February 2008   Hi, my name’s Fred. I am the main man at West Frogwell Farm - I am the farms main stock boar. I am a three years old Stockbroker bloodline Pedigree British Saddleback.   Now boss says I have been on the telly ‘River Cottage Programme’ with Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. I was owned then by Peggy Darville - boss says she is a brilliant saddleback breeder. I don’t remember any of this as I was to busy trying to get to those back teats.

Better say a few words about the farm and the boss. We all moved to this 50 acre farm about four years ago, that’s me and my ten wives, the boss Phil and his wife Caroline. She is nice, sometimes when boss isn’t here, out delivering arks, she feeds up and us always get extra those nights and a good old head scratch too.

When we came here there was nothing except for an old run down piggery. Boss took a flyer on that, he should have demolished it completely and started again but he said if he did that the Council wouldn’t allow him to rebuild it. So he had it jacked up and rebuilt every wall individually. By this time the council’s enforcement officer was well involved, telling him to stop work and send in plans. But boss pressed on, got the roof on and then put in for this thing called planning permission.

Boss says he made sure we were alright before he got his own home sorted out. My house is brilliant. I have even have got one of those turf roofs. Before he did my roof, when I had a few of my wives in, condensation used to pour onto me.  Boss is quite clever (not a patch on me !!), he got some old insulation, put that on the metal roof sheets, covered it with that shelterflex waterproof sheeting, then put a 6” layer of old rain damaged hay and then threw some grass seed over. I am really snug now and the wild birds love it. Boss says turf roof looks good but I can’t see it !!

Heard boss talking today about this planning permission malarkey, he says they’ve got a temporary permission for three years and they’re having buildt a two bedroom log home. Evidently they had to get reports done that proved the farm can make an agricultural income for three years then they can apply for permission for a permanent house.

Us pigs don’t have any of this nonsense, all our houses are on skids which makes them portable so no permission needed. Boss said he used that New Landowner crowd for the reports, he reckoned they were brilliant.

He reckons it also helped them selling my offspring through the farm shop they built. I don’t like thinking about it but they say we’re a rare breed and, because we live outside, we taste delicious. It isn’t all my babies going through that shop. Boss goes through the litters when they are born and sorts out all the best girls and they get put into the breeding pens.

I never see them again cos boss has another boar down the other end called Bert and he ravages all my daughters and then boss sells them in pig. I’m waiting for a chance to get hold of that Bert one day, I’ll turn him into sausages. Problem is I have to get across five electric fences plus one barbed wire fence. Boss has done this on purpose, he reckons if we ever got together one of us would be shot.

March 2008

Hi tis Fred here. I am West Frogwell Farm’s main stock boar and this is my monthly diary of life on our farm. Phil (Boss he thinks) looks after me my ten gorgeous wives and that other inferior stock boar my arch rival Bert.

Boss has been looking really worried lately, muttering about feed prices going from £143 ton in April up to £195 ton now. He reckons tis becoming very tight even though he sells all the offspring I produce for him, direct to the public through their farm shop. He reckons direct selling tis the only way small producers can survive. Luckily us saddlebacks taste delicious so boss is getting more and more customers each month.

Boss came up grinning yesterday, evidently he had been on some internet thing on something called a computer, checking out other people selling pig arks, the same as he does. He reckons the arks he makes are miles stronger and field tested by a proper pig herd. He came across one site where they rabbited on about us pigs being clean animals and never fouling our bedding -RUBBISH !! He said these people are talking absolute nonsense and he wondered if they had ever really kept pigs. He was looking in a pen next to mine, at a pen of twelve of my offspring, the lazy little blighters had all started dunging in the corner of their house. A bit of rain and they do it inside !! He never gets this problem with us adult pigs !! And the problem is easily sorted in the weaner pens, by restricting the room inside the house to the actual area they need to sleep in. We pigs never foul our actual sleeping area.

Boss does this, by using straw bales and then cutting them open as the young uns grow. Tis funny, us adult pigs don’t do it, we go outside even if its chucking it down and when its hot, we do like the wallows boss made, tis lovely !! Evidently we have no sweat glands, don’t know anything about that, I just love that mud.

Boss is going to oil us all tomorrow. He uses an old fashioned pig oil and scrubs us all over, especially under our armpits and bits we can’t reach to scratch. It gets rid of all those horrible mangy bugs. I’ve decided I will be good for him and stand still because it feels so good afterwards. Someone told him that lard was a good remedy for mange and mites and last month he went off to Spar and came back with a case of it. Big mistake as I managed to eat three packs before he had the wrapper off the first !! Anyway he persevered and rubbed this stuff all over us. I don’t think it’s as good as the oil but bless him for trying.

I feel sorry for those commercial pigs kept in concrete pens on slats. We have a one of these farms down the road from my pen. I can hear them go past in the truck on the way to pig Valhalla,  the different litters all mixed together fighting and screaming. On the day before pig heaven day on this farm boss puts the trailer in the loading yard, the porkers are fed in the trailer in the morning and next morning they trot up the ramp and away they go. Boss reckons stress taints the meat, (in that case I wouldn’t like to eat him).

Just had a thought for any of you mass murderers out there reading this, they reckon a human body in a pen of pigs would be completely gone and untraceable  within 7 days. Please phone the boss direct as he is looking to diversify on our farm.

I must have too much time on my hands because I have wandered away from talking about our life on our farm. We pigs run out all year round, we are deep bedded on barley straw, we are fed twice a day 365 times a year. Tis pretty good to be the main stock boar at West Frogwell !!

April 2008

Hello Fans, it’s Fred here. You remember me – I’m the main man at West Frogwell Farm. I’m a handsome pedigree saddleback boar and I see and hear everything that happens here. Boss is full of the joys of spring I suppose because it bloody well is spring. I don’t know why he was ranting last month about feed prices and I heard him say it’s now gone up again to £215.00 per ton. He went on that netty thing on the computitator gadget and printed off 61 pages of alternative feedstuffs for us pigs. I’m quite lookin forward to a change from these pig nuts, but dear old chap he trudges up here twice a day 365 days a year with our grub - we all know who’s the fool !! I told a porky then (that’s a pig joke) - at Christmas he throws in a double bucket in the morning and we don’t see him till next day - lazy bugger.

 

Boss is lookin very pleased with himself, he has designed and built a mini ark for them kune kune pigs. I have never seen one of them yet but I have seen the ark, it’s 6ft by 4ft but I couldn’t get my head in it let alone the rest of me. Well I am over 7ft long anyway he reckons these arks will take two of my babies up to pork size and they are going to fly out cuz they is good value only £185.00, miles cheaper than the competition and he puts them together for that. I like it when he invents something new, he puts it in my field and I try to batter it, not really I just like a good scratch. I tested one of those Irish Carbery arks last summer - lovely it was, I couldn’t move it because he staked it down. Boss opened the rear flap in it to let some air in and me and one of me wives had a nice stay - bit wet outside though. Love watching him get his wellies stuck in the mud because he always feeds us in the arks when were in our summer fields. Don’t know why he moves us all in the summer, he rabbits on about resting the land. How the hell can land rest, it doesn’t do anything.

Going back to food, I heard boss say he was going to sow sugar beet or stubble turnips for us in the paddocks we’ve cleared and then we’re supposed to dig up our own dinners - not keen on that idea, sounds a bit like hard work !!!

Boss has sent his first delivery of arks over to France, and then next month two of my pedigree daughters and one of my sons is going across to yet another place in France - that’s another first !!

Boss put three of my girls in with that Carl boar Bert and he had his evil way with two of them within a week. Boss has got to get up at 4.30, the day when they collect the French exports, early breakfast that day ha ha !!

He has moved into his new cabin, I had a nose over the fence and it looks pretty good. I hear the wagon coming with my tea so that’s all for this month. Bye bye.