Piggy Piggy Piggy

Spring is always a hectic time with everything starting to grow and needing cut and mown and whatnot. This year we were worried we might not have enough work with all that and 3 calves (Buttercup is due any moment) so we ordered some pigs and some bees as well.
The piglets are here. They have a huge area, although we started them off in a small area round the house for a couple of days so they could get a little used to us and their new surroundings. They are only two months old and still quite shy. Hopefully they are going to get used to us quickly.

The pig house with hurdles round it and a mini enclosure for their first few days

We picked them up from somewhere 2 hours away. Bit of a long drive but we didn't want the local black pigs as they are too slow growing - we don't want fast growing, just normal!

In their new house with some yummy food with milk in it.

Their area is getting on for a hectare. That is a lot of fence! It has two strands at about 15 and 30cm as they are pretty small at the mo and pigs don't really jump. Things will grow up under this fast and start touching the wire so it takes a fair bit of work to maintain. We have put all the wires on reels now to try to make the strimming easier by making it easy to take a length in. The reels seem a bit crappy though and we might need to replace them (or hopefully return them...)

This is them setting off for their first explore one we removed the mini enclosure round the house. Bye bye piggies (hopefully not!)

We celebrated their arrival with ham hock cooked in milk with Lemon and Thyme. Yum!