Bacon and Blue Butt

Posted April 17, 2017 by Prairie Wife - 5 comments

Those of you that follow us on Instagram probably have a pretty good idea what this post is all about…

This weekend we added to the family, two little gilts, two female piglets. The girls weigh about 40lb now and will soon be weighing over 200lb. As you can see from the pic, the Cowkids are thrilled and they all happily chipped in to help The Cowboy set up their pig pen. You can see the feeder, water buckets and their cozy little hay bale house (complete with heat lamp to keep them warm at night). As they grow bigger we can move the hog panels (the fencing) to allow them some more room.

This is Bacon. She’s awfully sweet and loves to have her tummy scratched. They’ve already learned that people = food so when you come close the pen they come running. It’s been nice to reduce our trash by feeding them all of our leftover scraps and food. We already gave the leftover fruit, veggies, and carbs to the chickens. Now that we have pigs we can give them the leftover food that has meat in it like spaghetti, half eaten sandwiches (oh those toddlers), and all the other bits and pieces that the Cowkids leave on their plates.

Here is Blue Butt. You can see from the picture that she actually has a blue butt…hence the name the Cowkids picked. Her breed is called Blue Butt because of the distinctive blue markings on their butts. She and Bacon spend most of the day rooting around in the dirt, grunting and oinking, bumping and chasing each other, and of course eating and sleeping.

When I posted about the new addition to the family on my personal page the number one question was “Are you going to eat them?”

Short Answer: Yes

Long Answer: While this may be hard for some people to understand, most of our animals are not just pets. We love our horses and have them for the Cowkids and The Cowboy to ride for pleasure and family fun but, their main purpose is to aid The Cowboy on his yearly Elk Hunt. We have cats to keep mice and other rodents out of the house and our chickens provide eggs and meat for our family. The dogs are mostly pets but, even then we also have them to help protect the Cowkids here at home, me when I take Zip running, and to help guard The Cowboy in elk camp (dogs keep bears away and are an early warning system). Bacon and Blue Butt will be loved and well taken care of until they reach around 260lb and then we will butcher them for meat. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it can be hard. As with all the things we do here, we take time to be honest with the Cowkids. There is truly a sense of duty and respect for animals that comes when you care for an animal that will in turn give it’s life to you. The Cowkids do chores daily to take care of these animals and give them the best life possible while we have them.

SO here I am a pig farmer, and as someone who has been extremely leery of pigs (this terrible clip from the movie Hannibal always comes to mind when I think of pigs), I know I’m going to be learning a lot!

Categories: Life As It Happens, Prairie Life

Tags: , animlas, Homesteading, livestock, meat, pets, pigs, Prairie Life, Wyoming