We’ve been raising forest pigs here in New Market for a while now, and one lesson keeps coming back around: if you want to know what kind of pork you’re putting on the table, you have to know where the pigs come from.
For a long time, that meant buying feeder pigs from whoever had them available. Sometimes that worked out fine. Sometimes it didn’t. Recently we lost a couple of feeder pigs we’d just brought home. It wasn’t dramatic or graphic — just the hard, quiet reality of animals that never quite thrived the way they should have. Enough that Kara and I looked at each other and said, “We’re done guessing.”
So we’re starting to farrow our own pigs.
Why buying feeders got harder than it should be
When you buy feeder pigs from unknown sellers, you’re buying a story you can’t verify. You don’t know how the sow was treated. You don’t know what the litter looked like at birth. You don’t know the genetics beyond a label, and you don’t know what stress those little pigs carried with them from the trailer to your woods.
On a small farm, every animal matters. We don’t have industrial margins that absorb losses. When something goes wrong, you feel it in the budget, in the chore list, and in your gut. After enough of those nights, the decision to breed our own stock stopped feeling ambitious and started feeling necessary.
We want pigs that know this place — that are born here, raised here, and finished in the woods the way we believe pork should be raised.
The plan: breeding our gilts around December
We’ve got gilts we’re planning to breed around December. That timeline keeps us honest about winter work, shelter, and the months ahead. Farrowing isn’t a weekend project. It’s farrowing pens, careful watching, and being ready when piglets show up in the cold.
We’re not pretending this will be perfect on the first try. Like a lot of what we do at Grey & Bash Farm, it’s a step toward more control and more transparency — for us, and for the families who buy from us. If we raise the mothers, we can stand behind the whole story of the pork, not just the last few months in the woods.
The boys already ask a hundred questions about the pigs. Breeding our own will give them a front-row seat to the full cycle: sow to piglet to pasture to freezer. That’s the kind of education you can’t buy at the grocery store.
Forest-raised pork is available now
While we work toward that next chapter, we still have forest-raised pork ready for your table. Same woods, same attention, same commitment to raising animals with room to root and roam.
Order online at greyandbashfarm.com. Fresh eggs are available too. Orders are due by Friday at 5 PM for Saturday delivery around Huntsville or farm pickup here in New Market.
And if you want to follow along as we start farrowing — the wins, the learning curves, and the piglets when they arrive — sign up for our farm updates. We’ll keep you in the loop without the noise.
Thanks for supporting a farm that’s willing to slow down and do things the harder, better way.
— Jason
Grey & Bash Farm