Four legged rotovators

Rain, rain, go away...

Like many other parts of the country we've had a very wet end to winter and it seems as though it's taken forever for spring to properly arrive. As we write this however, the sun is shining, the puddles are drying and the grass is growing - and not before time!

The change in the weather has unfortunately come a little too late for our pig paddock, which currently looks much the same as when its previous residents left us back in October. The grass is definitely growing again but there's nowhere near enough to keep grazing pigs happy so we've had to come up with another plan for the next few weeks.

To give the paddock a chance to properly recover we've made a temporary pig pen and shelter in one of veg patches that we let go to seed last year. It took an afternoon to put four corner posts in, wire up the electric fencing and build the shelter, but we will hopefully get that time back (and more) as the pigs will take care of the weeding the patch for us.

The Tamworth pigs that we rear love rooting through the soil and have powerful snouts that make them excellent 'four legged rotavators'. In some cases they're even being used for conservation grazing in woodlands to reduce the growth of brambles and other unwanted vegetation that would otherwise choke out wild flowers. If all goes to plan, in a few weeks the veg patch will be weed free and fertilised, and the pigs will have lots of lovely fresh grass to enjoy when we move them into the larger paddock.