Andrew's tour of Wales Andrew pigs out

Date Published:

30/05/2008

This week I've been working on Richard and Joy Edwards' farm learning all about the mighty mushroom

However, being folk of many talents, Richard and Joy also grow vegetables and keep pigs on their land. I worked with Joy in the garden going toe-to-toe with some foot high weeds, and helped Richard feed and water his pigs. They're noisy buggers.

Richard has a couple of breeds - there's Dill the Duroc boar, some Tamworth sows, a litter of 36 cross breeds and half again of pure Tamworth piglets. You might remember Tamworth piglets being in the news when the 'Tamworth Two' went on the run a couple of years ago. They're an inquisitive, active breed, which Richard attributes to their upright ears; they can see everything that's going on unlike their lop-eared cousins - the Durocs.

At 12 weeks Richard's pigs are nearly ready for slaughter, some will be off to Raymond Blanc at Le Manior in Oxfordshire, as well as other suppliers.

Richard gives his pigs commercial pig feed as well as the weeds Joy and I dig up from the garden and what ever else the porkers can forage for in their large wooded enclosure. Other porcine foodie favourites include willow herb, pigweed (unsurprisingly), chickweed, and I can vouch for the fact that pigs really love stinging nettles. To be honest I think pigs will eat just about anything.

Richard and Joy are in the process of setting up their own processing building so they can produce sausages and other pork products to sell locally. So we'll have to see how things are getting on in a few months time. In the meantime watch Richard and I feeding the pigs.

Watch Andrew and the greedy porkers

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