Well, hello ladies and gents. Robert Sykes, Q savage.com.
Today I've got special guest pork rind on the podcast.
Yes, that is his username. Very fitting name because he is
an expert on all things pork. So we dive deep into the
wonderful world of properly sourced pork nutrition.
How to raise your own pigs. How to harvest your own pigs,
what to feed your pigs, proper livestock, homesteading
operations as it pertains to pigs.
That's something that Chris and I want to get into.
So I wanted to pick his brain and kind of run through a mock
version of what we should do in our own instance with our own
land, that our own endeavors there, but very applicable
conversation to anybody interested in pork, whether you
eat pork, raised pork, want to raise pork.
This is a totally relevant conversation.
We talked about regenerative agriculture.
We talked about all kinds of things.
He is a very interesting guy, incredibly knowledgeable on all
things proper pork husbandry, so I thoroughly enjoyed the
conversation. I've got no doubt that you'll
take something from it so that further delay, sit back, relax,
enjoy the podcast with pork rind,
You're live poor crying. How are you brother?
Not too bad, not too bad. Can't complain, today's been a
good day so far. Good man.
Glad to hear it. So to get a listener some
context here, I had Farmer Mona on the podcast.
We talked about homesteading and she kept raving about you from
an expert in the pig industry standpoint.
And I looked you up and I just loved the play on words.
With your branding like pork rind rind being your name, I
mean, just makes perfect sense, man.
So for that reason alone, I'm excited to be chatting with you.
Well, Mona's a good friend of mine and you know, I I just.
Yeah, I love pigs, man, that that boils down everything.
I just love pigs. And not just any kind of pigs I
love. I love raising pigs and outdoor
environment, natural environment.
And I'll think they'll go hand in hands with not just my
journey in the kido, but also just a conversation about really
having healthier food and healthier lives.
So looking forward to chat. Yeah, 100%, man.
I think it goes hand in hand. Like everybody in my sphere, you
know, listen to this. They're following a ketogenic
diet or they're learning more about the ketogenic diet.
And with that comes a more significant emphasis on where
your food comes from, quality sourcing, making sure that what
the animals you're consuming are also consuming quality foods.
And that kind of just trickles into, you know, homesteading and
and often times raising your own food, which is kind of the
direction I've taken things. So I'm super excited to dive in
deep and just learn more about proper pig nutrition and how to
optimize around that. So can you give me some context,
man? Like, what gets you into pigs to
begin with? Yeah, good question.
So I've gotten the pigs after I dropped out of college.
I was having a midlife crisis in my 20s and realized that the
projectory I was going into in the ag field was going to lead
me to work for good old folks like Cargill.
Monsanto, JBS Smith. Bill Tyson.
Our good friends and family members.
And so I realized that that didn't resonate with my
childhood experiences seeing. Animals play dynamic roles in
dynamic ecosystems and so my first level is the environmental
sciences. Being out in nature, I love that
went in as an ag major and start to fall in love with
agriculture. Agriculture is not just farming.
It's economics. It's energy, it's policy, it's
education, it's healthcare and encompasses everything that we
do as civilization. You know, you even had people
who went to war for farmland because they knew that the more
farmland they could acquire, the better off they'll be able to
feed their people and grow their civilization.
And so the economy in that is really finding balance.
The agriculturists tend not to like the environmentalists.
The environmentalists tend to pick fights with the
agriculturalists. And so this is every ending
cycle of just blaming here, blaming there.
So for me, I want to find that balance and that balance for me
was dropping out of college. So that way I could not be in an
institutionalized environment, but in the actual working
environment and end up managing a couple operations in Texas and
North Carolina that were strictly pasture raise
regenerative livestock production operations, including
organically raised produce. So it's just a little bit about
my background into how I got into pigs and how I got into
farming as a whole. Gotcha.
Of all the different livestock
critters out there, what made you resonate with pigs
specifically? Yeah, so pigs were.
Pigs were the animal that I couldn't understand.
They were the animal that had the hardest time with,
especially when they come to raising the amount of pasture.
I've had cows figured out. I had goats figured out.
I had chicken and poultry figured out when it came to
rotational grazing pasture management.
But pigs man, they were, they were stumbling block for me and
during that time I was very five full, arrogant and.
They were just not. They were messing with my pride.
I want to be honest with you, Rob.
They're messing with my pride. And I really thank God, use that
to humble my heart and to show me that I'm not a know it all, I
don't know everything and that you know, they're going to use
an unlikely creature to do that. So for me, the story of pork
rind, how pork rind was born before there was ever a brand or
a name attached to it was we had a sound named Louise.
She was 600 pounds. And she was just breaking
through infrastructure. And so while I was having a day
off, they had to call me back to the farm to come corral her and
wrangle her up. So I did put her an isolation
pin where she had plenty of space, pasture, feed, water,
shelter. She had everything that she
needed and about to walk away. And Louise decided to bust out
of the infrastructure and bust out of the enclosure.
She literally lifted the gate off of its hinges.
Plug it 20 feet into the air and and pigs are powerful superpower
for animals. And so at that moment when I saw
her just destroy everything and I felt defeated in that I had a
really good God wink where I needed to just pause.
And so Louise came up to me, trotted in victory and she was
making all these grunting noises.
Right, right, right. And you know, I got down on one
knee. I did not proposal Louise, but I
did say you know what, Louise? Rather by big, fat, juicy, Batty
jaws. Louise, I'm going to love you so
hard that just maybe I'll understand you.
Because right now I really don't.
And taking the time to actually understand pigs, I got to see my
own story in that. Things are often some of us
misunderstood farm animals of all time.
With all of that stupid, dirty animals Rowdy is Pigs are very
smart. They have the IQ of around a
between a three to five year old.
They're also pretty hygienic if they have plenty of space.
So they'll pick spaces to to deprecate in, and they have, you
know, a lot of space. It's not really a problem.
The only time that they actually get really dirty is when they're
not raised right or when they get too hot.
And they either create a wallow and cover themselves in mud,
since pigs are more prone to heat exhaustion compared to
other animals. So yeah, I saw my story in that
because often times growing up I felt misunderstood.
I felt that I was stupid and dirty.
I felt that culture thought I was stupid and dirty, and being
able to resonate with an animal really helped me probably heal
from a lot of insecurities that I had as a child, even though I
was dealing with them as a grown adult.
That's very cool, man. I definitely want to dive into
some of these misunderstandings around pigs as a species,
because there is certainly a lot of dogmatic thinking in that
regard. So when it comes to pigs, I
mean, they're kind of akin to to dogs in a certain way.
Like, I know a lot of people that have actually had pigs as
like indoor pets and they respond not too differently from
like a dog would in a lot of ways.
Yeah, definitely. Pigs are smarter than dogs.
I think this is just me, personally.
I think pigs are some of the worst pets to own.
Especially if they're indoor pets.
And the reason why is because they're so intelligent that
they're able to guilt trip you and also they they eat more than
the average dog would eat. So you're talking about a bigger
feed bill. You're talking about just like
more inputs for the animal to maintain its health.
And so also they're just extra spoiled, extra extra spoiled
because they they resemble more of a child than they do, even a
dog. I'm in a lot of ways and so.
You know, I think pigs are the most spoiled of pets.
But for me, you know, I might have a pet pig at one point that
I won't consider eating, but I think I like pork and bacon too
much, so I don't know. I don't know, but I feel like a
lot of people get these, you know, quote, UN quote miniature
pigs thinking they're going to stay miniature.
And these pigs just keep on growing and they don't realize
what they've done because they wind up having this several 100
pound animal running around the house just wreaking all kind of
havoc. Right, right.
Even with miniature pigs, the the true miniature pigs, they're
they're, you know, between 100 to 200 pounds, maybe even the
£300. But you start looking at how
people get scammed and what some people will do is they'll get
commercial pigs. Like like piglets from a
commercial farm that have the capacity to grow to several 100
pounds. We're talking 809 hundred
pounds. And they'll sell them off as
miniature pigs. And if you don't know the wiser
about that, you end up raising a pig that can get £800.
Now pig on average is going to eat around £5 a feet a day, if
not more than that. So you know, you're talking
about a huge feed bill, especially the bigger debt to
get. So it's it's expensive.
Do your homework folks. Yeah, for sure.
For sure. I'd love to dive into some of
the nutritional components of pigs because like I said you,
you've dabbled in keto quite a bit.
I'm a big fan of pork bacon as I'm sure most people listen to
this, or when it comes to pigs compared to that of like like a
room in it, like a cow for instance.
You know, cows have the benefit of being able to up regulate the
nutrition that they're consuming, you know, from grass
or grain or whatever that may be.
But with a monogastric animal like a pig or a chicken, it's
much more so a matter of, you know, they are what they eat
kind of. So what you feed a pig is of
very significant importance. So on that note, what do you
feed a pig? Like what?
What is the proper nutritional protocol for someone wanting to
raise pigs? Yeah, great question.
So when it comes to raising pigs and nutrition for feeding a pig,
there's a wide variety, huge wide variety in that.
I think just kind of keeping things simple if let's say
you're buying store bought feed and we'll we'll keep this in the
context of eating as healthy and clean as possible.
Generally, if you want to feed the pig, first recommendation is
when you first get pigs. To really just stick to a feed
formulations, a feed that's already been formulated for you.
The importance of that is it helps you have a baseline of
understanding of what a pig should look like within, you
know, while you're feeding it for six months to a year.
Depending on the breed, some of some of the breeds go up to two
years, 2 1/2 years. So you want to have a good
understanding of what the baseline of that pig should look
like on A. Formulate a feed diet before you
start adding in a lot of different feeds, alternative
feeds and food wastes and things like that.
So again, from a healthy clean eating standpoint, my
recommendation is usually non-GMO feed.
Generally, I do not recommend. Conventional feed,
conventionally raised feed and the reason why that is for
pesticides. And so, you know, we really want
to make sure that we're not eating animals that are eating
feeds that are covered with pesticides.
You know, Roundup Ready is still an issue, and they're not
washing the feed before they grind it up and mill it.
And so buying non-GMO kind of gives that really nice buffer in
terms of like pesticide usage. You still have even in Sir POD
organic, they do use pesticides and herbicides.
It's just that those are approved by the USDA rather than
those that are not approved by the USDA.
So I know there's a misconception on that, that if
you're doing Sir pod organic fed meats, that that means there's
no pesticides or herbicides involved.
And sometimes that's the case, but usually there are pesticides
or herbicides involved, It's just that the USA approves those
particular ones. So in Roundup Ready is not a
part of that glyphosates, not part of that gotcha.
So you do recommend like an actual, you know pig Chow that
standardize as opposed to you know table scraps and things
that things of that nature. But you just are really specific
on the types of Chow that you're sourcing?
Right, exactly. You know the biggest thing is.
I want people when they start getting in the pics.
I have the best success possible and so I have the best success
possible is taking some of the guesswork out of feed
formulation. You know, if your audience being
on keto like keto is it's it's it's simple and there's a lot of
the way to streamline it. But just understand, like how
does my body work with certain foods in keto?
Like there's certain foods in keto that I just can't eat.
You know, and so understanding like how the body works, your
particular body works with certain foods is really
important. But it takes a lot of like trial
and error and figuring things out.
Being able to going back to pigs, being able to just have a
formulated feed that is going to be healthy, not going to have
it, like any, you know, harmful pesticides or herbicides in it
gets rid of all the guesswork. So again, like starting out with
pigs the first year? Don't try to guess a lot, just
try to find the way that's going to be streamlined and effective.
And so buying a formulated feed is going to be the best way.
Now the second time you raise pigs, then you want to consider
adding extra things into that that might be also food scraps.
You know, in that food scraps never really hurt pigs usually.
So even if you're doing a formulated feed, feel free to
add some food scraps to it. But just be mindful of of what
type of food scraps you're you're adding.
You know, wonder breads probably not going to be the best food
scraps for the pig because guess what, it's kind of like you
eating wonder breads, you know, So then we start talking about
inflammation and things like that.
So, you know, it's just really important to to make it simple
in year one. And year two, as you're doing
research and figuring things out, you can add different
forages, different food waste byproducts that want to be
healthy for the animal and they'll kind of change the
flavor of the pork as you go along.
So that's also really important gotcha.
Is there a specific brand of Pig formula that you use and
recommend? Not in particular, and part of
the reason why is because. A lot of the non-GMO and stirfad
organic feeds for pigs are going to be regionally based and
regionally milled. And so you want to go to like
your local or county or regional Miller and see whether or not
they do non-GMO in organic feed. But in terms of particular
brand, I don't have any. When I was farming, I just went
with whoever. Was nearest to me and could
provide me non-GMO and so you know that's all regional.
We weren't buying from a national company or anything
like that. And honestly, if you're buying
from national company, your feed.
Bills probably going to be a little bit higher than if you
were to just buy it from a feed mill that might be 5050 miles
down the road, and then just buy in bulk.
And that's another thing. If you're going to buy feed, buy
them bulk. You get discounts and savings
when doing that. The more pigs that you raise,
the more livestock that you raise their monogastric, the
more feed that you're going to need.
And the more feed that you need, the better discounts you'll get
when you're buying it all at one time.
So I always recommend buying in bulk.
Don't buy back feed if you can't help it.
Buy in bulk, even if you're buying back feed by the back
feed in bulk, rather than going to a general sore and getting a
bag of feed. You know, one one week at a
time, one month at a time. So hopefully that helps.
No totally what? What are the typical feeds
comprised of? Is it like a corn based feed
generally? Oh, no, no, Rob, I'm hoping
you're saying no. So that's a good thing, but.
So if we're talking about conventional feed, regular feed,
we're not talking about non GM and we're not talking about
organic, just conventional feed generally.
It's a primarily a corn soy ration.
Sometimes there's also some wheat in it, things like that,
you know, and there'll be the other byproducts.
In in there as well. But if we're talking about
non-GMO and organic generally you're going to there there are
some non-GMO that will have corn in it because they're able to
source corn from a non-GMO corn provider.
But generally corn's not going to be a strong part if a part of
the feed ingredients at all. So if we're thinking about
carbohydrates for for pigs with non-GMO organic, we can consider
rise. Sometimes weak wheat, non-GMO
wheat. We're also thinking of barley.
Those are, that's another example, everything.
They have protein sources. Sometimes that might be
soybeans, soybean milk, not soybean milk.
Well, some of them will have non-GMO soybean milk.
What am I thinking of? Sunflower milk, Sunflower milk
fill peas. You know they're also, when you
think of carbohydrates, Pearl millets.
Sorghum, sorghum grain as well. So you're gonna get a lot of
alternative grains from corn and soy, and all those have a pretty
profound impact on the flavor of the pig once you once you
harvest that. Oh yes, definitely, definitely.
Especially if you're getting like a let's say a predominantly
barley feed or carbohydrates, the fat's gonna be a lot wider.
It's also going to be a little bit more of a firmer fat
compared to the fat of a corn fed pig as well.
Is there like a specific ratio that tends to yield the best
quality meat? Like a one to one ratio of
protein to carbohydrates with some fats?
And what's the typical ratio in a quality feed?
So that all depends on the stage of life of that pig.
So we usually learn thinking about feeding animals.
Every animal has a certain developmental stage and they
require different types of nutrition or ratios of
nutrition. So humans no different.
So with pigs, when they're really young, after they have
been weaned, they need a higher protein diet.
So if we're raising pigs out on pasture and maybe you got them
weaned, meaning they're around two months old, you want to feed
them somewhere around 18 to 16% crude protein.
And literally, if you're going to buy a bag of feed, literally
just ask for 18 to 16% crude protein around the middle stages
of life. They're going to need maybe
somewhere around want to say 15 to 13% through protein.
And part of the reason why the protein keeps going down is
because you're adding more carbohydrates.
As pigs get older, their ability to their their nutritional needs
for protein start to go down, but their energy needs are still
constant, consistent and go up. Part of the reason why the like,
if your pig is 2 months before slaughter, you want to move them
to a finisher ration which is usually around I want to say 13
to 12% crude protein, which is a lower amount of protein compared
to earlier stages of life. And the reason why is because
we're adding more carbohydrates so that we can actually fatten
up the animal. Because the one thing you don't
want is a pig that does not have a lot of fat on it, because that
is some that's not good port pork is pork.
That's not good pork. We need fat.
We're on keto, so we need fat. So don't don't starve your pigs
by feeding them a bunch of empty calories or a bunch of vegetable
waste towards the end of their end of their life before
slaughter. Because really, you're doing
yourself a disservice when it comes to having nice, rich,
delicious fat and a good quantity of it when you're going
to slaughter your pig. So those are some things you
want to consider and think about.
Makes total sense. All right, so I'm going to, I
got some selfish questions here but I think while they are
selfish questions that they're applicable for what the listener
would want here. So we my wife actually used to
raise pigs for, you know fun way back when she was young and we
have recently acquired some land.
We're doing like homesteading operation now trying to become
more self-sufficient and we're leaning towards pigs as our
primary livestock on our little homestead operation.
So I'd love to kind of just. Walk through the steps for
anybody interested in acquiring, you know, their own pork, what
that could look like. So it's going to be a lot, you
know, dependent upon location, all that good stuff.
But like for instance, we've got about 3 acres, 2 to 2 1/2, three
acres that would be allocated for these pigs.
Is there like a general rule of thumb as to how much land per
head like there is with cattle or what?
What do you typically see there? So my general answer is it
depends, you know, And part of the reason why it depends is
everyone's soils different? Everyone's.
What type of pig can determine how much land you're going to
need? What stage you get?
The pigs, are you getting them at two months old or are you
getting them at six months old? You know, what type of terrain
do you have? You know, if you got two acres,
is it all flat or is it kind of slopes, you know, that might
dictate a lot of things. So also what type of weather you
have, if you normally get maybe a little bit more of a rainy
weather, you're going to have to move them a little bit more
compared to if your weather is a little bit more dry.
So you know, we think about all these factors and so the best
thing is really developing what I call the farmers eye.
So it's not just feed, water and shelter, but it's all the
context in between that I'm really using observational
skills. It's something similar to people
who teach permaculture and permaculture design.
You just want to apply those same principles to raising
animals. So let's say, like I'll ask you
like what type of soil do you think you have?
Is it more sandy? Is it more like black dirt, like
black soil? Or is it more clay?
It's kind of more of a clay base.
I'm in Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas, so I'm in the
mountains. I've got some elevation, I've
got some slopes and. A lot of clay based dirt for
sure, but the area of gap form is pretty well.
Grassy. OK, good, good, good good.
Are there any trees around? Yeah, yeah, there's trees.
OK, good. Arkansas is a beautiful state.
I've been there a couple times. So, you know, my recommendation
off the bat is make sure that wherever you want to keep with
your PIC paddock design, you want to make sure that they're
being rotated. The reason why is because if you
don't, if you just let your pigs roam two or three acres, the
issue with that is they start nitpicking what they eat.
And the reason why you don't necessarily want them to do that
is because the more they become picky eaters, they start leaving
behind plant species that they won't eat.
And so then those plant species mature, they germinate, and they
leave their seeds. So then after five years, most
of your pasture is going to be filled with plant species that
the pigs won't eat. So one thing I want to encourage
is like mob grazing. So whether you have two pigs or
10 pigs, make sure that your rotations are really tight with
that. Generally we look at animals
through animal units sets every £1000.
That looks different when you have 10 winged pigs versus 10
full grown sows. So the animal units going to be
a little bit different, but generally speaking, you know if
you have red clay soil and it's not super rainy a whole lot, how
many pics are you thinking about having on on pasture?
How many pigs? Whatever you recommend, man.
Like, I don't want them to totally tear up everything.
And I'll definitely have, like, you know, a range so that I'm
rotating them, but I would prefer to keep it.
You know, they'll probably have a spot that's that's, you know,
more just torn up. But I would prefer to not just
have a, you know, a clay pit by the end of it all.
So not too many pigs. That doesn't happen, okay.
So normally I recommend no more than two and no less than two.
Reason why no less than two is because pigs need friends.
They're highly intelligent, and so if they don't have a friend,
they're going to misbehave. And you don't want that.
So you know two pigs on red clay soil, some elevation, but
relatively, you know, somewhat level land.
Nothing too extreme with tree line and some forests attached
to it. You know, I think you could
probably do 110th of an acre per rotation.
And my recommendation for that in terms of when to move the
pigs is to focus less about time and more about the grass.
One thing that my farmer friend and out in Georgia, his name's
Roy Mosley, is he says don't manage the pigs, manage the
grass. And so as you have your pigs on
a a 110th of an acre, you'll notice how they operate and how
they're eating the grass and how they're maneuvering.
But you don't want them to be moved before they've grazed
through the grass at least once. You also don't want them to get
to the point where you keep them for so long that now the grass
has become stubbled. So really it's a matter of
making sure that the pigs are grazing through once and then
moving them. So depending on weather, let's
say you have regular kind of weather, you can probably keep
them there for a week, maybe two weeks, but I think a week
probably would be good and then you want to move them along.
Gotcha. And for ease of use there, do
you like we'll have the whole thing, you know fenced in as a
perimeter fence and then to kind of rotate them through, do you
just have like a, you know, two strand electric wire that's
that's mobile? Yeah, that's my my preference.
If I know I don't have wild pigs around.
If I do have wild pigs around, normally I like to recommend
electric netting. Plus usually electric netting
will work by itself. If not, electric netting +2 to
strands of polywire on the inside of electric netting
usually will be pretty good so. Yeah, and a lot of people, I
mean, a lot of people recommend going the rat of goats if
they've got a lot of debris and just shrubbery that they want to
clear out. But I mean, pigs can take care
of all that. Just easy, correct.
Almost. So pigs like they're they can
get kind of tall, but like they're not going to get usually
more taller than three feet in terms of not late, not like how
long they are but in terms of height.
So the issue with that is they're not going to usually
look up to eat food or look down to eat food.
So depending on your land, if you have like invasive plant
species or undesirable plant species that are going to be
probably 2 feet or more tall, then they're not necessarily
going to push it down and eat it in comparison to a goat, which
will actually put their weight on the plant to bring it down
and then eat it. So if you have really tall
invasive plant species or undesirable species, then you
want to have goats to get the tall plants.
But if you have low plants like kudzu, things like that, then
the pigs will be able to take care of that.
And even if they don't like the taste of it, if you tighten up
the rotation a little bit more, so maybe from 1/10 of an acre to
115th of an acre or something like that, then they can pummel
down the invasive plant species into the dirt.
And then you can start broadcasting seeds on top of
that so that that way something else can grow and can compete
with that space. Gotcha.
Makes total sense. What about the different strains
of pigs like? Based off of my scenario, is
there a specific breed that you would steer me towards?
Yeah, so a lot of people tell me this, I get this all the time no
matter what the event I'm speaking at.
You know when someone asks, hey Ryan, what's the best pick
breed, my answer is always the breed that works for you.
So again, wisdom without the hogwash context is so important.
So my question to you would be a how much pork do you want?
How much how much pork does your does your your family usually
eat within a year like in pounds?
How much do you think? A lot, man.
Like we're pretty much, we're leaning towards carnivore.
So between, you know, pork and beef, that's pretty much all we
eat. So we could put down whatever we
have for sure. OK.
So would you say you eat 150
pounds of pork a year? Probably more than that, more
than that. So we talking maybe 300 then?
Yeah, at least I've never put it like a pencil to paper to
calculate it. But I mean, I'm eating probably
£2.00 of meat a day, my wife's probably eating.
At least a pound of meat today. So, pretty good job.
Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect.
So there are, if you're eating a pound of meat, let's say let's
say on average your household to eating a pound of pork a day,
you know, then that's £365.00 that you're going to need.
So when we look at that, generally what I would say is
raise pigs up to 300 pounds and then slaughter them.
You'll get usually a yield, a 56% yield on like valuable
retail cuts and stuff like that. If you keep the bones, which I'm
pretty sure you guys would do that and other organ meets, then
that yield could probably be up to 60 to 65% if not more.
So generally you're going to get back 150 pounds of retail cuts
when you raise a pig, up to 300 pounds.
So if you're already eating £365.00 because you're eating
relatively around the pound of pork Bay, maybe something like
that, then you know you're going, let's see, 365 / 150
pounds per pig. So you're going to need
2.4333333333333 pigs. So you could probably get three
pigs. I would recommend three, you
know, that way you're not falling short.
And then whatever meat you have in excess you can use to
evangelize other people to raising their own pork or to buy
in to you raising pork for them for next year.
So then now we go into breeds, you know.
Then the next question is how quickly do you want to report?
I just want to do it right. So like if that means I got to
raise them slower, start them younger, that's what I'm all
about. I just want to do it right from
the get go. So you can do it right by
raising them faster or slower. So so you can go either way.
So do you, do you feel like, you know, I want to really, really
take my time with pigs? Or you like, are you more like,
you know, I want a pig who'll be ready in six months.
I'm not in a rush, like I've got a ton of traveling this year so
we're really going to kick this off early next year so we we can
go the slower route, Okay. So if we're talking like really
quick fast growing pigs and there's nothing inherently evil
about it, pigs growing fast, some breeds are just going to
grow faster than others. Then breeds that would come to
mind would be Berkshire Durox, Yorkshire Hampshire's.
Usually they're going to be, well, Berkshires are probably
ready in seven months to 8 months, but usually the Durox,
Hampshire's, Yorkshire's will be ready in around six months at
300 pounds. If you feed them appropriately,
the right amount of feed and you don't limit their feed.
Give them as much feed as they want and they will.
They will grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow.
Now intermediate would be around 8 to 10 months towards
readiness. Breeds and this is to get up to
300 pounds. So breeds like that would be
Berkshires, Gloucestershire, Old spots or GOS.
You can Google GOS. Pigs that work too.
Red Wattle not wadl but wattle Red wattle 2 T's.
They're really cute pigs also. So all those breeds are like
meat breeds and her fruits, her fruits.
And those are all pretty good at like foraging and just eating
the invasive species as well. Yeah, so often tell us.
What you'll notice is pigs will like the play with the plants,
so they might not even eat the species, but they'll play with
it and and just trample on and things like that.
So all pigs are capable of doing that.
The glass rolled spot, Red Waddles and some Berkshires are
more likely to actively eat the grass.
So again these are all pigs will be ready within a year.
Pigs are going to take around a year to more would be but are
have better foraging capabilities would be English
large blacks or large black hogs.
They're usually ready at a year to year and a half.
You have May Shawn's, which is a Chinese breed of pig that we
have in the United States. That's going to be a year and a
half at least. You also have Kuni Kunis and
Mangalitsa, which are going to take two years to 2 1/2 years to
get to kind of around £300, not exactly, but somewhere around
there. So you got plenty of options.
So if you want to like a quick pig that's going to grow really
fast and give you a lot of good meat, you know, we can start
with the pigs I mentioned in the beginning.
If you're kind of intermediate, like you're just taking your
time a little bit, the pigs I mentioned in the middle would
work well. And if you're just like, you
know, we just want to really, really take our time and we want
to get that, you know, just pork that's going to be around for a
while, then I recommend the ladder breeds.
Gotcha. So the Berkshires, they range
between 6 to 8 months. You said fired your rent.
Yeah, somewhere around there. So, and again, like when you get
a breed, you have some lines or some pigs that do really well
and some that don't, just like people.
So if your pig doesn't meet, doesn't get to wait in six
months, it's no big deal. But by 8 months, most Berkshires
will be at 300 pounds, period. Flat.
And that's based off of getting them shortly after they've been
weaned, yes. So usually you want to get a pig
that's been weaned at a month and a half to two months.
You're of age, you bring them onto the farm and you do not
limit their feed at all. You give them as much feed as
they want For all the breeds. The meat breeds I've mentioned,
the ones that are really quick, the ones that are intermediate,
do not regulate their feed, Give them as much feed as they want
for the breeds that mentioned later, the ones that take a year
or more, you need to put them on a ration because otherwise they
get really obese and you're just going to get a lot of fat and
not nearly as much meat. So with the Berkshires, Duros,
Glaser, Old Spots, Red Waddles, Herberts, Yorkshires,
Hampshires, those breeds, they need as much feed as they can
get and they'll grow out to as much feed as you're willing to
give them. But all those breeds will be
ready between 6 to 10 months, you know?
So if you're list on the podcast, just go back to what I
said earlier and I'll get and it gives you more specific
timelines. When it comes to acquiring these
freshly weaned pig, we'll just use Brookshire as an example
here. Is there anything that I need to
make sure I'm doing in like questions I need to be asking
the the farmer that I'm getting them from think they need to be
looking out for? Yeah.
So first thing is, like, we're not going into breathing.
So like, and I meet some home setters that they're, they get a
pig. Like, you know what?
I think I might keep this pig. You know, I was going to use it.
I was going to eat it, but I think I might keep it.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, We're not doing
that. Reason why is because the pigs
that get sold are the pigs that did not make the cut for
breeding. So you do not want to use those
pigs for breeding. So now that we've gotten that
out of the way, you know, when you're going to a farm, you want
to see what kind of practices they have.
So you want to see if the practices that they have are
going to be similar to the practices that you want to have.
So if you're getting pigs that were raised in a barn and like
for generations that herd that that farmer has has been raised
more in barns than outside in the elements of all pasture or
in the woods, then you know, if you put that those genetics out
on your land, they're not going to do as well because for years
those genetics were bred for more of an indoor environment or
enclosed environment. So you want to go to a place
that's going to raise the pigs the way that you want to raise
it. And I think there should be some
leniency in that or some flexibility in that.
One thing I've noticed, a lot of home centers are kind of
perfectionists, but they don't have farming experience to
really like have a good understanding of how hard
farming is. And maybe the pig farmer doesn't
have all the practices that they want to see.
You know, well, get in there breeding pigs and you'll realize
that you also have a dirt lot for for most people, you know.
So as long as they're being raised outdoors, experiencing
the elements, I think that's good enough in terms of picking
the pig out from there. And you might realize, Rob, that
you know, you mentioned Berkshires.
You might realize the nearest Berkshire breeders is 2 states
away. So you might have to settle for
a breed that would be more applicable to you know, your
accessibility as well. And that's important.
So don't be surprised people if you're driving miles, if not
states away to find a breed that you're looking for.
That makes sense for sure. What what about other
environmental factors? Like you got to make sure
they've got ample water? Do they need to have like a like
a splash pad so to speak, where they can just romp around in the
water, create some mud? Yeah.
So the biggest thing is for pigs is water and shade.
Definitely feed, but but also water and shade.
If you don't give your pig water and shade, especially if you're
in a hot environment, your pigs are are going to suffer if not
die. Reason why is because pigs can't
sweat, despite the weird saying about pigs sweating.
That's like I don't know where that came from.
The pigs don't sweat and so they need a lot of shade.
That's why I tell people pigs are not pasture animals.
They were not designed to frolic in meadows and be out in the sun
24/7. You know when you look at the
EUR Asian wild boar or the wild hogs out in Europe or even here
in the United States, you're not seeing them in open pastures in
the daytime. You might see them in at dawn or
in the evening where the day is cooler.
But generally you want to make sure that you know if you have
pigs that they're going to have a cool environment.
So having ample access to clean waters will be really important.
Also a wallow would be important and I'd also add adding a shade
cloth on top of that so you can use some T post or some rebar.
Create a shade cloth structure over it so that way it's still
portable, you're not it's not permanent structure.
And then allow for that shade cloth plus a water wallow
underneath it to really keep the pits cool.
Gotcha. Makes total sense.
You mentioned wild hogs. I want to kind of pick your
brain on this because we've got a a farms family farm down in
southwest Arkansas and it is just overrun with wild hogs.
And a lot of people like kind of like Texas, you know, you think
about wild hog population in Texas, pretty much same thing in
southwest Arkansas. And a lot of there's, there's a
lot of points of contention around.
Are they even safe to eat? So like my dad's a wildlife
biologist, he won't even touch him because he's worried about
trichinosis. He's worried about.
Pseudo rabies. He's worried about all these
things. Is that a legitimate concern
with wild hogs or what's your take on that?
Yeah, I think it is a legitimate concern.
Ironically, though, I think, you know, we talked about how we
don't have enough food to feed people.
And one thing I'd say is, well, you know, they're, they're all
walking on four legs. And in Texas, like, there's just
so much free food out there, you know, and all you need is a gun.
And so go get a gun anyways. But you know, when it comes to
wild hogs, there are people who will trap and and and feed them
out and then kill them. So if you're going to, let's
say, capture wild hogs and feed them out for at least two
months, you at least want to feed them out to two months and
then and then you know, dispatch them and then slaughter them.
Trigonosis and other issues are in pseudo rabies.
Definitely a concern one, and I don't recommend this, but if
you're going to do it, let me at least give you the right advice.
Is if you're going to use wild hogs, get them as piglets, as
runts, as babies. So kill the parents, capture the
piglets and then raise those out and you and and when you do it
that way, usually the piglets are.
They still got a little Ferrell in them, but they're relatively
domesticated. You know, once you're feeding
them regularly, you know, touching them regularly, you
know, they're they can be pretty domesticated at a very early
age. So, you know, and I've, I've met
so many people who have trapped piglets and raised them out and
you know, they say like man, I've had the best tasting pork,
better than anything I could find at the grocery store
because I just trapped pigs while pigs raised them out and
slaughtered them myself. And it's true.
It really is true. I think the environment is
really important. So part of the reason that we
almost eradicated trigonosis within the the pork industries
is because we stopped raising them outdoors.
And so part of the reason why trigonosis was such a big issue
was a lot of farmers are raising a lot of pigs in very dense
populated outdoor pins. And so you want to make sure
that you're giving those pigs plenty of space, even rotating
them. Especially if they're really
young. They're more likely to be
domesticated by you, and they're more likely to listen to you as
you're trying to move them and rotate them through pasture.
With wild pigs though, if you're raising your own pigs, and let's
say you're whether you're going to breathing or not, do not have
female pigs. So if you're raising pigs, get
borrows, It's Barrow. Those are castrated bores.
Raise those because if you get a guilt when the guilt goes into
extracycle or their heat cycle, she's going to attract pigs from
miles away. And last thing you want is to
attract wild, barrocious pigs who have all kinds of diseases
to be on your property and even impregnate your pig, which goes
into what I like to call unplanned pig pregnancies.
Nothing more. Worse than having a pregnant pig
that you didn't realize was pregnant.
And then she pops out babies when you least expect it because
you're going to go on vacation next week and now she's got all
these piglets and you're like, what do we do?
So you know, recommend get borrows with getting the male
pigs. You'll get more meat in
comparison to the female pigs for slaughter anyway.
So get male pigs if you're going to go to the breeding you need.
Definitely only a 2 two layer defense method for electric
wire, polywire and and electric netting.
So that way your breathing pigs, your breathing cells, are not
going to get pregnant by wild boars whose genetics are not
going to be good for what you want them to do.
Gotcha. Yeah.
We don't have any wild hogs up where I'm at.
It's just down at the family farm as far as like the
trichinosis and stuff down there is concerned like if I'm.
If I'm killing a wild hog that's younger and I'm cooking that to
100 and what is it? 65 degrees for trichinosis and
then I should be good anyways, right?
Yeah, yeah. Same thing with bear meat, you
know, So cook the, cook the food all the way.
Well, that's one thing I like about raising pigs from, you
know, from non questionable sources, is that the meat that
you get back, you don't have to cook it.
The hell, one of the issues with the kind of how we treat it pork
in America is we cook it until it's cardboard.
And that's why it doesn't taste good.
That's why a lot of people don't like pork.
But when we cook it low and slow, low and slow, you know,
I've been able to cook like a porterhouse chop or you know,
just like a regular pork chop. And I can cook it.
I just cook it like a steak, you know, So I like medium rare and
so my pork chops will be medium rare and all I got to add is
some salt, some pepper, and I get to have a steak experience
instead of being beef. It's pork, so.
No, it makes total sense, man. On that note, let's let's dive
into some some cooking here because it's like it's totally
relevant now. You get my, you get my hungry
now. So when you're raising your own
pigs and you're using the whole animal, like what?
What are some of your favorite preparation methods that are
probably like not commonly used that most people think?
They go to the store, they get bacon, they get a pork chop, and
that's pretty much the extent of pork loin.
That's like all they know how to do.
What are some lesser known but really tasty recipes that you're
cooking up with your pigs? So the best one by far, hands
down that I've enjoyed the most. It is definitely a labor of love
to do. This is the pig's head.
OK, pig's head, hands down one of my favorites.
You know, you get the pork cheeks, you get the pork jaw,
you get the actual face of the pig as well.
And you can create what I like what we call crispy pork out of
that. So what I'll do is I'll actually
will get a pig's head and you can just do this.
You don't even have to raise pigs.
You can just go to a farmer and say, hey, you know, if you're do
you have pigs head for a local farmer And sometimes farmers
will keep pigs head and they can't sell it.
And so because no one wants to buy it.
And so, you know, I've gotten pigs heads, 2030 pound pig heads
for 25 bucks and I can get around £10 of meat out of that.
So I'm getting pork cheats, I'm getting fat, I'm getting pork
jaws as well and other like miscellaneous muscles on the
face. And then I deface the pig the
pig's head and then I rub it and like Italian seasoning, things
like that. Sometimes with some Cajun spice
to it to make it a little spicy and I'll put in the oven, I'll
let it cook. I'm trying to think of like a
350 or something like that until the the skin of the pig of the
pig's face gets hard. Like like not super burnt but
just like hard to where if you tapped on it, it have almost say
like a hard knocking sound. Once you get to that point, then
you want to take it out for a second, turn the oven to broil
and then once it's at royal temperatures, put it back in the
oven. And then the skin of the pork
will start to crack, like crackling.
And so that's where we get the whole idea of crackling and pork
rinds from, is we cook, cook the skin to a certain temp to to
where it's hard. Then we put it back into a
really, really hot temperature and then it just puffs up.
And so it's some of the best pork I've ever had is on the
face. Pork cheeks to really tender,
nice and flareable, flavorful, got good amount of fat.
Pork jaws or like a bacon substitute in some cases I think
it tastes better than bacon. So a lot of good things out of
that, you know? The biggest thing is making sure
you cut out the glands. Please cut out the glands of the
pig. They're going to be found
usually around the cheek. Do not mistaken the glands for
fat. Cut those things out because
they will not taste good if you eat them.
And you're skinning the face out.
Or you're. You said you're not skinning the
face out, right. I'm skinning it.
Yeah, I'd skin it. I'd skim it.
You don't have to skin it. But for what?
For what I want to create, I'd skin it.
So you can totally not skin the pig head, just and you know,
just make sure you put some season in, some rub on it, a
little bit of oil on it and just roast in the oven and you can
still get some really good meat out of that.
The only thing is like the glands are going to still be in
there, so I like taking the glands out by defacing it, and I
won't have to worry about having a lesser eating experience from
that. So kind of like a reverse sear,
basically on the on the face, on the head.
Yep, I like it, man. Making my mouth water right now.
What about like when it comes to just the entire pig skinning in
general? Like, are you of the opinion
that like for the body, it's best to like boil that skin and
deherit? Or do you just skin it
completely and not have to even screw around with?
That? Depends on how much time you
have, what the weather's like, like things like that, and how
many hands you have. So you know, the scalding is
when we put hot water over the pig to release the hair
follicles and the epidermis or the first layer of the skin and
we can scrape it all off, you know.
So the only reason why you'd want to do that is if you have
any intention of using the skin. If you have no intention of
using the skin, then just skin it.
Just skin the pig. You know, there's a lot that you
can get out of the skin and you can use it for a variety of
different things like pork rinds.
But you know, ultimately if you have no intention of using the
skin for anything, then just just skin the animal and then
you can break it down from there.
And that's way easier. A lot less time involved, a lot
easier clean up. You just have to figure out what
you wanna do with the hide. So other than that, that's about
it. You ever make blood sausage?
I've yes and no. So I've helped people with
certain ingredients, certain steps to making blood sausage.
I've never made it all the way through cuz I'll help out at
foodie events like live food events and stuff like that where
we butcher the animal and and then we process it and make food
out of it that same day. But no, I've not made like blood
sausage straight out. Especially not like UK style
blood sausage that I tasted it, that that stuff is not my taste.
Nice. Nice.
This whole, this whole podcast is making me hungry, man.
I'm like one week out for my first competition.
So I've been in a deficit for 21 weeks now and I don't know what
I was thinking asking you about all these recipes man, making me
hungry. But this is, this is good stuff.
I mean pigs like, I like the idea of raising my own pigs
because they have so much personality.
You can. I mean they have a pretty quick
turn around, like if you have a if you're trying to do a grass
finished cow. I mean you might be sitting with
that cow for, you know, two years or better.
Whereas a pig, you know, 6 to 8 months.
Pretty quick turnaround, pretty efficient way to get some meat.
Yeah, especially for most pig breeds.
Most pig breeds today were designed for efficiency and meat
production. Some of the heritage breeds are
still a little bit slower but not too slow, and they have the
other end of the heritage breeds, which are more of your
large breeds that are going to grow slow, doesn't matter how
much protein you feed them, you know they're just going to,
they're just not going to have a lot of meat yield, but they'll
have more fat yield. And for some household you might
realize, like, I like meat, but I want more fat than what I can
get from a Berkshire or a Duroc, and so they might want to go to
a lard heritage breed pig for that.
So, and I just love pigs because they're so versatile.
When you think about like a cow or a goat or sheep, there's more
waste involved in comparison to a pig.
More the animals utilize out of the pig than really any other
animal. And so a lot of different
cuisines you can have with that has a rich food history on top
of that, and the versatility of pork in general is just really
profound. Yeah, what is Speaking of fat?
What is the Leaf Lord exactly? Leaf Lord?
Good question. So I'll start with what regular
lard is. Lard in general and it's just
pick that period doesn't matter where the fat was found, it's
just rendered down and what you get out of rendering the fat
cells is pure fat. Pure lipids.
Leaf lard specifically is found on the inside of the chest
cavity of the pig, inside the cavity of the pig.
Whereas in most lard that's going to be found found on the
back fat of the pig, the outside of the of the muscle of the pig.
So the reason why leaf lard is so special is because you know
it's not. You don't get as much of it
compared to back fat, but the the the lard is very flavor
neutral. That's why a lot of people use
it for baking. Let's say you want to create a
baked dish that is, that has like a nice crispy, crispy crust
and stuff like that. But you don't want the taste of
pig while you use leaf lard because doesn't have a porky
flavor to it, you know, So people who maybe they want to go
green for a day and only greens, you know, every now and then
I'll do a meatless dinner or something like that and I'll
just saute my greens and whatever I'm cooking with with
with lard or leaf lard. And so you're not getting
necessarily getting that porky flavor to it.
Now, me personally, I love porky flavor when it comes to
vegetables and stuff like that. But if you're doing pastries,
even if you're making, let's say, skin care products like lip
balms or doing things like candles, you know, using leaf
lards a lot better because you're not going to smell porky
if you put on your skin or on your lips, or if you're making
candles out of it, you're not going to have a strong pork
smell when the candles burning. So hopefully that helps.
Yeah, I know for sure. I would assume it's probably
like the equivalent of like the kidney fat, the suet of like a
cow for instance. So it's like that equivalent in
a pig form, right? Not 100% sure because I don't.
I've raised cattle, but I don't know a whole lot about their,
their inner biology, so can't say that for sure.
But, you know, so yeah, my bad. Well, I just ordered some leaf
floored early this week, so I'm excited to give it a shot and
see what it tastes like. So it's a I'm intrigued by it
for sure. Oh yeah, I like it better than
butter most times because like with olive oil, which, you know,
olive oil, but olive oil and and butter, they have a higher
smoking point, so or a lower smoking point.
So they'll smoke up the room a lot quicker at a lower
temperature compared to leaf lard or lark, period, which
won't smoke at those temperatures that olive oil will
smoke at. So you can cook at a lot higher
temperatures with leaf lard and not have your whole house smell
like smoke. Gotcha.
Makes total sense. Yeah.
I'm excited to dive in and try to cook with that.
It sounds very, very tasty. Well, talk to me about this man.
What what is the what? What are you excited about?
Like you're you're doing, unless you're doing a great job
educating others about the benefits of properly raised
pork, what is it that you're most excited about at the
moment? Let's see.
The thing I'm most excited about at this moment is really just
the opportunity to transition out of my knowledge of pigs,
which I still do a lot of pig stuff and pick content.
But you know, in my experiences, I have even more experiences
when it comes to agribusiness management and really teaching
farmers how to be profitable on their livestock or even organic
produce enterprises. So what I teach nowadays most of
the time is not just pigs, but also utilizing agritourism,
agriculture, education and highend value added products as
higher profit ticket items for farms to become more profitable
outside of selling just a raw commodity or raw product that's
very limited capital profitability.
So that's been exciting. Recently I launched a summer
series for free consultations for anyone who is currently
farming and is just need a little bit of help when it comes
to figuring out marketing, branding, business structure and
production methods for raising quality food, but also making a
really good profit out of it. So that's been kind of my
excitement recently. And then also, you know, I've
been dating for marriage and I found a really nice young lady
who's very interested in spending the rest of her life
with me. And so just, you know, going
through the slow but sure process of dating someone, being
intentional about it, learning boundaries through that for
myself and for her and really just, you know, having fun.
Like actually having fun with life and and realizing that, you
know, I can work all day long and that's great.
I can. I've done it most of my life.
But there's just something really beautiful when I get to
share life with somebody and put work aside to actually live life
a little bit more than I had before.
So really excited about that too.
No, that's all. Again, congratulations on that.
That's quite the quite defeat indeed, having somebody that you
can spend the rest of your life with and feel good about it is.
It it's becoming more of an honor to these days but it it
when you find someone that has that, it's like it stands out
that much more. So I I hope nothing but the best
for you there, man. Well, I appreciate you, Rob.
Really do. Very cool.
When it comes to your AG consulting business, is it like
a specific size that you're trying to target people like is
this like the fault smaller scale homesteading operations or
like a like a medium operations? Like who would, who would find
the most benefit in that? Well, so it's not so much size.
It's more so intentionality. So you know, if you're someone
who maybe you're raising livestock or or have a garden
that you're you're doing a little bit of sales here and
there towards friends and family.
But you really want to see the potential of what you can do.
If you just scaled up, got more pigs, got more chickens, had a
bigger garden, what the possibilities might look like
for you and and let's be honest, like some of the reasons why
people on the home setting is because they want to create more
of a life where they're around family more.
But the issue about home setting is it's expensive, especially
starting out. And so having that day job is
important for paying the bills. But what if we can supplement or
create more income from the homestead that way a the
homestead pays for itself and maybe just generate additional
profit for that. So again, like I've worked with
farmers who have, you know, 500 acres.
I work with farmers who have 1/10 of an acre.
So it's really about intentionality.
I usually don't work with people who are just kind of dibbling
and dabbling and not really taking themselves seriously.
I like to work with people who are wanting to be profitable or
striving to be profitable, but really just need some help to
fine tune their process and opportunities that they might be
able to create for their potential customers.
Very cool, man. Well, I certainly have plans to.
Scale up the size of our operations.
So in which case, I will most certainly be reaching back out
to you. See, that's awesome.
I'm excited. Let me know man.
Yeah, man. Love it, love it, Appreciate the
time, appreciate all the insight.
I have learned a ton. I feel like I've got a tangible
direction now as far as our pig acquisition endeavors are
concerned. So I can't thank you enough
there and where you located at Greensboro, NC?
Awesome. I got family in North Carolina.
Well, if you ever find yourself in Arkansas, man, hopefully it's
around the same time. It'll be taking these pigs of
mine to slaughter and then we can do a reverse here on a pig
head and call it call it a day. That sounds like a plan brother
all. Right, man.
Pleasure talking with you, brother.
Where do people go to find out more about you?
Yeah, you can find out more about me right now.
I have a YouTube channel. It's called Agro Educators
International because I do a lot of international work.
That's Agro a GRO Educators as you think it's spelled,
international as you think it'll be spelled.
Also, you can just hit me up on my e-mail.
That's Rhine RHYN, as in Nancy E as in Eagle at Pork, Rhine, RHY
and e.com. Awesome, man.
I'll link out to all those. Make it easy for people to find
you Ryan, and really appreciate the time brother, and keep
killing it. Keep knowing what you're doing
and keep educating people. Appreciate your brother.
See you, man.