However, even that first year I grow things on the compost piles. Pumpkins, sunflowers, broccoli and other things love the warm, ultra rich soil of the pile. I mix in some dirt when making the piles, a practice another farmer found very strange. But it works. This means that the first year when the compost is breaking down I grow a crop on it in a pile. Then in the fall or the next spring I spread that compost and grow flat crops.

On the highly hairy wild piglets they might have been short of selenium since they’re up on snow and can’t get dirt. We learned how to deal with this. It isn’t a problem for piglets born in the warm months with dirt access but in the winter is an issue. This causes more hairiness. Occasionally, like this week, I’ll see a piglet that seems to have a genetic problem with taking up selenium so even though I’m making sure they get dirt in the winter it still ends up with white muscles disease, the bone twisting and the hairiness associated with selenium deficiency. Once they get back onto dirt they look normal. During the winter when I am moving bales around I grab a backhoe scoop of dirt for pigs. They eat the dirt which provides them with minerals. This works on our farm because we have good dirt, rich in all the minerals. It is worth testing your soil because some places are low in selenium or other minerals.

I love this pictures with all the cute white piglets. I like the last posting with Blackie and the colored piglets too. I am surprised at how little hair the pigs seem to have even in the middle of the winter. I saw a picture of feral pigs/wild pigs that were nearly furry in the winter time.