Apologies for the delay, however I was holiday the previous week and close research on the work to be caught up on has lead me to believe it apparently won’t do itself… I was away in Crete and unfortunately there were no examples of pig farming to be seen, my guess is that it is too hot for the pigs to become a reliable source of sustainable income. However there were plenty of examples of the sheep and goats making use of fallen olives and grapes. A practice that has been around as long as the groves themselves. Anyway, before I get carried away with sheep and goats… As I mentioned in my last post, that a pigs snout shape, or morphology influences the way it forages for food. In this post I am going to be talking about the types of food that can really tie the pigs into your permaculture system and how to get further use out of the pigs snout.

There are two different methods providing your pigs with sustainable feed along with the correct nutritional requirements. Provisions grown from the soil or composting/decaying material. The first, fodder crops, is relatively easy to control and maintain. Mainly revolving around a protein source and an energy source. The protein source, as mentioned in the last post, can be from any type of legume or rhizobia. These plants contain a higher concentration of Nitrogen, allowing for the deposition of more protein in the pigs. Then there is the energy source, which can be derived in two different forms; simple carbohydrates, such as the sugars in fruits; and complex carbohydrates, such as grains or fibrous vegetables. This contributes to the complex relationship of nitrogen:energy synchrony, I also mentioned last time.

The latter source of feed can be regarded as detritus, rotting food or compost. Which may, at first, not sound like a good idea to some, especially if the pigs are kept for food. However, there is a very rich source of protein that many people overlook, fungi. Mushrooms can be very simple to grown, particularly edible ones, here is a very in-depth guide to growing your own mushrooms. The two above mentioned processes can be easily integrated into crop rotations, especially if you have access to woodland – Please see these “plans” for a forest based system. Another integration nodule

The final aspect of this post is regarding the use of the previously mentioned pigs snout, and dependent upon the breed, once again, is their forage behaviour. An increased innate response to forage with their snout gives rise to a process called “pigaeration“. Where the pigs essentially and literally turn manure into compost, by foraging for food. This article mentions how the pigs turn over the manure when searching for food – a pile of which can be placed in a designated area of the previously mentioned ‘forest pens’.

The usefulness, benefits and advantages of using pigs, and maybe my biased towards them, is starting to paint a vital section of the permaculture picture. The topic for the next post will be showing examples of people who are already using pigs in their permaculture systems and hopefully explaining why they are successful.