Sugar Mountain Farm is a small sustainable family farm nestled in the forested mountains of northern central Vermont. We raise a diverse variety of animals with pastured pigs being our primary product. Enjoy the stories and how-to articles here on our blog, find out about our Big Project – the construction of our own nano-scale, on-farm slaughterhouse and butcher shop, join our CSA and enjoy wholesome, healthy, delicious pastured pork from our family’s farm to your family’s table.
Eat good food and enjoy life,
neither will keep!
-Walter Jeffries
I love your family farm blog. You have such a positive can do attitude. I know there must be a lot of hard work behind it and that it isn’t all a bed of roses but you guys accomplish so much. I so much want to have a farm like yours someday.
Hi Walter. Hope all is well at the farm? I’am thinking of using goats to get my pigs interested in pasture. I was just wondering whether there is a specific reason you use Sheep? Could it be that Sheep are tranquil and goats notorious? I fear my pigs could take on goat character.
Simply because we had sheep before we had pigs.
and I would add because sheep actually eat the pasture grass..goats will eat all the brush first and nibble on the grass only if thats all there is
This is why we have a combination of animals grazing – they eat different things. My brother keeps goats but we haven’t yet. We’re planning to add goats because we’re expanding new fields that we’re recovering from forest that used to be fields a century ago. The goats are very good at helping with this renovation.
Hi i have been tring to raise pastured pork for a few years now. I have two herford sows and a bore. the problem that I have is the litters not surviving during birth, thet get stopped on or layed on. I am afraid to just leave them in the field, so I bring them in to a stall-8′x10′. Am I confining them to much? Should I just leave them so nature can take it’s course, do I need to seperate her from everyone else? thanks for your help.
How heavy are the sows? My understanding is that overly fat sows tend to lose litters to crushing. We don’t have that so I don’t see it. Pasturing doesn’t tend to produce fat sows. Another issue is how responsive is the sow to piglet distress and how gently does she lie down. A good sow lowers herself slowly, rising a bit if she hears distress until she’s finally all the way down. A bad sow simply flops down, crushing piglets.
You might try buffer boards around the perimeter, that may help too.
We have very good results with simply farrowing on pasture.
Hi Walter, is inbreeding much of a concern to you? If so, how do you handle it? I have always felt that it depends on how good or bad the genes with in the family are. The advice am getting from some vets, is that it should not happen at all.
thank you?
We started with several lines and haven’t had enough to time for inbreeding to be an issue even if we let it become one. However, inbreeding is not really the problem that people commonly think of it as being. Simply put, you breed the best and eat the rest. The nice thing about working with pigs, chickens, etc is you can eat any mistakes. This is the same no matter how close the genetics. Properly done it is called line breeding and that is how breed foundations are established. If you have problem animals, don’t breed them, no matter how close or far apart they are.
I enjoyed the blog about the pumpkins and sunflowers. Our gardens have not done
well this year. How do I send to Hope? does she have a blog? West Hill pig was very good.
Do you sell rendered lard?
We do render lard at home for our own use but we can’t render lard to sell yet as we are still working on building our commercial kitchen which is part of our butcher shop. Until then though you can buy back fat which you can render to make lard. See the order form on the literature page.