It ’s hard to opine of a slob - related topic that author Alice Percy overlooks in her new account book , Happy Pigs Taste Better . In a few hundred page , Percy touches upon stock selection , butchering animals , and marketing and selling the meat .
Unlike many other books on raising pigs , Happy Pigsalso details various systems for raising pigs on ley . That make the book a valuable imagination for commercial farmers or homesteaders looking to range their pigs .
Percy sets the tone early by give one of the first chapters to sympathise Sus scrofa behavior . As Percy explains , “ just as mimicking rude soil processes fosters sizable plant … building our stock system around the natural motive and behavior of our animals fosters healthy maturation and yield . ” This focus on humane farming animates the rest of the ledger .
A Humane Endeavour
It also speedily becomes evident that humanely raise meat is personally important to Percy , coming as she does from a background in vegetarianism . As she name in the introduction , her farming career began when she start keeping her own pig as a way to find fine about reintroducing ethically conjure up meat into her diet .
Her operation , Treble Ridge Farm , eventually became Maine ’s big endorse constitutional hog farm . This substantial personal experience is patent throughout the book , which Percy dots with anecdotes from her geezerhood of raising pigs .
Pasture Focused
What really setsHappy Pigsapart from other books about pig - husbandry , though , is its elaborated description ofpasture - based system . prove pigs on grass is a century - old practice common in many refinement . But it has been largely absentminded from modern pork output .
The vast absolute majority of pigs today are lift indoors or outside in lasting paddocks . They do n’t have the power to express their innate behaviors such as rooting and forage . accordingly , most of today ’s literature on raising pig either pays little attention to pasture - based systems or bomb to mention them at all .
Percy , however , makes repeated cases for the benefits of raising pigs on pasture . She draw that “ a well - make out pasture system can avail maximize animal health and welfare ; farmers may be able to trim down their grain costs … and pasture - raised pork is arguably more sanitary and of ripe quality than pork from animate being that do not have approach to pasture . ”
Beyond merely advocating for raising pigs on lea , Percy delves into the detail of various pasture - based system . She provides book of instructions for ranging pigs at high and low stocking densities on big land area . She cover using rotational grazing systems to move the pig from plot to patch , too .
The book also provides substantial detail on how to implant forage crops for pig . This include what form of crop to constitute and how they can be comprise into a pig ’s dieting .
For homesteaders or commercial-grade husbandman looking to begin bring up pigs on pasture or surmount up their Sus scrofa operation , Happy Pigs Taste Bettercontains an abundance of cognition and brainstorm .
