Agriculture

TRUTH VS MYTH… Idaho Pastured Pigs

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Homesteady: TRUTH VS MYTH… Idaho Pastured Pigs

7/16/2020 by Austin Martin, Squash Hollow Farm

Web player: https://podplayer.net/?id=109802435
Episode: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/WPCM2016906615.mp3

The IPP… the IDAHO PASTURED PIG. It has made quite a lot of noise in the homesteading world.

There are a lot of big claims surrounding it. What is fact and what is myth?

Today we share an interview on the channel with Mouse Creek Farm who has been raising these pigs for years.

Kirstin answers lots of our IPP questions including do you have to supplement their diet or can they live off pasture alone? Do they ever root? And how is their meat production and quality?

The Farm and Hammer YouTube channel I often watch recently got some of those pasture pigs. While no pig is a ruminatent – you can’t stick them on grass exclusively and be they be healthy, pasture pigs can cut your feed bill by fifty percent, and eat some of the noxious plants that cows won’t touch.

Apparently the key to pasture pigs is making sure they have plenty of mineral including salt and rotate pastures frequently. Then they won’t destroy the pasture rooting it up in search of minerals.

Pigs as livestock interest me a lot when I eventually own my own homestead. Good bacon, good pork chops and other cuts. Not to mention a good way to recycle food waste and recycle all that paper trash I get in the mail as bedding.

My neighbors growing up had pigs on their homesteads. And it seems like a lot of people I follow on the internet raise hogs for meat as a hobby. They’re really quite fascinating animals. I should get some more books out of the library about raising pigs.

America’s meatpacking facilities operating at 95% capacity | AGDAILY

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America’s meatpacking facilities operating at 95% capacity | AGDAILY

In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, many meatpacking facilities closed down to due health concerns of their employees. After an Executive Order from President Donald Trump declared the meat packing plants critical infrastructure, the plants opened back up to prevent further disruptions to the food supply. A month after the Executive Order, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue applauded the safe reopening of critical infrastructure meatpacking facilities across the United States.

This week, across the cattle, swine, and broiler sectors, processing facilities are operating more than 95 percent of their average capacity compared to this time last year. In fact, beef facilities are operating at 98 percent, pork facilities are operating at 95 percent, and poultry facilities are operating at 98 percent of their capacity compared to the same time last year.