All About Our Pigs

Kune Kune pigs pronounced [coon-E coon-E] is just about the smallest breeds of domestic pigs, a breed that stems from New Zealand, known for being multicolored, covered in hair, and equipped with droopy wattles hanging from their jaws and cute pointy ears, these pigs not only look adorable but their temperaments are praised far and wide for being dog like, friendly, undeniably smart, and highly trainable. 

The start

Our Kune Kune journey started when we moved further into a rural area of southern Michigan and found ourselves taking over 6 Kune Kune pigs and a flock of chickens along with our new home and land. You can read more about that amazing adventure here, Our Newest Adventure .

Shortly after our first month settling in, by December we found our sow was pregnant. We would be having piglets come winter in Michigan, a Kune Kune gestation period being a quirky 3 months 3 weeks and 3 days. Seriously, she labored on the exact time the countless books told us she would.

Quickly we have grown fond of the furry football-built pigs. Neither of us being raised with farm animals of any type, getting to know these well-mannered snuggle bugs has been a priceless perk of trying out farm life. Owning Kune Kune pigs is nothing like what we expected, but in all honesty, everything happened so fast, expectations weren’t really in the picture anyways. 

Our books here.>>>>

Shelter First

 Some of the first things we did upon taking on the new heard was installed what’s called quonset huts. I was so perplexed by this word when my husband came home explaining what he would be picking up. I didn’t even know how to look it up. They turned out to be incredibly useful, lightweight enough for us to manage with little assistance, and the pigs absolutely love them! They don’t look like much, but after doing some research its essential that your pigs home meets these three requirements,

The quonset huts work like a charm, and have been used by farms for years. We even talked about grabbing a couple more to have around just because of how handy they’ve become.  

Solid, movelable shelter. Check. 

Then there were more

February came fast and soon enough the piglets came into the world in such a whirlwind of chaos you would’ve thought pigs were flying.

The morning started with our dog Gunner making a bit more ruckus earlier than usual. Sure enough as I headed out to the pen for feed time, Mavis was well into it with 3 piglets already, and id later find a fourth lost under the pile, unfortunately a common hazard in swine livestock birth. Behind me was dust because I took off like a bat out of hell. Running in ‘too big’ boots I grabbed the med kit and supplies, things like rags and syringes, gloves and a first aid kit and I booked it back out. 

At first I worried id missed out on most of the action but boy was I wrong. A seasoned pig owning lesson learned the hard way, our male boar, a solid 275 lb monster with tusks was still in pasture with our birthing mom, and sure enough he immediately took to doing some horrific things. Birthing piglets for the first time completely by myself and then becoming a protector at the same time was such a freaking experience! Read more about the full story here! Needless to say things got INTENSE, but Mavis was nowhere near done. 8 more piglets came for a total of 12 piglets in all. Sadly we had two still born, a loss due to being first out aka being on bottom, and a sad and sickly runt , we ended up with 8 very healthy piglets after bringing our runt inside and providing care for days, when the dust settled a week later 8 healthy piglets had nearly doubled in size and it was hard to believe the state of things. 

What do they eat. 

Our Kune Kunes are in fence divided pasture areas that allows them grazing grass and vegetation, but on top of what they will rummage up for themselves, pigs as you can imagine need a lot of food. They each get about 2 cups of high protein organic feed twice a day. Ideally, we’d like our pigs to be free to roam on several dozen acres, and this would save us from having to feed them in the summer, but our space is a small one, and we decided not to dedicate all our acreage to our pig heard. We also like to keep in mind that we did not seek these pigs out, they kind of found us, so without things like tractors, animal trailers, easily moveable paddocks, and extra fencing, we’ve learned to have manageable expectations, and how to adjust with what we do have. 

Everyone’s main question, do they really eat scraps? Yes, our pigs do regularly receive scraps, but they aren’t like larger breed pigs, they can’t just eat everything and anything. I also like to think of them as a part of this sacred circle, therefor we don’t really feed our animals anything we would not feed ourselves. Scraps of most kinds are safe for them, anything besides onions and pork. Our family has enjoyed bringing over supplies of what would normally be food waste and the pigs have learned little kids equals lots of treats. 

Things that surprised us were that spoiled food is not good for them, while fruits and veggies are always welcomed, but certain things can be poisonous to their sensitive bodies. It’s incredibly easy to over feed your Kune Kune, and guess what, they will never stop eating until its gone, every single time. No matter how much they’ve already eaten.  So in this case a fat pig is not a healthy pig. Who knew? 

What are you going to do with your pigs? 

As far as the future of the pigs, this has by far been the most entertaining question my husband and I have found we are constantly fielding. 

We started this journey to learn to homestead, to create a place of more self-sufficiency, the first place we knew we needed to start, our food. We are very passionate about the food we eat, where it comes from, and the impact it leaves on our communities. 

Each of us have grown up hunting and harvesting food in a hands on way. It’s something we feel in our bones. Apart of our lineage, our souls, a way we instinctually connect to our source, to mother nature. We realize this is not for everyone, but this is a part of us and if we are going to participate (participate as in eat meat) we’d like the opportunity to be as apart of the circle as we can. This how we honor our choices. 

Hopefully by now you’ve realized where this is going, and you can gladly skip over if this is not for you. Might I suggest you also skip over on eating any type of meat if you are not comfortable with the purest way in which it comes to your plate. But that’s a discussion for another day. 

As for what we are doing with our Kune Kune pigs, we will be harvesting them and they will feed us through the season. They will provide our family with energy and wholesome nurturing, stock for soup, lard for cooking, scraps for the dog. As far as harvest, a pig after being processed can be expected to hold about 75% of its weight in butchered cuts, these pigs will provide us with more than most realize. They will be gathered around, celebrated, and above all loved, not just when they feed us, but through this life they live with us. There is a sacredness in putting the love and effort into livestock in a way that connects you to the animal on a soul to soul level, and then honoring the land, and the love. It’s an elevated way of living. And its definitely not for everyone. But this is the gift of our Kune Kunes. 

That’s not to say we wont be keeping a few for pure joy, our mother pig plus a female to keep her company, and maybe our smallest male runt the only pink one will be what we’ve deemed family pigs. As of right now, and probably until we get more space, we have no future plans for breeding anymore piglets. The litter weve been blessed with was out of our control, but we do not need more than we need. 

The rest of the pigs will belong to the land and to us. We have discussed we will more than likely take care of our pigs here at home, we feel it is our responsibility and we want to learn if this is something we can see ourselves continuing in the future, they will receive large bowls of some of their favorite treats and that will be that. We will then transport them to a facility to be processed and they will be returned to us as packages cuts. Farm to table.