Sugar Mountain Farm - raising pigs naturally on pasture

After the previous posts, here is something more positive. Walter Jeffries on Sugar Mountain Farm, Vermont, explains in a very down to earth way why pasturing pigs is actually much more economical and less work-intensive when you keep them for meat.

"Pasturing the pigs is the easiest, cheapest, least smelly way to do it. And I think the pigs are a lot healthier and happier for it."

In two other posts, he gives his view on castration:

"I do not like castrating piglets. Neither does my wife or son like helping. It is not a pleasant task. It is even less pleasant for the piglets. There is a fair bit of research that suggests that castration is not necessary for boars that are slaughtered before age six months. I have written about this before including links to the research articles. Unfortunately it is traditional and customers want it."

In one of the posts he expresses concern that animal rights movements like PETA ("fanatical anti-farming groups", in his words) will "use" what he says. I'm not fanatically anti-farming, but I think that if you eat pigs, you should at least treat them well.

The rest of the Sugar Mountain Farm blog is also very interesting reading.