Anyone else have a picture of a pig on their fridge?
Farmer J put this up a few months ago, without saying a word. He is trying to, ever so sneakily, get me on board with the idea of getting a few baby piglets this spring!
And I must be warming up to the idea because I have this contact in my phone, "GOS farmer."
GOS stands for Gloucestershire Old Spot! You can see why the abbreviation is helpful. The GOS is a "heritage" or "endangered" pig breed. (Of note, our Tunis sheep are a heritage breed of sheep; and the goats- once again are just cute and serve no real "greater good" purpose, well, except making Farmer J very happy and driving me crazy with their daily Houdini escapes from their fenced in pasture!)
Heritage breeds are breeds of animals that were populating this world before commercial agriculture took over. Think--Noah's Ark! I'm of course kidding, but you get the picture.
Just like "heirloom" vegetables are found in many farm to table restaurants- so are heritage breeds of livestock.
The name pretty much gives it away-- but the GOS is originally from England. And the "old spots" refers to ... you guessed it... A spotted pig!
The GOS is also called "The Cottager's Pig" and the "Orchard Pig."
The link above has some great pictures and all the information you could hope for on the GOS pig-- like a farm version of Melatonin -- you'll likely fall asleep in the midst of reading it -- unless you are Farmer J- or married to him!
Some interesting bits of info on the GOS:
- The Prince of Wales has them on his Gloucester country estate--which I do love!
- The females tend to be "devoted" mamas-- which I do love!
- The pigs demeanor is calm and good for small farmettes--which I do love!
- The females can get up to 500 lbs! This is the bit I'm having trouble with- 500 lb animal means 500 lb animal size poo!
- Farmer J tells me the pork is "marbled" and quite tasty! The last time I ate pork was in the '90s- so not sure how much that detail means to me! But... I do realize a meat animal should taste good, if we ever want to sell it to local, farm to table restaurants.
And back to the "GOS farmer" contact in my phone- we found a farmer that lives within a few hours of our farm that has this breed! A farm tour is in our, not too distant, future! Stay tuned!
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