Moving The Boars

So how does one move an almost 700 lb boar from one place to another?

Very carefully!!! And with plenty of treats. Today I had to move boars around to different pastures. I needed to take Redbeard, our senior boar into the barn and then I had to take our youngest boar, "7 of 9" (yes, that is his name. We are Trekies here!!) and put him out in a pasture of sows.  Generally we try to move pigs around when there are several people around to help out. One to open gates and to keep the rest of the pigs in the fields where they belong, someone to trail treats at the front end  of the pig and someone to push from the hind end if needed.  Today all I had was just little old me.. No  helpers, no emergency bodies in case things went wrong.. just me, the hogs, and my bucket of bread.

Bread, you say? Yep, bread... The hogs love a little bit of bread for a treat. We always try to keep a few loaves around in the barn for just special occasions like today. So.. I grabbed my bucket  of already opened bread (it must be unwrapped already or it will take to long to get into it, and you will loose your pig!), then I grabbed my "emergency hog moving tool", which is a plastic manure fork, and I set out for Redbeard's home pasture.

It was a bit tricky getting RB (Redbeard) isolated away from his ladies. They like bread too, so if they knew that I had it, they would be all over me for treats too. I got lucky and RB was off by himself somewhat.. So I used my fork to act as a portable barrier and walked him to the corner gate. No worries about me using a fork on him. We don't use the forks for pokers, but instead we use them as a quick visual barrier up by the pig's head. If you put up "walls" where you don't want the pig to go he will go the other direction. With quick reflexes and a light enough "tool", you can have your "walls" jump from side to side and the pig meanders in just the direction you want him to go. Most of the time, that is. Occasionally they decide that the fork isn't wall enough and they just go where they want to go. Luck was with me today. Redbeard went where I wanted him to go, into the garden.

Once he was out of the pasture and into the garden, I put the gate up behind me and ran to the front end of him. Once there, I started tossing tiny bits of bread in front of his nose. He'd eat one and then see me toss the next one, so he's move forward a few feet and eat the next.. You have to be "johnny on the spot with the bread", not to far apart, not to slow to get the next one out (or they'll wander off), not too big of a piece (or they stand there and chew).. and if they get full because you forgot to move the  pig before you fed him dinner, you are out of luck for easy pig moving, and not to small of a piece (or they can't see it when you toss it) and so on and so on. Bread tossing is an art here  on the farm.. In this manner we traveled through the garden, down the driveway, through the barnyard and into his new temporary digs. There he recieved a small pile of bread and a bed of fresh straw..

Whew!! One down, one to go.

7 is our youngest boar and we have decided to give him a group of sows of his own. He is a lively hog that moves very quickly and is easily distracted by whatever catches his fancy. Again luck was on my side, 7 was standing by his gate. Of course Jackson (the next bigger boar) was also there and as soon as the bred sows heard me rattle the gate chain they come running out.. I managed to get 7 out the gate, while the other 3 pigs were distracted with a scoop full of grain scattered about. Now I had 7 standing on the driveway alone. He needed to go  back up the drive, through the garden and into one of our other pastures. Lucky for me, 7 loves to eat (he is a pig after all!), so as long as I was able to keep those bread crumbs coming quickly he was happy to follow me. Its a good thing to because he runs much faster then me and if I had had to "push" him with my fork, he would likely have just gone for a sprint and I would have been out of luck.

5 minutes later, 7 was in the field with his new ladies and I was feeling pretty darned smug about how well it all went. I checked "boar moving" off my "to do" list and went on to the next task.  My smugness was short lived when a little bit into the next task, I was startled by " a huge pig loose in the barn yard". Not that big of a deal, as he was just calmly grazing the winter grass, but still a pain none the less because I really didn't have time to be chasing pigs. It turns out that Redbeard got bored in his barn house and he put his nose under a rung of his gate and pushed it up off its gate pins. Stuff like that is a piece of cake for a hog, they are built for lifting things up with their noses.  I put him back, fixed the gate, tried to jury rig a quick solution (pretend hotwire across the gate) and went back to my list.

An hour passed. It was then dusk, things were getting dark and I was finished with my chores when I saw a shadow running up the driveway (headed for his old pasture and his own bed!). Shoot.. he is out again! This time I had no bread close by, but I did  have my fork, so I grabbed it and herded him back to his barn house. Reluctantly he went in and went to lay in his bed, staring at the wall, pouting no doubt.. He was also likely plotting to escape again as soon as I left his sight. I needed a solution quickly to this problem. It would not do to have him roaming at liberty all night long. Hmmmmmm.. Ah Ha! The tractor bucket. I ran and I do mean ran up to the house to get the tractor. Darned if I was going to give him time to get out again. I drove the tractor back and put the bucket on top of the gate, pushing it down tight to the ground. I bent the top rung of the gate a tiny bit, but I think he will find it impossible to escape tonight. We'll get him a new pasture built this weekend if the ground thaws out enough to allow post pounding.

BRRRR, Red Wattle Hogs in the cold.

We've come to that time in the year where we occasionally get bouts of cold cold weather.. Now I know that in comparison to really cold places, our cold weather is kids stuff. But for people that are used to mid 40's (and upwards) and rain all winter long, anytime the temperature drops below 32 during the day time it causes all sorts of trouble.

Because we only get little bits of below freezing weather, we just don't have everything set up to handle it very well. Freezing temps around here mean it's time to bundle up and "make it work". Someday in the future we'll have all of our water lines buried so there are no more hassles with draining water hoses or worse yet, trying to thaw hoses that didn't drain or weren't drained for some reason. Also in the future is a new barn complete with a solarium for those cold but sunny days and we'll be building several new portable huts for the fields.


Jim and Daniel spent much of Sunday rebuilding "The Goat Shed" so that it would be wind and cold resistent for the group of 4 Red Wattle hogs that current reside in it. This is an old building that has been threatening to fall down since we bought the place. Actually it looks more wobbly then it really is as someone braced the whole structure years ago.. the frame is reasonably stable, but the walls have been nibbled on and the horses are always trying to dismantle it so they can reach the straw used for the pigs' bedding. So one wall was pretty much gone. You can see where we've used some salvaged plywood on the walls to keep the wind (and the horses!!) out.

While the boys worked on the shed, Anne and I made sure that everyone (the animals that is) had enough straw in their beds so they could snuggle in and be warm. We have animals all over the farm so there are many different housing arrangments that all needed attention. One of our breeding groups of Red Wattles lives over in the west field that has "The Goat Shed" in it. The other breeding group lives on the east side of the driveway and they have a group of individual huts for their housing. While the huts are sized for one adult sow (and her litter) I have often seen more then one big pig inside of them especially in cold weather. One day last year I went out to feed and couldn't find any of the hogs that was supposed to be in that particular pasture. There were 2 sows with 6 piglets (6 week old piglets I might add). Also in that group was a 150 lb feeder pig. They were no where to be seen. I called them and poured food into their pans. Still no pigs.. Hmmm.. I figured they were in the houses and would come out when they were ready. Yep, that is exactly what happened. What I did not expect to see was all 9 pigs coming out of ONE HUT!!! I wish I had had a camera with me that day. It was like those times when teenagers try to see how many kids they can fit into a VW bug. You think that they can't possibily fit in another and yet they do. That house must have been packed 3 deep in pigs, but somehow they all fit. It was pretty funny.

Anyway, in this cold weather I have noticed that 2 of the sows are sharing a house, while the other sow and the boar each choose to stay alone in their huts. We have put tons of straw in the houses so they stay warm enough even though it it cold out.


The last group of Red Wattles is a group of feeder pigs and replacement gilts. They live in the field that has access to our big old barn. They normally sleep in a straw bedded area that in past years has been where the cows are fed. Since our cows live elsewhere during the winter, its been taken over by the hogs. Because it is so cold out right now (it was 14 degrees when I woke up today), we have also opened up the upper level of the barn for the pigs to go inside if they want to. They run up a ramp and into one stall. That stall has a little door that leads into a bigger stall. It is in that bigger stall that we make a bed for them. We've noticed that most of the feeder pigs still sleep outside, but 3 of the smaller ones do go inside to sleep. I guess it all works out for them.



Even though it is below freezing everyone still gets up from their beds and goes out for some grazing on the short winter grass.

Making Lard ~ Not as hard as you might think.

So. I have in my freezer several packages of pasture raised Red Wattle fat. I have never been one to ask for all the "extra stuff" that is produced when the butcher does the cut and wrap on a slaughtered hog. But at this point in the game, we figure if we have to pay the butcher based on hanging weight, we might as well get back as much of that entire weight as possible. So I have packages of pork fat, pork skin, pork organs and all the rest of what I call "The Icky Bits" and I am bound and determined to figure out how to use them all. Today I am making home rendered lard. I have made it once before and it was pretty easy. But that time I rendered the fat in a pot on top of my stove and I found that I felt overly "tethered" to the kitchen because I had to monintor the pot to make sure that the fat didn't get to hot and burn. Burning it would have resulted in a darker lard with a heavier flavor to it. The stove top lard turned out great but in the mean time I found a blog that suggested using my crock pot to render the lard. Perfect idea. Here is how I did it.


First, I took the fat from the freezer and let it thaw in the fridge overnight. Next I cut the fat into smallish chunks. The smaller the chunks, the faster your fat will render down. When I opened my package of fat, I found that not only did I have back fat in there, but I also had a big piece of what is called leaf lard. Leaf lard is the fat from around the pig's kidneys. It has a different texture to it then back fat does and rendered leaf lard is considered the ultimate product for making the most incredible pie crust. pictured are examples of both back fat and also leaf lard. You can see the different textures. Back fat is heavy,smooth, dense and hard. It is one solid chunk of fat. Leaf lard (on the left) is bumpy, softer and can be pulled apart easily. Also leaf lard melts at a lower temperature then back fat does.



Because I had a good sized chunk of leaf lard, I decided to go ahead and render it seperately from the rest of the fat. You can toss all types of fat into one pot and it will turn out just fine and you can use that lard for pie crusts as well. I thought the pies made with mixed lard tasted as good as the ones made with leaf lard only. Ultimately its up to the cook. Today I decided to use two pots rather then one. So take your fat (however you decide to do it) and chop it into small chunks.

Put the chunks into your crock pot, put on the lid, turn it on low and go about the rest of your day. If you think about it, you can stir the pot from time to time. This will help distribute the heat through the fat a bit quicker and get it melting better. Because I was home all day, I put the crock pot on high for a couple of hours in order to get the fat melting more quickly. When I went out for several hours, I turned it down to low, just to be safe. Again, I didn't want to scorch the fat.



Several hours later, you can see the lard starting to render out of the fat.



Once the fat had release most or all of its lard, I ran the whole thing through a straining set up to filter out the cracklings and impurities in the lard. I used 2 small holed strainers. The top one had no filter on it. I used this to catch the big stuff and had it drain into one that was lined with a clean papertowel, which I changed often. You could also use cheesecloth or a coffee filter if you wanted. I am not super picky about having pristine lard, so I just went with the papertowel method. Quick, easy, cheap and "good enough" for me.




Now I have hot, strained, rendered lard in jars.



All you have to do now is put it in the fridge overnight for it to solidify and then your done!!! Lard can be stored in the fridge for about a month. If you don't think you'll use it all before then, you can store lard in the freezer for several months.

You can use lard for anything you would normally use butter or okl for. Frying, baking or whatever!!