Breeder Profile – Vale Reggie
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
The plan was to include a post about Reggie, our amazing pedigree Saddleback boar, as the next entry in our Breeder Profiles. That’s bittersweet right now though, as we lost Reggie this week. ☹ Boars are problematic. They’re huge, often amped up on testosterone, and fully equipped to do some serious damage. You learn to ..read more
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Piglets, Piglets Everywhere!!!!!
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
We’ve not had the chance to blog much this year.  Things have been more than a little insane, mostly because of piglets. Seriously, so many piglets. Back in July I blogged about how we’d been able to reverse our breeding woes, with an in-depth explanation of the many pitfalls we’d faced and how we’d beaten ..read more
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Breeder Profile – Honey Pig!
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
There is only one way to start off my series of breeder profiles, and that’s with Honey Pig.  She was one of the first three pigs we bought, has always been my favourite, and is much of the reason we do what we do today. I really can’t overstate just how much I love this ..read more
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ODE TO THE RABID VEGAN…
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
Social media has been very, very good to us, as it has been for many other small businesses.  We’ve used it since the start of our little venture, and our use of it has evolved quite a bit over time.  That’s partly because we learned a lot, but also because my eldest daughter does social ..read more
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Breeding Redemption!
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
My last couple of blog posts have been a bit downbeat, maybe to the point of being a little depressing.  Reading about self-interested and dishonest producers and the horrible cull choices that we face as farmers may be informative, but it really doesn’t make you feel good about the world, does it?  I just realised ..read more
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CULL SOWS?
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
For the most part, our farming life is awesome! It’s a tonne of hard work, but most of the outcomes are things we enjoy. We get to hang out with all manner of animals, we get to work outside and have redeveloped our attachment to the seasons, and we get to spread a message that ..read more
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Market Realities
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
I started this blog years ago now, partly because it was a hot summer and I was annoying Linhda by whining about not being able to get outside, but mostly as a record of what we were trying to achieve.  We were committed to growing meat ethically – treating our animals with the love and ..read more
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CASTRATION?
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
The castration of piglets can be a contentious issue in the world of free-range and ethical pig farming, as it should be. It’s a decision less concerned with the animal’s well-being, and more with commercial and husbandry realities.  It’s one that we struggled with for some years, eventually choosing to castrate.  Our caveats to that ..read more
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Ration Change!
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
I banged on a while ago about the pig ration we’ve developed over the last several years.  We changed that up recently, and the results have been excellent! The drivers for this were twofold: 1.       We had a few pigs look a bit patchy and get itchy. My first thought was that they’d picked up ..read more
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Fire Readiness!
The Atherton Farm Blog
by neilatherton
3y ago
I wrote about our fire preparedness, or slightly frustrating lack of it, back in November when I marked the first anniversary of the Pinery fires .  We were partly prepared, but nothing close to what I’d planned.  That changed soon after that blog post, with the purchase of a fire pump and the installation of ..read more
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