Our Practices
At Hog Wild Farming Company, we focus on an eco-system approach to farming through our holistic management practices. Whether it be livestock, wildlife, micro-organisms, or human, we believe environmental and lifestyle factors are the foundation of the resiliency, robustness, and happiness of all the various organisms on our farm. In practice, this means high quality nutrition, exercise, time outdoors, community, sunlight, sanitation, and elimination of exposure to harmful substances (such as pesticides, fungicides, herbicides for example). These practices have a great number of benefits to the health of the animals we raise, the flavour of the meat we produce, the impact on our local environment, the quality of our soil and the well being of our staff and family. Here are a few of our core beliefs and how they manifest in a practical sense.
Treat the Farm as an Ecosystem / Encourage Diversity
A fundamental principle of resilient ecosystems is diversity. We took over our current farm in 2019. At which time it was largely cropped in a rotation of soybeans, corn and wheat. The unfortunate reality is this system requires plowing, which leaves soil exposed. The soil becomes vulnerable to wind and water erosion, crusting (as seen here) and the micro-organisms responsible for breaking down and digesting organic matter are destroyed.
A monoculture is vulnerable to pest infestation, the soil is void of nutrition and the only thing that wants to grow naturally is early succession weeds. This means fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides are required to grow the crop. While application of fertilizers may get a decent yield, the profit margin is eaten up by the expense of the inputs. The food grown today, on average is over 50% lower in mineral content than it was in the 70’s and we’re filling our waterways with toxic algae blooms due to polluted runoff.
In an effort to promote diversity on our farm, we have planted 3,200 trees, dug a ½ acre pond (with plans for additional wetland areas), planted a small fruit orchard and replaced the former crop rotation with permanent perennial pasture for rotational grazing of livestock.
These 3 core ecosystems, (grassland, woodland and aquatic) encourage the habitation of local wildlife. This includes birds, bees, rabbits, frogs, snails, worms... big or small, we’ve got it all!
The robust diversity of both flora and fauna means there are multiple different predators and/or competitors for any problematic pest species. The diverse ecosystem has a tendency towards balance.
Focus on Biology and Let the Chemistry Take Care of Itself
As humans, we have a tremendous bias towards both reductionist thinking and intervention. We view complex biological systems through a mechanistic lens. However, complex and complicated are not the same thing. I imagine a jet engine is very complicated. If a jet engine was out of order, I would have no idea where to begin to diagnose the problem. However if I had a deep knowledge of jet engines and the component parts, I would understand how to trouble shoot the potential problems. If the appropriate steps are followed, I would be able to identify the problem and replace a faulty part with reliable and repeatable success.
Complex systems on the other hand tend to be self organizing. There are many, many moving parts all interreacting with each other. Some of these parts are known to us, many more of them are completely unknown. When dealing with complex systems, it is impossible to predict the chain reaction which occurs as a result of pulling on one lever. There are often short, medium and long term consequences which occur when we apply an intervention to a complex system. These consequences are typically impossible to predict. The same intervention applied in two similar scenarios will not necessarily produce a predictable, reliable or desirable result. Resilient systems are better equipped to regain an equilibrium where as fragile systems will often collapse when tampered with.
Soils contain an extraordinary universe of complex relationships between various bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods and other creatures that we have barely begun to understand. We know very little about the specifics of all their interactions. But we do know that the most productive organic soils have both high numbers of microbes and high diversity of species.
At Hog Wild Farming Company, we believe our role is as stewards. It is our job to observe and understand the systems and relationships that occur in the most robust ecosystems and mimic those same relationships on our farm land. And so, we focus on the principles that will allow the biology to regulate itself. We are learning every day!
Keep the Ground Covered
The ground remains covered 365 days a year at Hog Wild Farming Company. When soils are exposed due to plowing or tilling, they are vulnerable to both wind and water erosion. Exposed soils are also vulnerable to crusting when exposed to direct sun. The crust prevents rainwater from percolating through to underground aquifers and instead, runs off leading to flash flood events. The crust also kills the beneficial bacteria and fungi living in the uppermost soil layer. These microbes are responsible for breaking down organic matter and turning it into plant available nutrients. Without the presence of these little digesters, fertilizer application is required.
In addition to preventing water penetration, crusted soil is also dead soil. Microbes in the crusted layer are killed off by the direct exposure to UV rays and lack of moisture. This means the organic matter in the soil cannot be broken down. The poor nutrient cycling means any nutrition which may be present, will not be in plant available forms and cannot be taken up by plant roots.
Covered ground, whether by pasture, cover crop or mulch allows for improved water penetration, biological activity, erosion prevention and appropriate moisture content.
Allow Animals to Express Their Native Instincts and Seek Symbiotic Relationships Between Livestock Species and Wildlife
Happy animals are healthy animals! Oddly, by either shear coincidence or some kind of design, different species fill a specific niche in an ecosystem. Birds spread native seeds as they drop dung across the landscape, bees pollinate, cattle and sheep graze pastures, pigs dig and root, chickens peck and scratch. Observing animal behaviors with an inquisitive mind and applying a little creativity can result in magic. Whether it’s daily migration of our cattle, planting fruit trees in specific areas of our farm based on their fruiting time, following our cattle and pigs with poultry or inoculating plant roots with mycorrhizal fungi. We are always on the lookout for how we may benefit from animal behaviours and relationships.
Pigs
Our pigs are pasture raised and rotationally grazed. We migrate our pigs across our pasture over the season. They get a brand new 5,000-10,000 square foot paddock every 5 days. This gives the pigs new forage, roots, and grubs to enjoy while also leaving their old bathroom behind them and preventing the pigs from impacting (digging up) the land too much. By moving the pigs regularly, and not allowing them to wallow in their own feces, we reduce parasite and disease transmission. This allows us to completely remove the use of medication, antibiotics, and pesticides. In fact, to control pests, our pigs are followed by chickens. Chickens like to peck and scratch nearly as much as pigs like to dig. The chickens peck through the pig’s dung and consume the fly larvae which has been laid by manure flies. This provides the chickens with a free high protein feed which they prefer, while simultaneously controlling the fly population keeping the pigs happy.
Our pigs are fed a non-GMO ration which is fermented in fresh, grass-fed jersey cow milk each day while they are young. We finish the pigs over their final 6-8 weeks on fresh, local fruit including apples, peaches, pears, plums and grapes. This produces exceptional marbling and the one-of-a-kind flavour Hog Wild pork is known for! Because pigs are a mono-gastric animal (one stomach), what they eat or at least some of the flavonoids of what they eat accumulates in their fat, thereby impacting the flavour. Garbage in, garbage out as they say.
Cattle
Our beef is grass fed, grass finished black angus. We practice rotational grazing with our cattle, which means we use electric fencing to define an area with enough grass to feed our herd for one day. If the paddock is sized correctly, the cattle will evenly graze the pasture grasses to a length of 3-4”. We move them to a new area every day. We allow a minimum of 75 days recovery before allowing the cattle to return to a grazed paddock. The result is fast growing, dense and luscious pastures. Because the cattle are moved so frequently, they cannot overgraze and destroy the pasture. Since no heavy cutting equipment is run across our pasture, the local wildlife are free to co-habitat with our beef cattle. The welcoming bird songs accompany us on our daily moves in the field.
Our cattle are not fed any corn or grain products. They receive a solarized sea salt mineral supplement containing 90 trace minerals.
Chicken
Coming July 2022
Honey
Coming Fall 2022