Merry Christmas and a Happy Pig-Keeping New Year!
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1 Winter 2012 MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY PIG-KEEPING NEW YEAR! INSIDE THIS ISSUE We launch a search for the world’s oldest Tamworth. Do you have a favourite sow or boar which might qualify? Ordered your 2013 Tamworth Breeders’ Club Did you remember to pay your subscription? If not, please calendar yet? send your cheque for £15 to the club secretary (contact de- See page 3 for tails on the back page). Avoid forgetting next year - make details a New Year resolution to set up a standing order (see p3). 2 A view from the chair - with Bill Howes I can't believe it's more than 12 months since I was elected as chair- man! In October, we held our Annual General Meeting at Boyton Farm, the home of our president, Caroline Wheatley Hubbard. The famous Berkswell Herd of Tamworths is celebrating its 90th year - what an achievement! This herd has provided a firm foundation for many other herds, including ours. I think it's fairly safe to say that the Tam- worth breed wouldn't be in the healthy position it is today without the Wheatley Hubbard family. Long may it continue. At the AGM we welcomed Stuart Roberts, Jodie Fairclough, and Emily Brown onto Com- mittee. I hope that Emily will help raise the profile of the younger generation of pig keep- ers in general and Tamworths in particular. It would be good if we could have a regular page written by young pig keepers. Liz Shankland did not stand for re-election onto com- mittee but will continue to edit the Trumpet. Thanks Liz. Lunch was at the Ginger Piggery, Caroline’s farm shop and restaurant. It was excellent, with the best bread and butter pudding we'd ever tasted. After lunch we all piled into cars and went to view the Berkswell pigs. They were up on the top of the hill with spectacular views over the Wiltshire landscape. Most of the pigs were up there free ranging in the mud, and we picked out a good few potential show winners! Thank you Caroline for a really lovely day. I'd like to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous 2013. Bill 3 Make every day a Tamworth day! This is just what you need to jot down all those important dates like when your sows were served or when they are due to farrow! Thanks to the hard work of our secretary Michele Baldock and some talented snappers in the club, we are offering the first Tamworth Breed- ers’ Club calendar for sale. Priced at just £9.99, plus £2 postage, it’s the perfect thing to hang on the wall of your kitchen, study or barn – and a lovely gift for anyone with a passion for pigs. Or- der your copy by getting in touch with Michele - contact details are on p16. If you’re proud to be a Tamworth owner, why not let everyone know? We have a new range of club merchandise available , including polo shirts (left), ties, fleeces, and car stick- ers. Contact Michele for a full list and details of colours, sizes, and prices. SUBSCRIPTIONS – A GENTLE REMINDER Annual membership remains at just £15 per household and 2013 subscriptions are now due. If you joined the club via our new Paypal facility, a recurring payment should have been set up at the time. Please check to ensure this will be processed. You may also pay by cheque to the secretary’s address. If you prefer to set up a standing order (payable on Oc- tober 1 each year), please use your surname as a reference. The account details are: Bank: Santander; account number: 64306185; sort code: 09 01 55. 4 Ground clearance...Tamworth-style Since 2009 we have been using our Valstock Herd as a method of bracken clearance on Exmoor. At pre- sent, we run about 10 breeding females and far too many boars (five)! Most of the offspring are finished on the farm and sold through various outlets. Kemps Farm is predominately a single-suckle cattle unit with some good Somerset grazing land. We have 130 acres of steep, north facing hill land which has gorse, bracken some rough grazing. On a large pro- portion of this area, it is not possible to get onto with a tractor - and some of it is quite scary even on a quad-bike. We are trying, over time, to improve and re-seed the area to give better cattle grazing. The pigs play their part by attacking the bracken. We’ve been working initially on an area of about five acres. This is split into small paddocks of between half and three quarters of an acre in size. Each pad- dock is fenced with wooden stakes and stock netting, but, as the rooting becomes more advanced, certain pigs in certain paddocks need the extra security of a single strand of electric fence. We have tried all ages of stock, but good, strong weaners seem to have the biggest impact on the bracken; they are more active and continually turn the soil over. We had quite disastrous results when we tried farrowing sows in the bracken, with more piglets being laid on and even some young piglets completely disappearing. We’re not sure whether they simply got lost or were taken by a fox or something else. So now all our sows are farrowed indoor or on grass paddocks nearer the farm. The pigs get some nutritional value from their ac- tivities in the bracken, but we still give them feed normal rations every day. The sows have 16% pro- BEFORE. The weaners begin their assault on the bracken tein rolls thrown into the bracken for encourage- ment, and the growing pigs have 18% protein nuts, thrown on the surface in dry weather or served in troughs if conditions get wet. Fortunately, we have a series of good clean springs, one of which we have been able to divert into a storage tank which leads a piped water supply to each paddock. 5 By Andrew and Emily Brown of the Valstock Herd The best way to attack bracken seems to be to hit it hard with 15 to 20 store pigs per paddock, giving each paddock several rests throughout the first year. The pigs’ rooting action firstly destroys the bracken fronds and then brings the rhizomes to the surface in order for the sun – and, more importantly the win- ter frost - to act upon them. This is not sufficient to clear the bracken and some will return the following spring, although not with such strong growth. In the second year we have a group of pigs continuously in each paddock. We don’t think the pigs really want to eat the rhi- zomes – which contain some toxins - they are simply looking for other morsels within the earth, breaking the surface and inad- vertently bringing the root system up. Containing the pigs can be a problem on our stony terrain, as it is difficult to erect a A group of young Tamworths busy doing what they do best ! good stock proof fence - hence the occa- sional need for an electric fence. Due to remoteness, moving pigs in and out of the paddocks is difficult in bad weather. We have to walk them some distance to a level track to load them, although we walk the older sows all the way to the farm - about ½ a mile – a journey which includes a short distance along a public road! We have encountered bracken poisoning in some pigs. When poisoned by bracken, a pig’s thyroid gland works less efficiently, and the pig becomes short of Vitamin B1 (thiamine). Usually we have managed to save the pigs with vitamin injections. It doesn’t affect all the pigs, but will randomly select odd ones out of a group, regardless of age. The first signs are often that the pigs lose energy and their “get up and go”. They will come to the feed, begin AFTER. And what a fantastic job they did! eating and then go and lie down. If we catch them at this stage, it is usually treatable. 6 My first time – and I loved it! At the 2011 Royal Cornwall Show, I was dismayed to see only one Tamworth pig exhibited, and then found out that Devon County had no Tamworths put forward. Speaking to one of the stewards I realised that the numbers had been declining for several years in this part of the country. I have kept Tamworth pigs for seven years but had never shown them before. My stock were becoming quite old and were almost past breeding. To invigorate my herd I bought two Ruby weaners from Virginia Selby in Hayling Island; an in-pig Golden Rose gilt from Bill Howes; and a seven month old Golden Ball boar from Tony Lloyd in Devon. The old stock were culled. After seeing Bill and Shirley’s kitchen walls and barn cov- ered in rosettes, I began to get excited about showing. It takes time to build up your herd, and I did not have any of my own stock that were eligible for 2012 boar or gilt class. However, earlier this year I bought two beautiful January gilts and two boar weaners from Phil and Helen Soward in Devon . I had one sow, Stoneymoor Golden Rose 51 (Bambi) who I intended to show in the sow class. But, the day before the show, I had a crisis of con- fidence about our ability to show five pigs.