This Little Piggy...

Get a pig!

We heard this often when we moved to our block.  One friend’s parents have a pig farm and she told us that their housewarming present was a weaner piglet for us as soon as we were ready for one.  I did a little research and found that pigs are quite sociable animals and better off with company so I asked if I could buy a companion for the promised piglet.

We were slowly sorting the pigpen.  It had obviously been used at some stage for pigs, but with no gate, an entire section of fence missing, no water trough and overhanging macrocarpas it looked like it was going to be a lot of work.

Hubby came home from the pub one night and told me that through a friend of his we were being given a pig.  Furthermore, it was coming in a couple of days!  That fence got fixed very quickly.  It’s amazing what you can get done in a hurry when you have to and pallets are a useful resource as well as being free.  We found a laundry tub in a paddock, jammed a lid into the plughole and filled it using a bucket.  We were out there until dark, trimming macrocarpa branches and hauling them out of the pen.

Then Wilma arrived.  I had thought we were getting a piglet, not an overfat 9 month old Kune kune pig.  He was so fat that we couldn’t tell what sex he was for a few months.  120 kg they told us.  He’d been a pet that got too big so he went to a relative’s pig farm.  He’d get up in the morning and lie in the food trough, eating all day and preventing the other pigs from eating.  He wasn’t worth slaughtering because he was overfat - he’d only be good for sausages.

Wilma when he first arrived.

The poor thing took 3 hours to walk the 60m from where they unloaded him from the trailer to the pig pen.  Every 10 steps he’d stop and gasp and wheeze.  I thought he was going to have a heart attack before we made it to the pig pen.

Because we had the pig pen sorted, the other two arrived a week or so later.  Miss Six named them Para and Cricket.  Large whites I was told, but they were partly black, so there must have been a cross in there somewhere.  Another two boys.

A little bit of research and tight finances meant that I didn’t buy pellet feed for them for a while.  Kune kune pigs are better living on grass, it’s their natural diet and there is no harm in having other pigs mostly feeding on grass.  That’s something we had in abundance.  Wilma slimmed down quite a bit on his new restricted diet.  Grass and kitchen scraps.  Before long he would come running when I called the pigs.  Something I wouldn’t have believed when we got him.

We were still unable to be absolutely certain as to the gender of Wilma.  He mothered the piglets and took good care of them, so I had made the assumption that Wilma was a girl.  We have the start of eternal pigs I thought, once the little ones are big enough to breed, we’ll start getting piglets.

Then one day I noticed Wilma was flat on his back in the paddock.  I went over to check on him.  He seemed to be sunning his belly.  There was no mistaking his gender at that point.  Everything was clearly exposed.  He was also stuck.  I spent about 20 mins trying to help this heavy pig turn over so he could get up.  It wasn’t helped by the fact that I was laughing all the way through it.  The piglets kept coming to help - their idea of help was to climb all over poor Wilma.

Wilma with Para and Cricket.

Sadly, there was no point in keeping three boars, so as Wilma was nearing a year old, it was time to call the homekill guy.  I knew he’d be the hardest one, he was our first animal and had the sweet nature that Kunes are renowned for.  I felt I owed it to him to stay with him for it and I did.  I was okay with the slaughter part but I had to leave when he was being skinned.  The butcher rang to tell me he wasn’t sure how well the meat would turn out as there was a lot of fat still, but he’d do his best.  $130 for the slaughter, 6 large rolls of pork (I’d estimate them at a minimum of 5kg each), 8 hocks (not quite sure how we got 8 - I’ve made jokes about Spiderpig) and a bag of pork bones.

It was the best pork I’ve ever eaten.  I can’t go back to the bland crap from the supermarket after that.  It’s the diet I’m told.  I got a lecture from a well-meaning neighbour about how I needed to be giving them pellet or mash feed because it mellows the flavour.  I don’t want it mellowed now.  That was divine.

I’ll tell Para and Cricket’s stories in another post.