Tag: backyard pig raising

Food Security in a Small Village

April 7, 2020 in San Roque, Baclayon, Bohol —- We finally did it! Our butcher Yokyok and his assistant Noel came at 7 in the morning. This was Jenny’s pig. Jenny is our next-next-door neighbour. I bought her pig and asked Yokyok and Noel to butcher. I took the meat we need and shared the rest with people in our village. It is very good meat, amazing red colour because Jenny fed the pig banana stalks, scrap fruits and vegetables from the market, kangkong, kamote leaves, and various forage.

I gave the pig’s head, blood and internal organs to Penny. She used those to make a fantastic blood stew for sharing with neighbours. Her husband, Bebe, cooked the head into cracklings, soup and other such things and shared as well. I asked Noel to share meat with people up the hill. Plenty of people, uphill and downhill, benefited from one pig. Imagine so much meat from just one pig. Although our village is transitioning to urban ways, I hope that we will never be prevented from raising our own food. Having a pig or goat, chickens, ducks or a cow should continue to be a way of life here. For us, this is better than buying food from Magnolia or Ligo or Purefoods or San Miguel. Money spent on buying our food stays within our community instead of going to someone who doesn’t know or care about the way we live. Why buy from a big company just so their CEO can go yachting or buy another ski resort?

This is more fun too. Today was also like fiesta except that there was social distancing and Penny and Noel wore a mask when they distributed the meat and meals. Well, this is the closest we can get to fiesta since all fiesta celebration is cancelled now.

Jenny is not rich. There are 3 families in their little un-finished house, there are 9 children in total and a new baby coming next month. The men in the family are small-scale fishermen. But Jenny can raise pigs in their backyard, feed them vegetable and fruit scraps from the market and forage from the surroundings. She still has 2 more pigs. They were intended for sale during fiesta when demand is high. But there will be no fiesta because of COVID-19.

Backyard pig raisers are having a hard time for several years and now COVID-19 has made things worse. Fiesta celebrations are cancelled because of COVID-19. No more school graduation parties either. In both, pork and roast suckling pig are mandatory. So pig raisers are stuck with fatteners that should be ready for slaughter in March-May. Also, the live weight price has gone down 90 pesos/1.78US$ per kilo from the usual peak season price of 130 pesos/2.57US$ per kilo. The price of pork remains high at 240 pesos/4.75US$ per kilo. So buying the whole pig is actually cheaper.

But Jenny’s system is a closed-loop that benefits her and the people around her. It is efficient, low-cost and nothing goes to waste. It may not be pastured pigs but it is a far cry from factory food. The pigpens are homemade from wood gathered from the hills. The butcher slaughters in situ so the pig is not subjected to the stress of transport. The pig is slaughtered very quickly, there is no squealing. The backyard plants are mostly banana, taro, kangkong, sweet potato, coconut. All these plants are human edible, animal edible, and the non human edible parts of the plants, such as banana trunks and leaves are fed to the pigs. The pigs were purchased as weanlings from a more rural municipality 2 hours away where they are cheaper. Transport of pigs are limited now because of COVID-19 (and ASF). There are local breeders (like us) but we are more expensive because we are closer to the city (only 8 kms to heart of the city). I sell piglets at prevailing price but add more value by selling fully weaned piglets weighing 15-25kg, free consultation and medicine if piglets get sick or need castrating (we offer free castrating if buyer wants to castrate).

Our piglets cost 2,800 pesos/55.56 USD and the cheaper piglets cost 1,200 pesos/23.81 USD. While ours weigh a minimum of 15kg, the cheaper piglets weigh a minimum of 8kg.

I know the pigs are kept in not very ideal conditions. This is a low income family with small space (about 500 sq meters). Men in this family are small-time fisherfolk and they don’t even own their boats. Land rights and ownership is an issue in places like ours because of the drastic policies made during many colonial periods (from16th century to early 20th century), taking vast tracts of land away from people. Our own property is not so big either (only about 2000 square meters). There are larger parcels of land around us that are being converted from agricultural to residential and being subdivided. City life is quickly creeping up on us. But I am documenting how important it is that we remain able to raise our own food and make the case to local government before it is too late.

Life of urban poor is much worse because they can’t grow or raise their own food. This is luxury compared to urban poor.

Nonetheless, most backyard pigs kept here are friendly. They are not afraid of approaching strangers. This means they are well looked after by the family.

I also try to encourage people to give their pigs more space, allow the pigs to socialise, and express their natural behaviours. Our backyard farm serves as example when people come and visit. But I also continue to yearn for more space to pasture some (native) pigs. I hope in the near future.

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The Bohol Lechon Pigs in the Village After 14-Day Quarantine… Community Quarantine: Visit to our Public Market Local Government Help During COVID-19 Lockdown Bootleg’s Piglets

Pigs in the Village

Back in 2015, we had a stroll around to visit some of our neighbour’s backyard piggeries.

Backyard Pigs in San Roque

Above and below are two photos of Amboy’s backyard piggery. He has two sows. One sow farrowed the other night and have 12 piglets. He works with a technician from Breeders in Tagbilaran City who administered the Artificial Insemination. They do not not give antibiotics after farrowing unless absolutely necessary. Breeders helps with piglet processing – teeth clipping, tail cutting, castration and iron injections. Amboy has one gestating pen and one farrowing pen. He has an improvised farrowing crate that he built himself. The wooden structure prevent the piglets from being crushed by the sow but Amboy and his mom still need to keep an eye on them for the first couple of days. Since the pens are very near their house (about 5 meters), they are able to constantly monitor the sow and piglets. Because the improvised farrowing crate is put together with screws, it can be dismantled so that the concrete stall can be used as a fattening pen.

I asked Amboy about hernia cases since we had one case of hernia the first time we started pig breeding. Amboy said he has had hernia cases in a previous litter with another sow. All of the 8 piglets had hernia, indicating it may be hereditary. Five piglets outgrew the hernia while the other 3 didn’t. He said he just had to control their food and water intake to prevent a rupture. All the piglets were for fattening.

We bought five of the piglets shown in the photo. We selected all the spotty ones. Three of the spotty ones became our sows (we currently keep two sows). One was a castrated boar which we sold to someone in Laya when it got bigger. The other was a female piglet with umbilical hernia which we fattened for meat.

The above photo is of Jun-Jun’s backyard piggery just about 25 meters away from Amboy. He has two concrete pens with five fattening pigs. The piglets are purchased from a breeder in Corella and other places. These will be sold for fiesta in August.

The photo above is from Gunding who has over ten years experience pig breeding. She has never experienced a case of hernia. She has six concrete stalls. One stall is empty – this is where she puts piglets in. She used to use artificial insemination from outside but now she has purchased one young boar to service four sows. She had a sow with 12 piglets – two died by crushing, ten survived. Five have already been bought and five remain here, kept in a separate pen with concrete floor and a wood and bamboo fence (photo below). She fattens pigs and butchers them to sell to people in the village.

Gunding does not use farrowing crates. When a sow farrows, she and her helper take turns looking after the piglets. This means keeping the piglets in a separate pen nearby with a warming light. When the sow calls her piglets to nurse, they pick up the piglets one by one and put them in with the sow. When the sow stops nursing and she lies on her teats, they take away the piglets and put them back into the separate pen. Usually, this is done not just every time the sow wants to nurse her piglets which is normally every hour, sometimes even every half hour. Instead, this is done at times set by Gunding, often with 2-3 hour intervals between nursing. This needs to be done for at least a week until the piglets can be left alone with the mother with minimal danger of crushing.

There are two more backyard pig breeders around us but we were unable to visit them.

Backyard  Pigs on Pamilacan Island

We visited Pamilacan Island in 2015. The island is part of our Municipality and is about 15.7 kilometers from the mainland. We went there with a friend visiting from Slovenia and he was the one who took these photos.

There was a pigpen near the beach. It was made of concrete, with concrete flooring. The pigpen had a septic tank. Since the location is quite near the beach (maybe about 50 meters) and near some cottages rented out to tourists, the pigpens were required to comply with sanitation ordinances.

So we went into the interior, to the center of the island. We wanted to see how people kept pigs on the island.

Above is a photo showing a sow tied to a tree with her piglets in the distance. There seem to be 9 or 10 piglets. The sow is tethered to prevent it from going to other people’s backyards and destroying their crops. The sow is not confined in a farrowing crate.

In the photo above, there are 14 piglets freely rooting around. The sow is partly visible on the right. Like in the previous photo, the sow is tethered to prevent her from going to other people’s backyards. The piglets stay closely to the sow. The piglets also don’t cause too much damage as an adult pig would.

Here (above photo), I am touching a black piglet that is about 2 months of age. It is quite small. Many piglets look rather stunted, possibly because of excessive in-breeding on the island.

In the above photo, a pig is tied to a stump and has created a wallowing mud pit. Typically, this pig would be moved to another location as the mud pit becomes deeper.

Piglets are allowed to roam free on the island. They feed together with the native chickens.

Here (above photo) are pigs and goats kept under the house. All these animals are tethered and will be brought out to pasture/forage every morning.

And finally, here (above photo) is what is dubbed as The Oldest Sow on Pamilacan Island. I took this photo in 2007.

Our Piglets in their New Homes

In 2016, we started selling piglets. Here are some photos of how people kept the piglets they bought from us. These are all just from around our village of San Roque.

The three photos above are concrete pens with gates made of welded galvanized iron pipes and corrugated galvanized iron roof. The pens are attached to septic tanks. This design of pigpen is the most conventional in backyard settings.

Here (above) are three of our piglets in another concrete pen built in the same way as the previous pen.

In this photo above, two of our piglets have just been transferred to their new pen at a neighbour’s who lives uphill. There is a larger separate pen where larger pigs are kept. They plan to keep one of the female piglets they got from us as a sow.

In the above photo, the piglets we sold to the same neighbours in the previous photo are now large fatteners. They are in concrete pens that are cleaned with water twice everyday. This is very typical of all conventional concrete pigpens.

Below are photos showing how people have kept our piglets in their backyard without building concrete pens. Usually in such cases, the pig may be tethered or may be placed in a pen with wooden fencing and non-concrete flooring. Building a fully concrete pen with concrete septic tank is too expensive for non-commercial, domestic pig keeping.

We do favour pigpens that allow the pigs to root the ground and have sufficient space to move about and play. In our experience, pigs kept this way are happier, stress free and are healthier and grow better. A lot of the people who come to buy piglets and see our pigpens are often surprised. They often say that they have not thought of such a pigpen design since they have never seen anything like ours. We hope that as awareness spreads, people will begin to consider pigpens that afford more comfort and welfare for their pigs.

More about pigpens in the links below:
https://duckduckbro.com/2017/08/a-better-pig-accommodation/
https://duckduckbro.com/2018/01/sow-and-piglets-in-an-alternative-farrowing-system/

PS. The banner photo above was taken in 2017. It is a photo of the garden with Pinky Boar, then 7 months old, luxuriating under a mahogany tree. Can you find him in the photo? 🙂 He is a brown spotty pig. 🙂

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