Growing pigs outdoors in Ireland, ain’t easy. However, having said that we have been growing pigs outdoors for almost 15 years, so I guess we know a thing or two about it.
Our land is not ideally suited to it – heavy, clay soil – but you do the best you can.
In reality nowhere in Ireland is perfect for growing pigs outdoors. There are areas of southern England where they have chalk soil that is good.
We have managed to keep our pigs outdoors all year round ever since we started to keep them. You’ve heard it before – pigs are smart. If it is too wet, too cold, snowing – they will stay indoors in a bed of straw.
Outdoor raised pigs produce a completely different meat to that of those raised in ‘factory’, or indoors. Outdoor raised pigs obviously will have greater muscle tone. While outdoors they are rooting about picking up various trace elements that occur naturally in the ground.
We’ve heard many say that there is no ‘standard’ for free-range pork. Well there is. Alfie is on the Bord Bia Technical Committee for Pig Meat, and it was Alfie that devised the standard.
Freerange Farmed: a type of animal husbandry where pigs have free access to fields/woodland with defined boundaries for all or most of their natural life. They receive their nutritional needs from prepared natural feed or from pasture or forage depending on the season.
We were the first pork producers to achieve ‘free-range status’. However, and here is the rub…..it means nothing! Yes, that is true.
The reason it means nothing is that most small producers use small abattoirs and small butchers, and none of these are registered with Bord Bia. Only the big abattoirs and butchers are registered. It is not cost effective for the small guys to pay the annual fees to be on the list of registered slaughter houses with Bord Bia. Similarly, it is not feasible for small producers to take a couple of animals to one of the large processors.
As a consumer you have to ask yourself “what is important to you”?
Do you want to eat meat that has led a natural and healthy life outdoors, being fed organic feed?
Do you want to eat meat that has lead a natural and healthy life outdoors, being fed commercial pig meal which contains GMO soy and maize?
Do you want to eat meat that has been confined to a concrete building all its life, being fed commercial pig meal with again GMO soy and maize, and I won’t mention antibiotic use?
The decision is yours.
You have the power to change how meat is reared in this country.
Will you vote with your fork?
A Year In Redwood 
I would love to buy pork again. I will not buy pig meat in any form because it is not free range. I have no access to farmer’s markets, and no butcher in Castlebar stocks free range pig meat. (As far as I know.
Hi Fil,
Very few butchers stock free-range pork. In all the years we were in the business we were never approached by a butcher asking to stock our meat. Your best bet in sourcing free range meat might be via a local grower. We couldn’t go back to ‘shop’ meat either… hence, we will continue to grow a couple of pigs for ourselves.
Margaret
We long since decided that we would only eat meat we had the opportunity to “know socially”. Not only do I want my dinner to have lived a healthy happy outdoor life, and to have eaten non-GM food, but I want it to make the shortest, least stressful trip to the slaughterhouse, and have the least possible stress once it gets there. I’ve seen the inside of a fair few slaughterhouses down the years and whilst I’ve never seen the sort of intentional cruelty that makes it into vegan propaganda movies I’ve seen an enormous variation in the attitude of slaughter men to the animals in their care. What I’d really like to see is more on farm slaughter, and mobile slaughter units to visit farms that aren’t big enough to justify building their own units. Personally I’m getting more and more tired of Origin Greenwash.
Hi Kathryn,
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were mobile slaughter units? We’ve spoken many times over the years to the guys at National Organic Training centre about such a thing. The powers that be, put so many obstacles in the way, however, maybe some day it will happen.
And yes, I hear you about the Greenwash…. watched their most recent ad the other day, that was all about ‘big’ farms.
Margaret