Tamworth Pigs

“I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” 
Winston Churchill.

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We have just picked up some more pigs, four registered Tamworths, three sows and a boar. They travelled over from Victoria and these will form the nucleus of our second breeding herd. We met the truck at Sulphur Creek and bought them home in our trailer. It was not a great introduction to Tasmania; the wind was strong enough to blow the fleas off a dog’s arse, and cold driving rain. These pigs were originally due to arrive six or seven weeks ago but a combination of bad weather, difficulties with transport and me disappearing back to Australia for work put them on hold for a little while. They are about 9 months old and in pig so we should have our first piglets ready for Christmas dinner. Suckling pig. Yummy - should go well with goose. (just kidding)

Cold and wet

In comparison to our robust boisterous Saddlebacks, the Tamworths could almost be described as delicate. They have a very long straight snout and narrow head with a lean body.  They are an orange-gold colour and like most original breeds they are excellent foragers and really require an outdoor environment. The boar is “Fergal”, a good Irish name befitting a pig with Irish ancestry, and I have no doubt the sows will be named in turn. Comes back to the unwritten law – you can’t eat any animal that has a name.

Leven River Farm must be a bit of a culture shock for these pigs, they have been raised indoors in a shed, drinking from a nipple, feeding from an automatic chute, never wallowing in the mud or rooting through the grass. They have taken to their new life with gusto, lying in the grass, ripping up paddock and generally having a good time. They are very quiet and reserved, nowhere near as vocal or boisterous as our Saddlebacks but I am sure that will change as they settle in and feel more at home. 

Exploring

I have noticed that people who keep rare breeds have a real passion for their animals and their welfare. I think this comes from the fact that the prime motivation for keeping rare breeds is never money; these breeds are rare because they failed that critical test of highest possible economic returns. There are plenty of animals that grow quicker, breed more prolifically and have better feed conversion ratios. I think people persist because they appreciate the intrinsic value of these old breeds. Me - I just like pigs.

Getting to know the neighbours.

The Tamworth pig breed originated in Sir Robert Peel's Drayton Manor Estate at Tamworth, Staffordshire, after the existing herd was interbred with pigs from Ireland known as 'Irish Grazers', that Peel had seen in Ireland in 1809. The breed appears among the least interbred with non-European breeds, and therefore one of the closest to the original European forest swine. They are a baconer pig and have a much leaner carcass than the Wessex Saddleback. They typically have small litters of six to ten piglets, which limits their appeal to commercial producers. They are very good mothers with a very high piglet survival rate.

We have had some difficulty in locating an unrelated boar for our saddleback sows, which is compounded by the fact that the bloodlines of our sows are clouded in some mystery. They are Dominator sired with some conjecture on the dam. I was thinking of joining them with the Tamworth boar but have been offered a suitably unrelated registered Wessex Saddleback boar in Victoria.

The new boar is of a Pilot- Beatrice bloodline and we have already christened him Horatio. I don’t know why but it just seems a fitting name for a saddleback boar.   He was going to travel over with the Tamworths but heavy rain around Gippsland has delayed his arrival for a couple of weeks.  Next a couple of registered Wessex Saddleback sows and our pig herd will be complete. Or maybe not; did I just hear a whisper about some Large Blacks that may be looking for a new home?