Raw Milk Monday...Milking our Pigs

Going to take a tiny break from the IDPH raw milk issues and just tell you how we use raw milk for the non-humans on our farm.

Our pigs are very selective, they like their milk well cultured. Here’s how we get that delicate balance of probiotic dairy for our fine hogs. First we take a cow.

And milk her. Then the milk is stored in a big cold stainless steel tank where customers come and fill their jars. Every other day the tank is emptied and cleaned cleaned and any leftover milk goes into one of our large white plastic barrels which Keith has fitted with handy spigots at the bottom.

While this whole, grass fed, organic milk sits in the barrels it goes through an amazing transformation becoming part cottage cheese, part butter, 100% of the good bacteria hogs guts (bacon and chops) thrive on.

 The end result? We get an amazing layer of very tender juicy fat on our chops, bacon, roasts. Once known as too lean, our Red Wattles have busted through that urban myth as well as a few of their hutches. They are frankly just a bunch of fat happy pigs.