[sanman]

Hi we are in Sheffield, South Yorkshire and are in the market for 18 weaners around the end of January 2010.  We prefer rare breed or rare breed x.

Can anyone supply this number fo weaners within commuting distance of Sheffield, time between mid Jan and mid Feb and at a reasonable price?

Cheers
Mark

[Hilarysmum]

Why do people who ask these questions not live next door to me ?

[smiffy]

Hi Mark
We have 3 tamworth sows due in Jan, they will be crossed with a red mangalitza boar should be a great taste combination. Ideal for either pork or bacon

[Hilarysmum]

Sticking my nose in again - we were given some tamworth x Mangalitsa (swallowbelly) pork.  Absolutely gorgeous.

[smiffy]

Haha HM
 we love mangalitza meat, and thought the mangalitza would add that something special to the tammys, we used a red boar, so they might look like hairy tammys

[Hilarysmum]

I have a feeling they would look like the highly (well here at least) prized iron age pigs.  Unfortunately they are so very cute it would be hard to think of them as pork futures.  Then again .............. they would be superbly tasty.

(Can you post pictures when they are born please?)

[sanman]

Ideally we want to take delivery of the weaners on January.

[Hilarysmum]

Sorry Sanman didnt mean to hijack the thread.

[sanman]

Sorry Sanman didnt mean to hijack the thread.

No worries, whatsoever 

[Hilarysmum]

 

[carl]

sourcing 18 weaners within your criteria may be a tall order. do yo fancy a trip to chelford market?

[sanman]

sourcing 18 weaners within your criteria may be a tall order. do yo fancy a trip to chelford market?

Why do you think we'd get them there?

[carl]

just thinking it might be worth a trip. some weeks they have a lot of weaners and fatteners that seem to sell at a good price. check out their web site, it shows results from previous auctions and gives a taste of what goes on. if you want to just go for a looksie i would be glad to take you for . nothing ventured , nothing gained. i think some breeders get stuck with litters and put them through chelford. the farmers guardian is also a good website for sourcing weaners. word of mouth from breeders who don't advertise. small ads in feed merchants etc.  just going through the sources i have used and will be doing to find my breeding sow or gilt next year. we`must get our heads together to cover more ground, and maybe include the other new smallholding in loxley valley.( not come across it yet, just what your colleagues have told me). There is a place just through rainbow edge which has some osb's in a field, I will try to make contact with them also. it's just a case of trying to find breeders within a 40 mile radius of us, for ease of transport. Now i have no pigs on the go i am champing at the bit to bring in my little breeding project. Pigs are so addictive, and the meat is so good.

[sanman]

Carl, sounds like a plan.  We are also looking at breeding, we just wanted to try a couple of more breeds before we decide on what we want to settle on.

We are also aware of another couple of groups in Sheffield who are looking to set up along similar lines as ours and their are also a couple of guys in Rivelin that keep pigs.  We probably have sufficient numbers to look at having an informal smallholders association 

[Mary B]

Can't help with weaners I'm afraid, but is anyone interested in buying 2 tamworth sows (3 years old)?  They're not registered, but are tamworths (can provide breeding history) and have bred 2 litters each, this year and last year.  They're currently owned by our pig co-operative, which needs to downscale and move to weaners because we're losing access to the woodland where the sows are currently kept.  The sows are used to people and friendly.  We'd rather they went to a smallholder than open market - we're near Abergavenny in South Wales.