Pig Books

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Pig Books

Looking to keep hogs? We used these pig books when we first got started, and we continue to refer to them whenever we need to refine our hogs' housing, diet, breeding or other management techniques. It's true that hogs can still live up to their traditional title of "mortgage lifter", but only if the hog producer is well informed and up to speed on cost effective management options. While everyone seems to have an opinion on how hogs should be managed, these books will give you sound guidance for yours. Or perhaps simply help you decide whether hogs are for you. And some just make for some great reading, whether you ever raise a piglet or not. If you have swine questions, we encourage you to look through these books. Enjoy browsing the collection, and we hope you find your answers here!

Small Scale Pig Raising by Dirk van Loon

This is the pig book most of us reach for first when we have pig questions. Dirk van Loon has many years of experience raising hogs on a small family farm and his book is a veritable treasure trove of how-to information. It is also clear that he enjoys these animals and respects them. His words will help you not only raise them profitably, but also respectfully. This book has seen a great deal of use on our farm.

Storey's Guide To Raising Pigs by Kelly Klober

This pig book brings together two important names in small scale farming - author Kelly Klober has written extensively about sustainable, profitable small scale livestock raising, and Storey Publications have worked for years to provide a wide range of homesteading and family farming titles to the world. While I do not have this particular book in my collection, I already know that both the author and the publisher have a great deal of experience in livestock management. Any book from them would have a place of honor on my shelves. This is the third edition of this title, so I'm sure it has not only been well received, but also recently updated with current information.

Productive Swine Management by G.E. Day

This is a farm manual originally published in 1863, and the language is from that era. But this little pig book is chock full of how to raise swine cost effectively on the small family farm, including putting hogs on pasture. Pastured pork is an exciting old idea enjoying a renaissance, but there are precious few texts on how to pasture hogs. This book is one of them. The link below is for a printed version published by Lippincot's Farm Manuals, but electronic print-on-demand copies are also available.

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven, by Joel Salatin

This is a book aimed more at consumers than producers. But the wise producer will find within its pages not only information about pastured livestock production, but also some tools for describing the values of that production to customers. It's one thing to raise high quality meat. It's another to successfully sell it at reasonable prices. I highly recommend all of Joel Salatin's books and this is another good 'un.

Live like you'll die tomorrow. Farm like you'll live forever...

SBI!

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