Our Animals
Please click on the following links to view of our animals.
Gloucester Old Spot
The Saddleback Pig
Middle White Pig
The Cumberland Pig - Extinct
The Tamworth Pig
Wild Boar
The Magnificent Seven
Gloucester Old Spot.
Spotted Pigs can often occur in wild boar when close relationship has taken place, i.e. brother mated with sister. This is probably so that they do not camouflage as well and can be picked off as prey. It is how evolution stops inbreeding.
This pig however, is a pure bred spotted pig, and a breed society was established in 1914. It had originated from the Old English Pig which has some form of domesticated wild boar crossed back to Chinese pigs.
The area in and around Gloucestershire was its origination, and in fact it fed very well in orchards on apples.
As a breed society it is still going strong with 4 main blood lines: PRINCESS, RUFUS, STAR ANTOINETTE and REGINALD.
We have the offspring from 2 sows born in 1998 to the Princess bloodline and mated with a Rufus boar.
They are very hardy outdoors and have a large frame that tends to cover well. Their ears cover their eyes so they do tend to be hard work when handling them. They are exceptionally good mothers and protect their babies ferociously.
The finished carcass, dead weight is about 70 – 75kg, head on.
The offspring we kill at about 28 – 32 weeks. They have been outdoors since being born just before Christmas.
Many people often ask which rare breed pig is best. The answer is simple – any rare breed pig from a good home will taste good. So the diet is important. We feed barley, maize, pea, wheat, Soya with minerals approximately 16% protein. This we have found in our woodland gives a good cover of fat but without being ‘over the top’.
The flavour of good, well finished, Gloucester Old Spots is exceptional.
The Saddleback Pig
The black pig with the white stripe, easily identifiable, and known today as the Saddleback. If we follow its roots, we find that it was an amalgamation of two distinct breeds from separate parts of England.
In 1967 the Essex Pig (black with wide white stripe and white feet) and the Wessex Pig (black with narrow white stripe and black back feet) interbred to become today’s Saddleback.
In 1997 a Mr. Crawshaw from the Midlands was found to have the last herd of pure Essex Pigs in the world. A breeding programme amongst interested parties began and we now have up to 50 pure breeding sows (still, however, rarer than the Giant Panda).
The Essex Pig from East Anglia had been identified in the 1850’s as having had Suffolk Black Pig and Yorkshire White Pig origins. The development of this Essex Pig began to give farmers something to focus on.
Very good, docile mothers, good converters of root crops and corn into meat, and an excellent carcass for both pork and bacon.
Today we value the breed (Saddleback) for its slow growing qualities and excellent ability to live and thrive outdoors. The carcass at 26-30 weeks outdoors will weigh about 70-75kg. None of the prime cuts go too fat, but this is dependent on how good the home is.
The flavour, like all well farmed outdoor pigs, is delicious – with the crackling being especially good.
Middle White Pig.
This White Pig, with an upturned snout, short dished head and large pricked ears over the eyes, was a northern breed of pig derived originally from the small Yorkshire and from the now more modern Large White pig, the latter having gone on to become the Large White Landrace – a very prolific indoor pig.
The Middle White, though not as prolific, has features that in today’s society are undervalued - slow growing, exceptionally good bellies producing good belly pork or even better, streaky bacon. The eye of the loin from this pig is also slower to grow, but gives exceptional flavour when fed well.
This pig, at 26 weeks, could well have developed further and could have reached 32 – 36 weeks but it would have put good fat layers down. As pigs go, it is medium sized on the frame (this pig was 60kg dead). It is at least 20% smaller age for age than a Large White. It is the rarest of our recognised Rare Breed Pigs, and because its attributes are fat and small, it is probably the reason why.
As a breed it only became recognised in about 1850 – in 1905 they had a class at the Royal Show. The upturned snout probably came from the Cumberland pig so as a northerner, it did have quite distinct characteristics, not just in its dialect!
An excellent cross for pork production is Middlewhite crossed with Saddleback. We have a number of these in the system.
The Cumberland Pig - Extinct.
From about 1800, it became apparent that with the increased means and routes of travel, certain locally bred pigs began to be favoured in preference to others; with breeds such as the Lancashires, the Chesters, the Cumberland, the Small White Yorkshire and the Large White Yorkshire.
Our local Westmorland County Agricultural Show was established in 1797, which along with other Shows of the same period, meant that for the first time records were kept and Specific Breed Qualities introduced.
Out of all the above breeds in the Northwest, the Cumberland pig evolved. One old farmer told me that if you smacked your hand on the pig’s back, it had such fine skin you would see your handprint appear. Others have told me what good flavour the Cumberland pig was. Cumberland Hamswere made and known throughout the country. Mrs. Beeton recipe refers to “Westmorland Ham in Ale”, undoubtedly derived in this era from the Cumberland pig.
The downfall of the Cumberland pig came in the late 1960’s. Not as prolific as its neighbouring Yorkshire pig, the now highly acclaimed Large White pig; the customer or consumer did not respect its slower growing qualities. Alas, the outdoor standards achieved in smallholdings throughout Cumberland were no longer required for the intensive pig farms springing up all over the country.
A rare-Breed pig has an average litter of 9-12 piglets, and these mothers can sustain these babies for up to 8 weeks, when they are weaned. During this period they take on board all of the natural goodness, bacteria and immune systems of their mother without man’s intervention.
Within intensive pig farms, piglets are weaned at 3-4 weeks and then fed with antibiotics and growth promoters – in case of infection but mainly because they are devoid of Mother Nature’s defenses.
It is essential for their conservation that we continue to eat Rare Breed pigs so that farms can sustain the environments that they thrive in. Over the past 30 years we have seen the complete obliteration of over 25 species of domestic farm animals, which would have been just as important to the Chef and consumer as our extinct Cumberland pig.
The Tamworth Pig.
The Red or Ginger pig came about in the Midlands region of Tamworth. Nearer to its ancestors of Iron Age descent and the Wild Boar, it is still perceived as a pig that can be quite temperamental.
With ears pricked and alert, the mother or boar may, if alarmed, attack like lightening. We only have pure Tamworth sows at Sillfield, because the male put a farmer in hospital with 17 stitches in his hand.
Long and large they do make excellent pigs for bacon, tending not to go too fat at a later age. At 36 weeks they can kill out at a carcass size of 90kg.
They were well known for being a woodland pig and they thrive outdoors.
Like many breeds of pigs that evolved over the years, identity to a region was a combination of like-minded farmers and acceptance of a specific type of pig that was identifiable.
The breed originated from the Midlands, the town of TAMWORTH being used for the name.
The ‘Tamworth Two’, two pigs that escaped from the abattoir (the clutches of death!), are now famous on television and at events.
Interestingly, we are now endeavoring to source regional products from regional breeds. If only this had been the case in the late 1960’s undoubtedly the Cumberland pig would not be extinct. Tamworth bacon and sweet Staffordshire Black Back bacon are now readily available - Cumberland Bacon from the Cumberland pig is not.
Wild Boar.
They say that man is over 1 million years old, but the oldest living mammal around today is 40 million years old. The Wild Boar has changed little during evolution. Only in the last 400 years have we seen Wild Boar evolve to become our common domestic pigs of today, but Wild Boar in Europe still remain the same as always.
In Britain they are extinct in the wild, hunted to total annihilation from these shores by the aristocracy in the 1700’s. In the 14th and 15th centuries, if you hunted and killed this “Royal Beast” as a commoner, you could pay with your life. Today, after the reintroduction of Wild Boar from Europe to farms in the UK we have about 25 farmers who keep animals pure for meat and breeding stock.
In Europe they are treated as game – shot, hung in the skin and then eaten; so the age profile is often older. As a result they are often marinated or made into goulash stews. The meat is gamier, like venison and good beef.
The benefits are that the actual red meat is denser and has less fat. Low in fat means that it has to be basted and slow roasted.
The Magnificent Seven.
These piglets were born in 2005 and because of a radio interview with BBC radio Cumbria, it attracted media attention and ended up on national news.
We had a camera crew that arrived to film this bizarre batch of offspring, where no 2 piglets were alike despite the mother being a pedigree black and white Saddleback. And the father ....? Supposedly a pedigree Saddleback boar from the Medford Dictator blood line.
What we did not realise was that until the babies were born, another male had obviously visited her.
Protected by 5 ft fences we do have on the farm Wild Boars, males and females. They are, in the most part, out in the woods and some young stock for growing to finish are brought in. These Wild Boar are segregated by 2 and even 3.5 ft fences.
What we find amusing is that he must have jumped these fences, which a normal Saddleback could definitely not jump, made love and jumped back again. Very clever indeed. That was what the TV found amusing.
