Welcome Home, Pigs!

The farm is growing! Slowly but surely, our farm vision is coming to life. One of the reasons we wanted more land was to raise Idaho Pasture Pigs. If you’ve followed us for a while, you’ll remember we raised 2 Idaho Pasture feeder pigs in 2021 at our old farmhouse. I did NOT want pigs, but Jourdian convinced me to give them a shot. Those pigs were like yard dogs - they loved scratches and treats and were so easy to manage. Harvest day for them was hard on my heart, but between meat and lard, those pigs were an enormous blessing for us. In September, we brought home our very first registered Idaho Pasture Pigs, all the way from Northern Indiana! Maverick and Annabelle will be ready to breed in the spring, so we plan to have our first litter of IPPs later next year.

We added pedigreed Silver Fox rabbits to the rabbitry, so now every rabbit we own is pedigreed. The Hollands should start their fall litters soon and Silver Foxes not far behind.

The Ancona chicken flock should start laying any day now, and we have been so pleased with them! They free range all day now and are so quick and alert, we haven’t lost any to predators since they've been full grown.

Our duck flock is a bit of a challenge. They are 100% free ranging, even at night, and they won’t lay their eggs in the duck house we have for them. We think they’re laying eggs in the pond and the eggs are sinking. Not sure what we’ll do there, but they need to pay their rent!

All in all, it’s been a wonderful first summer on the farm. We will soon start building extra grazing paddocks for the pigs to rotate on, and we might be adding another chicken breed to the farm soon too….just wait and see!