Five weeks from Saturday
Saturday morning the first set of piglets were born on Okfuskee Farm. Okfuskee is just a few miles from Circle Acres and the source of the first pigs we raised last year. This year we are getting four pigs from Okfuskee. We’ll raise them through November, repeating most of the same process as last year.
This year there is a new shelter, a scavenged bamboo and baling twine number that I built over the course of a few days. It isn’t much to look at, but it is dry and, more importantly, lightweight. Moving last year’s pig house was a nightmare. It was heavy and unwieldy; I cursed it, the pigs destroyed it as they aged, knocking out the floor and the walls. Now its shell sits with last year’s scarecrow along the forest edge, waiting for new purposes and locations.
The new house is basically a tent with one open wall. It can be staked down after moving in case it is windy. But that is all boring stuff… Who wants to see the two day old piglets!
Five weeks from this coming Saturday the piglets will be weaned (according to the Animal Welfare Approved time line). Shortly after that, the pigs will come home and join the rest of us animals.
