GrailQuest ServicesWe recently added Amercian Guinea Hogs to the list of creatures we live with. The are two four month old females we call Rosa Porks and Sally Ham-ings.
Why pigs? Because this particular breed is great at foraging much of their own food in terms of grass and acorns and they are quite friendly and docile, even flopping over on their sides for tummy rubs! This was once the most popular pig on small American homesteads, often called "yard pigs", but as the country became more industrialized and farming more commercialized, they were abandoned in favor of animals that grew larger and faster, which is what you want if money is the goal of raising pigs.
On the other hand, we wanted to raise happy, healthy animals who enjoyed their lives until the one bad day at the end. The idea of these marvelous creatures being raised indoors in pens with no room for movement and no opportunity to experience anything but the unpleasant environment of a factory farm makes eating supermarket pork something of a guilty pleasure.
Other benefits of American Guinea Hogs are supposed to include killing and eating snakes and rodents. If they can dig up and devour gophers and protect our dogs and ourselves from snake bites, they will have earned their keep right there.
We will be posting more on this experiment as it develops, but as of now all I can say is "Pigs are fun!"