When we started this endeavor of raising pigs 3 years ago, those that we spoke to said “give them a 10×10 concrete pad and food and they’ll be fine!” NO freakin’ way, we thought.

We wanted to raise our food in a healthy and happy environment so we built them a pen, a rather large pen (seriously as big if not bigger then our house!)  where they could roam and eat grass as they saw fit.  Little did we know just HOW fast they would eat.  We had great ideas of  moving them from one side to another of the pen, growing fresh greens in the side that was unoccupied.  Those ideas were quickly dashed as we found out that pigs eat a LOT and one of their absolute favorite pastimes in digging.  All too soon they had eaten and turned over all of the greenery that we gave them so, we moved our electric fence to put outside the pen and give them even more space and fresh greens and access to more bugs.  To see them happy and foraging again was absolutely wonderful!  These happy piggies were actually frolicking, it was such an cool sight. ❤

As we stared at the space that we had just given them and the big, green hill behind them, we knew that we could put that land to better use and 2 years later, we’ve finally done just that.  This summer we fenced in and strung electric fencing so the pigs can have almost an entire acre to themselves!  We knew that our land was rocky, but we soon found out just how rocky when we started pounding metal T-posts into the ground.  Ouch!  It took a little longer then we anticipated but it was al worth it.  No more wooden pen, no more electic netting, no more pig escapes…a story for another time. 😉 These babes were happy and had more space then they knew what to do with.  The grove of evergreens gave them a great place to hide from the sun and eventually sleep as they abandoned their house shortly after moving into their new space.  One of my favorite things was to call them and see them come happily bounding down the hill to get treats!  We’ve always had happy pigs, this bunch though, was really special. ❤

Here they come a running!