eat just about anything you offer them, so the responsibility to make sure they do not have anything inappropriate rests with you. The golden rule is NO MEAT OF ANY KIND. Few households generate enough leftovers to keep two pigs properly fed, so your best option is to buy in a supply of pelleted feed (pignuts), based on a good balance of cereal ingredients. Organic pignuts are available, and highly recommended. A 25kg bag of organic pignuts will last a pair of young weaners two to three weeks. Larger animals nearly ready for slaughter will get through that amount of feed in about half the time.
Pignuts can be used as a basic feed, but replaced whenever you have a decent meal's worth of leftovers. We seem to average about one meal in four from household and garden scraps, and rather more than that in the summer when the vegetable garden is at its most productive. Pigs love greens, and ours tend to get all our bean and pea pods, over-the-top spinach and any trimmings from kitchen vegetable preparation. They will even enjoy grass cuttings, but only a few handfuls: more will upset their stomachs. Stale or leftover bread, buns, biscuits, cereals, cooked rice, pasta, potatoes and all starches go down well, as do dairy scraps such as cheese, milk, butter etc. If you have neighbours who are prepared to contribute to your swill bin, so much the better. You can pay them back in bacon and chops at the end of the year. You will find it immensely satisfying to recycle and minimise waste in this way. The only loser is the compost heap - these days I struggle to maintain one, as practically al my vegetable waste goes to the chickens or pigs.
If you want to minimise the amount of bought-in feed you give to your pigs you can set aside a patch of land for growing a dedicated fodder crop, such as wurzels, swedes or the very fast-growing stubble turnips. Pigs love roots like these, and the green tops as well.
Slaughter
Your first pair of pigs is likely to have given you so much pleasure that the prospect of taking them to slaughter will inevitably seem a little daunting. There is no doubt that people get attached to pigs. But there is one strategy for minimising emotional trauma at 'the end' that you can deploy throughout the time you spend looking after the pigs. It may sound a bit gruesome but it works for me. Basically it's to do with attitude, and the way you think about your pigs. Put crudely: never stop thinking about your pigs as potential bacon. Even when you first bring them to their patch, have an eye on the future products you plan to get from them. Admire their growing hams, then go and research what kind of cure you might pickle them in. And as you watch them rooting for beach mast, or tucking into a trough of windfall apples, think about what it will do for the flavour of their meat. As the time for slaughter draws near, size up the length of that side of bacon. None of this means you need ever lose sight of your pigs' needs, or that you cannot enjoy your contact with them, or their behavioural antics. On the contrary, their happiness, and your ultimate plans for them, are inextricably linked: the happier your pigs, the better you can feel about taking them to slaughter, and the tastier the feast you have to look forward to.
That is said, of course, with the benefit of hindsight, and with five seasons of pig-rearing under my belt. The first time is the hardest. My first pair of pigs were the first animals I ever took to slaughter, and the strange thing is I really didn't know how I was going to feel about it until I did it. As things turned out, and rather to my surprise, I didn't find it all that distressing. Efficiency is the order of the day, and that means help from at least one other person who really knows what they're doing. In my case Peggy Darvill, who sold me the pigs in the first place, came over with her partner, Steve, to help me load them up. Incidentally, if you only have two pigs - or only two left - it is crucial welfare procedure that you take them both to slaughter on the same day. It is even more unkind to leave a pig used to company on its own than to rear a lone pig in the first place.
My pigs had not been moved anywhere since the day they came to River Cottage seven months earlier. Now we had to get them out of their pen, across the bridge over the river, and into the back of the waiting trailer: all in all a potentially stressful procedure. The key, Steve explained, is to narrow their options for escape, keep them hungry, and lure them into the trailer with a bucket of feed. So we made a funnel-like path from the end of their pen to the bridge with old wooden boards and corrugated-iron sheets and lined the ground with straw all the way up the ramp and into the back of the trailer. I went ahead of them, rattling a bucket of feed (they hadn't been given their breakfast), while Peggy and Steve coaxed them gently from behind, ready to turn them if they tried to go back. It went like clockwork: they followed the bucket straight into the trailer, and hardly any pushing and shoving was required.
Steve and I took them to Snell's, a small local slaughterhouse outside Chard that gives an excellent and personal service. It's just a forty-minute drive from River Cottage. We unloaded them into the waiting pen, where they sniffed around inquisitively for a few minutes until the two slaughtermen came and walked them round the corner into the slaughter building. Almost as soon as they were out of sight I heard the clunk of the stunning tongs, and both pigs were gone without so much as a squeal. I waited twenty minutes or so while they were 'done'. I didn't watch the process (although I could have done if I'd wanted) but I did ask for an explanation of exactly what happens. I think everyone who takes an animal to slaughter should know this, so, for the record, here is the procedure: once stunned by an electric shock from the stunning tongs (after which they are unconscious), the pigs are hoisted up by their back legs to be carried down the 'production line' on a moving chain. First of all they have their throat cut and are bled out (the slaughterman will collect the blood for you on request). It is this process of bleeding that actually kills them. Next they are dipped in near-boiling water for a matter of seconds to loosen the bristles, which are then removed by an automated 'de-hairer' - this works by beating the body of the pig with rubber paddles. The belly of the carcass is then slit and the animal eviscerated. The liver, heart and lights (lungs) are hung up for inspection, after which any edible offal requested by the client is removed and bagged up. Finally the carcass is washed down inside and out with a powerful jet of warm water before being moved to the pre-chiller, and then the cold room, where it will hang until collected.
Throughout my first experience of taking home-reared animals to slaughter I never really felt upset or guilty - just rather anxious that it should all go smoothly. That it did was a huge relief, and due in no small part to the calm efficiency of Steve who was with me. I would certainly recommend any first-timer to go with someone who's been before and knows the ropes. I went home that day with a bag of offal, a bucket of blood and a clean conscience. Back at River Cottage I made black pudding and fried a slice of liver for my supper. The next time I saw my two pigs they were hanging in a butcher's cold room four days later. By that time I had really forgotten all about their charming personalities; they were nothing more nor less than the raw materials for a very exciting culinary challenge. I couldn't wait to get cracking. And, indeed, crackling.