I bought some pigs from an Amish fellow a few weeks ago. I’ve been wanting to start a small pig enterprise for some time and it’s now a reality. I’m very excited! I am raising them as outdoor pigs with a deep bedded system to stay warm indoors during the cold fall and winter nights. The breed is an outdoor hardy pig and can adapt to weather ups and downs quite well.

I am feeding them a nongmo complete feed mix made with nongmo soy protein and nongmo corn mixed with vitamins and minerals. They get to root around some and have a lot of outdoor space to run and play. I also have connected with an apple orchard that gives me their fallen rotten and buggy apples. Apples are great for their gut and immune systems.

They were born Amish, so there are no antibiotics, hormones or other unnatural things given to them.

I hope to start a farrow to finish Berkshire cross enterprise, but am testing the piggy waters with these for now.

After cutting the oat stems near the tops of the alfalfa plants we waited a few days for them to dry out. Unfortunately, the weather has been uncooperative: Humid, cloudy, and hazy.
With oats, what I’m learning is that they are quite delicate. They are sensitive to weather, that is why small grains aren’t so popular here in Iowa. Oats like cool weather and shorter days, much like what Canada has to offer.
Grain Millers, Inc., a small grains processor nearby who processes for Trader Joes’ products and other organic brands, would love our oats…at 36# test weight and above. That weight is very difficult to achieve in Iowa unfortunately. The weather from March to July has to be just right to achieve that. Most of our oats go to feed.

This being my first oat harvest ever, I have been rather excited learning the process. Now we have straw in the field that needs baling. Then we wait for more rain to help grow the alfalfa that grew alongside the oats.