Yup its that time of the year.. time to start putting pigs to work…
Lets see who is on our work team this year..
Apple is getting nice sized, she is a total sweetheart of a gilt, sweet as can be, loves her rubs and is very gentle but interested in everything..
Smaller, more excitable and very cute is Ella, she likes her job though and is getting to the point that she will touch my hand and let me give the softest lightest hip rubs.. She is always Apples shadow!
They were given their first pen to dig and turn and get ready to be hauled out and moved to compost piles for the year.. 
On the left, regular deep pack bedding, a mix of straw, hay, poo and urine.. but its just a mat of it.. but on the right, its the pig turned, dug and wetted and already well started compost.. you do need to pour and add water for the pigs to get it turned well. its heavier to move for sure but its already at least 30 percent further at the very start in regards to its compost process..
Go Piggy Power!
Just another Day on the Farm 
I’ve read in several gardening books that swine manure should never be used in a “food” garden, orchard or vineyard, but okay for flower beds. Your thoughts?
Other then Cold Manure -Rabbit, all hot manures in mass should be composted, composted properly and it can be used anywhere in all gardens..
But I take it even a step more.. because I use my pigs as plows, I do take their poo out of their corner (they are very clean animals) but I know that some of their poo stays in the ground.. and it does not bother me one bit..
I know what my pigs are eating, and while they are working in my garden, other then a bit of locally sources grain, they are eating fresh greens, roots and worms and anything else they can find in my garden.. they are as healthy as can be and in turn, their poo is as healthy for my land as it can be..
I always wash all of my root veggies and I use a clean straw mulch for anything grown above ground so I am doing a few extraès, I might be much more leary if I let the pigs turn the ground, then planted strawberries and wanted to eat them after they touched the ground, but I do not garden like that..
So far, we have used pig and pig poo on the farm for ten years and to date, no issues.
Thank you!
What a team!
(Worth their weight in gold, I’d say; )
They are not quite as well trained yet on the come but we are working on it, they are as always being trained with treats, such gentle sweet critters, until of course they are not LOL I love my pigs but I have a healthy respect for them.. I swear they so smart!
I recall reading somewhere, many years ago, about a cannibalistic culture whose name for their human food translated to “long pig”…
yup.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism
Just turned my piggies out into the garden this weekend. I’ve got a spot i’d like to have as flower beds but the darn invasive blackberries and lemon balm (which is like a weed at my place) kill anything i put in the ground. digging, fires, nothing seems to stop them…except piggies 😉
what i’d like to know is why dontt he pigs digw here I want themto , but rather everywhere else?!
LOL, you need to confine them to where you want them to dig otherwise, they will get all picky.. give mine a inch and they are over in the strawberry patch likes bees to honey.. lol.. get out! but for sure they get the job done, they are the only! thing that can clean the land here of the very bad wild parsnip
oh they are where i want them to dig! but there is 10 sq feet of what i don’t want dug due to fencing issues. guess where they started digging first?!
lol