Thanks to our good friends (Russ and Kel) at the end of the valley, we are now owned by 3 little Welsh weaners. Our adventure in pigs started over a year ago, when having decided to switch from office jobs to a Smallholding life, Dave bought the Haynes Pig Manual by Liz Shankland (yes Haynes publish animal manuals too). In fact, before our relocation from Hertfordshire to the middle of West Wales we acquired a veritable library of smallholding, grow your own and animal husbandry books. Once we arrived in the Cambrian mountains we had no internet for the first 3-4 weeks and these books came into their own.
Pigs were top of our wish list but our knowledge was non-existent and we had hoped to attend a course. On arrival in Cwm Brefi, we soon discovered that there was a local man in the next valley raising Mangalitsa pigs (a heritage breed from Eastern Europe). I contacted him about getting some hands on experience of pigs but he advised that it was a closed farm and they did not need outside assistance. We looked at courses run by Kate Humble in Pembrookshire but these were fully booked for a year ahead. So we decided to put our pig plans on hold and focus on bringing the land back into good heart.
As is the way with all things Smallholdery, once we delayed the pig idea, things started moving forward. First, a pig arc came up for sale in a local Smallholding group. It turned out the author of the Pig Manual, Liz Shankland, was a member of the same group and we managed to not only obtained a perfectly usable pig arc for a fraction of the retail price but some excellent tips from the pig expert herself. She also recommended a fencing contractor. Then we discovered that our neighbours were planning a litter of piglets from their Welsh pigs, George and Brenda in July and everything seemed to be slotting into place.
We hired a digger, dug out the bank adjacent to the old failed vegetable patch (as stated by the previous owner) and created a more level cleared area ready for fencing. Our neighbour Dai, whose family had owned Graig for generations advised us that we had chosen an area of the farm known as maes mochyn bach or ‘little pig field’ which seemed very fitting. Work began in earnest on fencing the area and we manually dug holes with a digging bar for 30 odd 6ft intermediate fence posts along with four 7ft strainer posts and two 8ft gate posts. We dug down 2-3ft for the bigger posts, managed to break a clam shell digging shovel but made progress with its replacement, along with invaluable help from Andy Polkey, Tim Perrin and Russ Lambert. The hot summer weather was a double edged sword and intermediate drizzling rain was ignored.
Despite our best efforts, you can only do so much working on a project part time, we missed our 1st August deadline. Three little pigs arrived on 8th August in the back of Russ’s 4×4. They were wriggling and difficult to grab out of the car and squealed like they were being tortured at the slightest touch. It was a rude awakening. These pigs seem to squeal all the time, it takes some getting used to. Having said that they are playful, driven by their desire for food, which I can relate to, naturally curious and very good at digging up roots. The land will be weeded, dug over and fertilised.
