Red Wattle
https://www.outhomefarm.com/
Owners: Katie George/Ross Mathison
OutHome Farm is a veteran owned and operated small-scale farm and ranch in
Texas. As stewards of the land, our goal is to produce the healthiest, highest quality products possible while conserving the land for future generations. Combining our passion for animals, conscious-living and high-quality food, we are committed to happy and healthy animals, holistic land management, and offering highquality, nutrition-dense, chemical-free products to our customers.
We are committed to:
- Happy, healthy animals
- Holistic land management
- High quality, nutrition-dense, meats
- Clean, hormone, antibiotic and chemical-free products
We are so thankful to our community of agriculturists, chefs, restaurateurs, family and friends who have been endlessly supportive of the farm and our family. This farm would not be possible without countless others who have partnered with us, pitched in to help, lent equipment and tools, showed up to support and have purchased and enjoyed our meat.
Our pigs
Our breed of choice is Red Wattle, heritage hogs. We love the red wattle breed because of their heat resilience and the marbling of the meat which gives it excellent flavor.
Red Wattles are also a great breed for pasture-raising because they love to forage. We let our pigs roam the pasture and only use pens on rare occasions. We farrow them in hay bales in wooded parts of our pasture where the piglets have the freedom to roam and explore from a very young age. They eat a diet of peanuts and milo, along with local seasonable produce like pumpkins, squash and watermelon.
Article: https://livestockconservancy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Autumn-2021-Newsletter-web.pdf
Here is a breakdown of our return vs. cost: 2 Piglets $160 Total Feed $560 Processing Fee: $440.00 Hanging weight at butcher: 483 Pounds
Total cost: $1160 / 483 Pounds = $2.40 per pound
We hope we answered any questions people may have about our experience as first time “pig raisers”. If we missed anything at all, please drop a comment down below and we’ll do our best to answer right away. – Todd & Rachel
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Glocestershire Old Spot
A GLOUCESTERSHIR OLD SPOTS ADVENTURE
Source: https://livestockconservancy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Autumn-2021-Newsletter-web.pdf
After working in the computer chip manufacturing business for 35 years, Loretta Heath retired to spend her time doing ‘fun’ stuff like taking Horticulture
classes and caring for her beloved Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs. Loretta also serves as the Secretary for Gloucestershire Old Spots of America Inc.
I love Gloucestershire Old Spots (GOS) pigs. Without this affection I would not,
as a novice, have pursued breeding them. Without the desire to improve the
genetics of my herd, I would not have imported more females from the United
Kingdom. Without the support of the Gloucestershire Old Spots of America
organization (GOSA), I would not have trekked across the country to spread
these new British genetics to other GOS pig devotees. On a late October morning, we headed south on 101 from our Northern California ranch. We bounced around in an old model Dodge diesel truck, pulling an even older model livestock trailer, whose straw-filled interior held our precious cargo. The 34 GOS piglets, from 6 different maternal lines, ranged in age from 3 to 6 months and were closely situated with little room for socializing.
Our nine-day journey took us through 15 states with stops in seven, for a total
of 7,000 miles. We successfully dropped off our precious cargo at the farms of
GOSA members, who generously offered their barns, pens, and fields, to serve as hospitality hubs, giving room and board to more than their own pigs until all the new owners could come to pick up their piglets from neighboring locations. Throughout our journey, we were lavishly supplied with food specialties
from the different farms, and from the hearts of the farmers themselves. COVID
was rampant, so we could not socialize in close quarters for long, but I feel I
absolutely must describe the kindness, friendship, and generosity given by the hub farms.
Grandma’s pumpkin bars, warm, moist, spicily fragrant, and graciously baked in the wee hours of the morning so they were perfectly fresh, were washed down with home roasted and ground coffee kept hot in a take-home thermos. Thick, hot, and savory vegetable stew was packed in canning jars, followed by a
king-sized bag of incredible lard-popped popcorn sprinkled with aromatic herbs and spices. A home-grown dinner of smoked pork roast, fresh garden greens, and sweet potatoes was followed by a goody bag for the road packed with home-made goat cheese and a huge loaf of banana bread that we savagely pulled off and eaten in chunks until it disappeared. Sandwiches on thick slices of home baked bread with an even thicker layer of pimento cheese inside, served to educate us on that Southern staple, which I had only ever heard of, but never had the pleasure to eat.
A parcel of snacks, suspiciously and hilariously enclosed in a Victoria’s Secret
bag, contained all manner of edibles; the most memorable was a homemade cheese and strawberry jelly. A large bottle of vodka was also properly
enjoyed upon returning home in celebration of the successful journey.
It took our old, arthritic bones about a week to recover from our odyssey in the
diesel truck with the rust-bucket trailer. We will never forget our adventure and hope that the GOS pigs, now recovered from their long shipment, will be fruitful
for their new owners.
It is vital to the survival of the breed in the United States that we keep
Gloucestershire Old Spots genetics as diverse as possible. There are now more
imported GOS maternal lines in the U.S., but they are still in need of proliferation. Now, I must start thinking about how I can host and what I can cook for those who may travel from near or far to our farm to drop off piglets, so they also have a memory that lasts a lifetime.
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… and do you know about the Idaho Pastured Pig (IPP)?
Idaho Pasture Pigs are a new breed of pig specifically designed to grow and mature at a faster rate than the Kunekune pigs, but are still true Grazing pigs. These pigs mature to market weight within about 9 – 10 months (eating primarily grass) and eat less grain than the average meat hog does.
Mouse Creek Farm, PA: https://www.facebook.com/mousecreekfarm
