This little piggy went to market!

With just a little more than 3 months at True North, our two pigs have been sent to The Butcher Block...literally. The Butcher Block is a butcher that lives close by us and was highly recommended.

Of course, like all things at True North, this process was not without its problems. Unfortunately I can only blame myself, as usual. Back when we decided to get pigs and we were doing our research, one of the things that was stressed was to make sure you had a way to transport your livestock. Well, needless to say I waited until the last minute and my transportation plans fell apart.

I have a small trailer that I use to haul wood and my plan was to build small walls around it, load the pigs up, and away we'd go. That was until I got my truck stuck with the trailer on...unhooked the trailer...and then proceeded to back over the hitch, crushing the mechanism that attaches to the ball, ripping off the right side tail lights and the license plate. Now, before you feel too sorry for me I should disclose that all this damage took place in February, and I kept putting off the repairs. The next thing I knew the pigs were ready to go, the trailer wasn't, and I had a ton of stuff to do that wasn't related to either. Such is life...and one day I'll learn procrastination is not a virtue, especially when your trying to save money.

Enter Russ: Russ is the man we bought the two pigs from. From the start, when we first met him, I thought he was great. Good-natured, friendly, and didn't treat us with disdain because we didn't know what we were doing. Instead, he guided us through this process; first by selling us wonderful animals, then checking them out when they closed in on the finishing line, and finally by transporting them in his trailer to the butcher for a very cheap price (20 bucks!). Thanks Russ, we'll see you next spring when we buy the next set of pigs!

So Russ shows up, and my pigs practically run into his trailer and lay down. I had Melissa and my older brother James (visiting from Vegas...more on that later) there for help, and Russ had brought one of his hired hands. All that man-power...not needed! Our pigs had been great from the beginning, and it appeared that they would leave they way they came....in good spirits!

After the loading, me and my brother followed Russ to the butchers, and after some quick introductions we unloaded the pigs. Again, with hardly any prompting, the pigs jumped off the trailer and headed inside. It was the last time I would see them alive. With that we filled out some paper work and decided how we wanted them butchered.

As we were returning home I took some time to reflect on the pigs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not squeamish about these types of things; I've hunted for years, but this was a little different. Never before had we raised an animal for slaughter. I had not gotten attached to the pigs, but I had gotten attached to our routine and their squealing during food time. I am also very attached to bacon and ham, so my nostalgia didn't last long. However, we did enjoy our time with them and we are looking forward to next spring when our pen will once again be occupied by a couple of smart and entertaining animals, whom, if only for a short time, will live like kings at True North.

Once I get the final cost of the butchering, and exactly how much meat we get I'll post up how cost effective it was to raise them. A special thanks goes out to Norm (my mother's husband) for purchasing the white pig and helping us off-set our costs! On to the pictures:

Are we there yet?

The guy we purchased the pigs from came over yesterday. He said the pigs look great and we could butcher them now if want. Although he said if it were him he would wait another 2 weeks to get a really good chop out of them. So the countdown begins! We have 2 weeks to find our butcher (which he recommended a good one) and the biggest most important thing to find some one to buy our other pig to cover the cost of the one we keep. He said we are looking at about $1 per pound hanging weight, plus the cost of butcher. So we hope to get about $300 or a little more. That will work perfect for us!

Oh and on a funny note....apparently he said we have 2 boys (brothers). Not a boy and a girl...poor black one has had an identity crisis all this time.

They keep growing and growing and growing....

The garden is taking shape! We have the following growing successfully; watermelon, onion, 3 kinds of tomato, acorn squash, pole beans, potatoes, corn, 2 kinds of cucumbers, peppers and radishes. Crossing our fingers for the lettuce to come up. We planted strawberry's that were already established in a bed and dug up and given to us (Thanks Norm). They seem to be doing good.

We were unsuccessful with our first batch of onion, cauliflower, broccoli, seed peppers and carrots. I think we planted the seeds to deep in the ground with the combination of the not-so-warm weather here in Michigan. We even had a frost in June.

A few things we have learned:
1)Plant seeds inside before season starts.
2)Plant like package says or what fellow family/friends say who have grown it before.
3)Check the weather to see if rain is coming, no need to waste our own water.
4)Don't always count on the weather....LOL

MIL says we should be able to harvest the radishes soon. They were our first crop to be planted and looking nice.

Oh the NOT so little, 3 LITTLE PIGS. Yes they have grown. The are so damn big I think we will be butchering them sooner than expected. The guy we bought them from is coming out today to let us know what he thinks. We were told it would take from March to July to fatten up. About 4 full months. I think ours did it in about 3 and 1/2 months. So far the girl (black one) has fattened up a bit larger the the boy (white one). We still have to make a final decision on the butcher. We've had lots of info thrown at us. We need to keep our costs as low as possible. We halos need to get rid of the other pig. Our plan was to eat one, and sell one to pay for the one we eat. Well at the very least cover as much of the costs as possible.

A few things we learned:
1) Pigs eat ALMOST anything. If they get good scrap, feed and can graze, they leave the greens (grass/weeds/corn husks) til last and may not even eat them at all because they are full.
2)Pigs are pushy and taste test everything. Walk into the pen and suddenly you and your tools become a food samples.
3)Even a big heavy feeding trough and water trough get knocked over. Better to have them nailed to the fence.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

It seems to me...from emails and comments I have received, that there is misinformation floating about. Apparently, there is confusion as to which one of our animals ate our three little chicks. Their untimely demise was bad enough, but to accuse the wrong animal of doing the awful deed is criminal.

The Good:
Maximus...aka The Baby Boy. This seemingly normal toy fox terrier is anything but that. He is a 'Good Boy", and we often shower him with that and other similar types of praise. If fact we strongly believe that Max wants to be a 'Real Boy', and as such would never harm defenseless chickens. In this photo it shows Max leaning in towards the chicks...not in an aggressive manner as those in the media might suggest...no, Max only wanted to kiss them. Verdict: Innocent.

The Bad:
Pretty Kitty...the cat with an identity crisis. He eats dog food, fears the outdoors, acts creepy on most occasions (gaining the new name: Creepy kitty), and is a brutal mouse eliminator. In the winter months nary a mouse survives long. As the weather becomes cold, and the mice seek refuge in our house it is to their folly. Pretty Kitty will not suffer them to live long. So, BAD to mice...didn't give the chicks a second glance. Verdict: Innocent.

The Ugly:
Gypsy...the dog gone wild. Once she was a loving animal that desired staying close to us and enjoy the comforts of home. Now, she seeks to escape at any given chance and attempts to terrorize nature's wild life. It is a constant battle with this wayward dog to keep her out of trouble. Yet, her place with us is secure for we have had her for many years. Her ugly behavior, however, might lead to a fenced in pen and a permanent 'outside dog'. Verdict: Guilty.


All joking aside, Gypsy really is a concern for us. We love her very much, but she is having difficulty finding her place at True North. We've become more vigilant when it comes to her escapes, and we our investigating alternatives to the common chain. Hopefully, very soon, she wont be a worry for us, but a joy like she once was.

Little Enlightenment's

We have found that every so often we learn a little something along our journey so we decided to do a regular post titled "Little Enlightenment's". Little Enlightenment's are what we refer to as small tid-bits of things we never knew before. Most are not of great importance but are none the less something we learned along the journey. Last weeks EL's were the following:

1) Sap is hard to get off of your hands! Note to self: put your gloves on before you pick up evergreen branches.

2)Pigs like evergreen branches. Who would have thought they would eat the branch and all!

3)Bird feeders get a hard clump of food in the bottom of the feeder, so clean it out! The seed doesn't fall very good if you don't. Then you can't watch the birds while you drink your coffee every morning...lol

Gone But Not Forgotten

Unfortunately we had our first animal tragedy. Our 3 baby chicks are all gone. Gypsy our dog decided they were not a part of the pack, like we hoped she would think. Instead, instincts took over and she ate all 3. It was very sad for us all, but a learning experience none the less. We are still planning to get the 3 larger laying hens, but are undecided on whether to get babies again.

Build it and they will come.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, taking care of our pigs has been nothing compared to the preparation in getting our homestead ready for them. Fencing and housing were the big concerns...and our budget...under $100 for a large pen and their pig house.

The Plan: Our first chore was deciding where to put the pigs. Although at first this seemed like a relative easy decision to make, it turned out to be harder than it looked. We have quite a bit of property, but wanted to keep the pigs close, so as to be able to keep a close eye on them and make feeding and watering convenient...but how close? Having never raised any farm animals before we were concerned about smell; everyone told us how bad pigs stink. We also considered our view. From our deck we have a beautiful view. One of our favorite pastimes is to sit on our deck, with a cold brew after a hard days work, and watch the local wildlife. The last thing we wanted to do was spoil this view with a pig pen.
After much deliberation we decided on an area off to the North side of our house. There's a lot of briers and thorns in the area and I thought it would be nice if the pigs could rid us of the eye-sore. We would be able to see our pigs from the deck, but our view of the Landscape would not be obstructed.

Fence Materials: When we first started researching getting the pigs I wanted to be able to graze them as much as possible to cut down on purchased food for them. With this in mind we needed a large pen, but our budget had to be kept in mind, and fencing isn't cheap.
Most people, who had experience with pigs, were saying that we needed to have an electric fence. This made a lot of sense to me; better containment and move-ability if I chose to "fold" them into a different area. However, I decide against this because of the initial start up cost, and, more importantly, I didn't want one more thing running off the electric meter. Our goal here is self sufficiency...not dependency. I had to take stock of what supplies I had.
Awhile back a friend of mine was doing some yard cleaning and he had quite a bit of privacy fencing that was in pretty bad shape. I helped him take it down (what was still standing!) and brought it out here to our property. At the time I planned to use it for our paintball field but never got around to it. So, for the last few years, this fencing layed useless on the edge of our woods. That was all about to change.
The fence was mostly 6' tall and was in sections of 8' lenghts. I figured I could cut it down so it was just over 3' high and use it for the enclosure. I had just enough of good sections to fence in the side of the pen that would be most visible from our house. Since the fence came with wooden posts I wouldn't need to buy any.
Now, this fencing, which was surprisingly in better condition than I thought, was painted a ghastly orange on one side. Melissa, however, had the great idea of using the unpainted side, which was a fantastic grey-weathered look, as the side we could see. the result was great...giving us a really cool rustic style fence.
As for the rest of the pen, my parents, some years ago, had raised some cows for beef. They had mostly used electric fence, but in some areas had used wire fencing. There were quite a bit of metal posts scattered throughout the property (some in good condition, others not) , that after a day of collecting them we had just enough to cover the area we needed. The wire fencing was another matter altogether.
There was plenty of the metal fence, but time and weather had knocked most of it down, entangled it in weeds, and frankly left it in pretty poor condition. The good news was that it hadn't rusted! I wont bore you with the details, but after a lot of hard work, an out of control fire, and prying it up from frozen ground, we managed to get enough of it to finish the pig pen. The cost so far....calloused hands, a few cuts and bruises, and zero dollars. Perfect.

The Pig House: After looking at a few different designs online, I decided to make a simple 'A' frame style house. We still had quite a lot of the old privacy fence left, so I figured I could use that to cover the frame work. Throughout the years we've managed to collect a number of wood supplies, through various projects and salvage, that I had no trouble finding enough 2x4's. The decking I used for the floor of the house came from the bottom of an old water bed I had dismantled long ago. With the frame built, me and Melissa, cut the privacy fence to size, and assembled (the far bigger than expected) house. We were really happy with the outcome, but due to the gaps in the fence it wasn't water proof. We needed to due something about that as I wanted my pigs to have a nice dry home.
When the basement for our house was built (7 years ago) the construction guys had left 2 very large canvas bags, the kind they fill with bags of cement and use a fork lift to carry around. These two bags have laid around the property, covered in weeds for all that time, and amazingly were still in really good condition. We decided to use the canvas, once we had cut it into usable sections as our water-proofing. We didn't want it to go on the outside since we liked the gray wood look, so with a staple gun we attached it to the inside.
Lastly, we needed something to go on the top. As it happens, back when my great-grandparents farmed this land they had pigs, and deep in the woods, lost to the wilderness, were the remnants of some old wooden pig houses. The houses were in terrible shape, rotted and fallen, but one still had a metal top piece that although rusted, was intact and ready to be placed on our new pig house. It was nice to add a bit of the old farm (we figured the pig house were at least 50 years old) to the new homestead. I'm sure when my relatives built those pig houses they never dreamed that a part of them would be used to cover swine so many years later.

The Gate: Nothing fancy here, just an old gate my father had built during his cow raising days. I think he'd be happy to see it in use once again

Me and Melissa worked really hard on this project and it was all we had hoped it would be. Spending time together, accomplishing a task, being frugal...all ingredients for our homesteading recipe. By the way...total cost of the pen and house: $0

Note: I still have enough of the privacy fence to use for a chicken coup. Thanks Hugh, the fence has been a great boon for us!

Chicken Little

Our babies have arrived! When first discussing on how many chickens to get we settled on 5 or 6 of them. When we realized they might lay eggs for up to 5 years, we decided (well me…lol) that we wanted to start with 3 babies and 3 grown hens for our eggs. We could get the best of both worlds by having hens that lay immediately and having the experience of raising them from babies. So I’m now a new mommy, and Gabrielle is a first time mommy! I have 3 babies that are named Hazel, Quinnie and Matilda. 2 of them are Isa Browns (known for being a great “layer”) and one is a Bluff (known as a good “starter“ chicken). We built a very inexpensive brooder, a temporary house used to raise the chicks till they are ready to go outside, out of the following materials; A clear plastic tote with lid (free). Pat cut the top out to leave space to put the wire mesh in it for airflow (mesh $6) and affixed it to the lid with duck tape. He tried using a staple gun but that didn’t work so well, so good ol’ duck tape to the rescue. We will use the excess mesh for our chicken coop. A old desk lamp with 75 watt bulb in it (free) to warm the chicks. A special watering device that uses mason jars (free), mother-in-law Sally had one of those from a while back and was happy to see it put to good use. A lid off a chocolate milk drink mix container for the feed “trough” (free) and a 3 pound bag of medicated feed $3. Once they are grown we can let them free range off the land and give them scraps form our garden which will cost us nothing. The chicks themselves were $1.99 each. So our total came to $15. They say hens will lay 1 egg every other day, so we hope to have a couple dozen eggs a week. For 3-5 years of laying by 6 hens, we stand to net a big savings! I estimate $600 - $700 or so worth of eggs in 5 years we will no longer be buying from the store. And not to mention we know exactly where they came from!

Pigs on Parade

The big moment has finally come to fruition at True North, and although to some this may seem a small event or even something blasé, for us it is a monumental occurrence. Our two feeder pigs have arrived.
Our excitement stems from a number of different reasons: like the fact that we have never raised anything remotely close to livestock or have had to so fully prepare in order to be able to provide for such creatures. In fact, the amount of time we have spent on education, research, and construction of their living area has been both exhausting and exhilarating. Yet, ultimately the arrival of these two animals heralds a gigantic step for us on our journey to self reliance. To be able to raise one's own livestock...care for them, feed them, and yes, slaughter them so as to provide food for your family is, to us, the quintessential meaning of self sufficiency.
We have only had the pigs for a few days now, and to be honest, all the work was in the preparation. The actually day to day care for them has been relatively easy. Each day I make sure they have clean fresh water, and feed twice a day. Other than that they..are, well...self sufficient. We had heard more than a few stories about pig's abilities to escape from their pens but thus far ours don't seem interested in escaping. i hope this holds true for the duration of their stay with us.
All of us have so far adapted well to them being here. me and Melissa have been planning for this for so long it's almost like we were holding our breath and now that they are here we can breath again. Gabrielle understands what we're doing and the purpose of the pigs, but on more than one occasion I've heard her say "Geez...why do they have to be so cute?" As far as our pets go; the cat doesn't even know they exist, and our dog Gypsy has only seen and heard them from a distance. She does seem very interested in what lies beyond that fence though. Maximus, our 'Little boy' as we affectionately call him, is another matter altogether.
Maximus already has an identity crisis. Obviously he's a dog, but we think he wants to be a 'real boy', and he interacts with the cat so much that he has picked up some kitty like tendencies. Now, enter the pigs...
At the first chance he had he ran into their pen and greeted them with as much enthusiasm as he could, and believe me, for a little dog he has a lot. The pigs regarded him with indifference at first, but now, after only a few days we believe max thinks he's a pig, and they see him as a small but suitable friend. He gets in their house (when they let him), steals food from their trough, ruts around trying to find out what in the earth they find so good, and has even snorted once or twice in their presence. I know for a fact that if we let him, he would sleep with them...nestled in the warm straw alongside his new found brethren. Honestly, only a pig could understands Max's relationship with food.

In my next post I'll elaborate more on the building of their pen and house, but for now here are some pictures...hope you enjoy.

The 2 Little Pigs

We are just over 1 week away form getting the pigs. We have a lot of work done so far. The wood fence and wood gate are up. The wire fence and metal posts are up. We tested the “escape” factor with our dog Gypsy who is known to be the master escape artist and it held up!! We still have a few things left to do, finish the pig house, which has the floor done, and build the feed and water troughs. We have all the supplies and have yet to pay a dime for any of it. It’s all been recycled from Pat’s dad’s days of farming and a friend’s (Hugh) old privacy fence. HOURS of hard labor were spent harvesting every last post and fence. Yeah, everyone was right…its is HARD work, but rewarding. We still have yet to figure out to actually GET the pigs here, we have blazer and a farm truck, both with broken trailer hitches, we’re still thinking on that one…lol. We’ll have more photos and info when the pigs are finally here!

Animal Handeling

Ok well the goal is to own 3 pigs, and a few chickens to start. But we do have some experience in handling animals....lol. We own 2 dogs and 1 cat. Max is pictured here, he's AKA the "Baby Boy" It seems we have a history of calling all of our animals by anything but the name we really gave them. Our cat is a boy with the name pretty kitty (I know ask our daughter about that one) and we can't seem to say anything but SHE around him. And then we have Gypsy who has so many names I can't list them all here, my son Jay branded most of them. One of my favorites is "Pupper Diller". Anyways there you have it. The beginnings of our animal experience, well at least mine anyway. Pat has had more than I, thank goodness!