It’s calving season on the ranch right now if you’re watching my stories (so many new babies!)… but we have baby piglets from our farrowing momma sows all year round! These pigs have the run of the grassy hog pastures, mud wallows and their own ponds too. We feed them a customized protein mix with different percentages for different stages of development (gestation, lactation, growing and finishing) since they love hiding in the tall grass but they need more protein than just grasses. They are Berkshire hogs – we started raising Old Spot breed pigs but we’ve found the Berks are better mommas (more maternal!) and we love the quality of the pork. It’s taken us years to work on and improve our pig program to where it is today. From farrowing outside in huts to building a proper farrowing and maternity barn with specially designed pens that give new piglets a warm corner to be safe from flopping-over tired sows. Our survival rates and litter sizes are much better these days! Our piglets graduate from the barn with their mommas to a “group-lac” pasture where they all nurse together until they are big enough to be out in the pond pastures to grow and finish – or become breeder sows and have more piglets (breeders don’t get harvested for meats) And this year our neighbor right next door is raising pigs on their pastures for us to help us expand our program and give all the pigs plenty of room to wallow in mud pits and sleep under shady trees. Did you know that only 3% of the pork consumed in the US is raised on pasture or outside!? Most are raised in barns on concrete (because it is much easier to feed/clean/farrow large numbers of pigs!) but pastures pork raised right is truly a RARE thing! Photos by @circlebarco 📸 #fivemarys #fivemaryspork #pasturedpork #pasturedpigs #pasturedeverything #heritagepork #berkshirepork #shopfivemarys #fivemarysfarms