Traditionally there are a lot of pigs here in Manitoba. Canadian bacon is well regarded in the USA, indeed Canada is synonymous with bacon in the minds of many Americans!
But in the last few years the industry has taken a real hit largely through rising feed prices, and many barns have closed, too often involving horrible neglect which does no one any good and further blackens the industry.
But I know of one producer who makes money with outdoor Berkshires. He has about 1200 acres and the 80 sows move around with sheep and cattle. The whole property is ringed with a 7 strand electric fence with a 36 joule fencer. There are no buildings. In the winter the pigs are provided with 2000 lb round straw bales. They burrow into these and make dens. We do not get any rain in the winter, the precipitation falls as snow, and it is a very dry cold. I myself, doubting that the pigs were warm enough, burrowed into one of their straw piles, it was surprisingly toasty.
They farrow once a year in June. It is impossible to get near them at this time as the sows will literally have your leg off.
So nature has to take its course. They seem to raise about 8 piglets per litter. Now Hutterite colonies regularly get 32 piglets a year from each sow, so the production is low. But the costs are very small. The piglets are very healthy, either fit or dead I suppose. They do graze, and they eat many things that you wouldn't think a pig would eat, true omnivores.
They are fed on screenings, the cheapest form of pelleted grain available. This is basically weed seeds and foreign grains that grain elevators extract from wheat etc in the cleaning and screening process.
The piglets are killed at the end of the year and sold into the city as pasture finished pork. In a box scheme.
It is very healthy and tasty product.
As I say, this man continues to quietly make money with pigs whilst a lot of the mega barns are in crisis.
