Ernő's Bernardsville Pigs - Updated

Michael sent me these updated photos of Ernő's pigs. Here's the previous post about them. I think the same pig is in the center of both photos.They've certainly grown compared to their previous photos. I don't think they are anywhere near as cute.


Looking cuter:

Inside a Modern Slaughterhouse

Danes use robots.

I've heard about a modern slaughterhouse built in Missouri - but now there's photos of the inside, available on the web. The most modern one I've seen is Danish Crown's, where they use robots for many tasks traditionally done by humans.

The reason the tracking of the meat is important is because of the labeling laws. To produce meat and label it a certain way (e.g. "USDA certified organic") , they have to meet legal obligations. Country of origin requirements likewise complicate things. Basically, every piece of meat that comes out of these slaughterhouses can be traced back to a load of pigs (or maybe even a particular pig), allowing one to ensure the label is correct.

For the producer, tracking carcass data back to a particular pig is very important - you can know what sows and boars produced the pigs that paid the most, figure out which ones are losing you money, and respond appropriately.

There's an important statement in the post:

For example, Maxwell tells a story about a potential meat customer that wanted antibiotic-free pork. Maxwell’s colleague tried to argue that antibiotics were not bad, and Maxwell kicked him under the table. “If I can do it and he will pay me $7 more? I’m doing it. When we talk about differentiating, it is about finding ways to differentiate, in this case, pork, from other producers.”

Because people respond so directly to financial incentives, I think is important that consumers understand what they are funding. Margins are tiny in the hog business. An extra $7 a hog represents a huge increase in profit to the producer.

Saving Rare Breeds - For Real

Emőd Mangalitsa farm

I wrote recently about "certified humane" and dead piglets. One thing that occurred to me is that that "certified humane" farm isn't economically sustainable, in the sense that a restaurant with 90% spoilage isn't sustainable, or a store with 90% shrinkage isn't sustainable. I'm not saying their average death rate is 90% (it probably isn't) - but in general, in a low-margin business, producers need to avoid gross inefficiencies or they'll go out of business.

Olmos es Toth's Mangalitsa farms (and Wooly Pigs's) are an example of how to preserve a breed, in a way that is economically sustainable. With their two major farms at Emőd (nucleus) and Nyíribrony (F1 multiplier), they've got a system that works: they are preserving the genetics, keeping the piglets safe and producing meat on a regular schedule. These farms work a lot like the original Mangalitsa farms, which were the "factory farms" of the 1800s - explaining why the Mangalitsa became so popular. The Mangalitsa fit the needs of a time: a lard-type hog that could grow quickly (compared to wild boar) on a "factory farm".

Jamon Mangalica - available in USA.

La Tienda is selling Mangalitsa ham (Jamon Mangalica). Some of the hams probably came from pigs produced on those farms. I'm curious to hear how people like it, and how it compares to other options.

If you read my previous post on their hams, you saw me point out how what the marketers say doesn't fit with what the producers show you (via photos). Some might think I don't approve of Olmos es Toth, their hams, etc. That's not true: I approve of Olmos es Toth. I think they've done a great thing saving the Mangalitsa genetics, and their pigs look healthy. Healthy piglets are better than dead piglets, even if the dead piglets are "certified humane".

My complaint was with LaTienda's marketing. To some extent, when they talk about Mangalitsa sows in Hungary running around rolling meadows, it creates problems for Olmos es Toth and anybody else who wants to preserve the Mangalitsa breed. It isn't good to create unreasonable expectations in the minds of consumers. In general, if sows run around unringed, you'll have dirt lots (like Olmos es Toth and Wooly Pigs) - that's how pigs are.

My other concern was the genetics of the pigs providing the hams, and what those pigs have eaten. The reasons are clear: people who like Mangalitsa prefer them a lot to the F1s (50% Mangalitsa) - yet the law in Hungary allows F1s to be sold as "mangalica". My concern is that if potential Mangalitsa customers buy and eat F1 Mangalitsa hams and they don't like them, that would be bad for America's Mangalitsa producers. If I knew they were selling pigs that had 75% or more Mangalitsa genetics, and if I knew they fed them the way my fellow Austrian Mangalitza breeders feed their Mangalitsa pigs, I'd have no reservations recommending them.

In any case, "jamon mangalica" is now available in the USA. Now you can order them.

Certified Humane Farming, Dead Piglets

I've come to the conclusion that a lot of what people think of as "humane" for pigs is directly responsible for unnecessary death and injury. As someone who really like pigs, I'm troubled by this.

It isn't surprising that most people are completely out of touch with livestock production; almost nobody has direct experience with livestock production anymore.

I was looking around the internet for blogs that discuss this. I figured that others with pig production experience would have noticed that practices that non-pig-producers consider humane are actually harmful or lethal to pigs - and that some of them might have written about it.

I came across this thought-provoking post on the internet about pigs and what's humane. It includes a horrific (but realistic) description of bullying leading to a dead sow.

It is probably obvious that if you put a bunch of sows together, the big ones are going to bully the small ones. On Farm #1, we had a sow that ran around hassling the other sows in the pen, chasing them around and bothering them. She got pulled out for a while, and put back in a few weeks later. Then it was the other sows' turn. They chased and attacked her, ganging up on her, and would have probably killed her, because they weren't letting up. The herdsman intervened and moved her out.

It has made me think that people imagine that pigs all get along. They don't understand that being a pig is like being in junior high school all over again, except everybody has knives (in the form of sharp teeth).

In that post on pigs and what's humane, one guy mentions that gestation crates would be more humane. Perhaps it sounds nuts - because most people are so removed from these issues that they don't have a chance to understand it at all. This video on sow housing (a topic I posted about recently) provides a balanced look at the issue.

I'm hoping that one day we'll engineer sows that don't bully and fight each other. Of course, those wouldn't be "natural" sows; sows with those traits wouldn't do well in a natural, pig-eat-pig situation.

On the topic of rare breeds, humane husbandry and sow housing, I found this post about a farm where they raise old breeds, in a natural setting, according to "certified humane" protocols, where sows are allowed to crush nine out of ten of their endangered rare breed piglets:

The sows are good for 5-10 litters, until they get too big and accidentally start squishing (and killing) the piglets when they lay down. The dirty girl in the picture below is one such sow - she had her 10th litter about a week ago and squished all but one piglet. They'll let her hang in the mud for a few weeks (primarily to allow her hormone levels to drop) and then send her to slaughter.

A few thoughts:

• At least the 9 piglets were killed "certified humanely".

• Were I one of those 9 pigs, I'd rather be born on a modern farm with crates and a heat lamp - because it would lessen the odds of an early death.

• If the pigs are really endangered, why aren't they doing a better job of protecting the piglets? When humans run a seed bank, we isolate them from things that might damage them.

• Do they always castrate those pigs in the first week? It can be very hard to do in that sort of system - one the the reasons I really don't like the "ceritifed humane raised and handled" protocols.
  

It is clear to me: you either want to preserve a breed, or you want to run it according to "certified humane" protocols that lead to horrendous piglet mortality - but you probably can't do both at the same time. You certainly can't do both and make any money.

If you really want to preserve a breed, you'll be doing high tech things like embryo transfer. As unnatural as that is (as if we think that way when it is time to save a human life or treat a human illness), if that's what it takes to preserve something as tasty and endangered as Mangalitsa pigs, I'm for it.

No Glamor in the Pig Business

I was reading "Hog Ties" again and came across an interesting part about people who raise pigs.

Horwitz asks David Meeker of the NPPC (National Pork Producers Council) if their members are any different. Meeker explains that pig production is a profession without glamor, unlike cattle. Google Books has that page available for reading.

Cattlemen get to wear cowboy clothing with fancy metalwork, ride around on a horse, rope steers, etc. They get glamorized in movies and commercials (like the Marlboro Man). They get to fly out in their private jet to their ranch to check on their cattle. They like wearing their expensive cowboy clothing, riding around on expensive horses, buying and selling expensive show cattle, etc.

This phenomenon is a bit like "hobby wineries" or "vanity restaurants" (or hobby farms) - you've got market participants willing to accept low returns because of the non-monetary returns they derive from being in the business.

When we finally have the technology to turn things like corn and soy into milk-like and meat-like substances (without actual pigs or chickens), I think we'll see chicken farming and pig farming collapse, as most people switch to low-cost meat substitutes. E.g. instead of feeding grain to pigs and chickens, we might feed the inputs to cells, who will produce the meat directly. Maybe we'll achieve the same with milk, and eliminate the need for dairy cows.

Based on what meat dominates the American market now, I don't think there will be excellent meat substitutes soon. So even if we get in vitro meat, I think you'll still see people raising Wagyu cattle and Mangalitsa pigs, even as cornish cross chickens and standard pigs vanish.

Mosefund's First Batch of Mangalitsa

Closeup of Mosefund's carcass: 2.5 inches or more of fat.

Mosefund killed their first batch of Mangalitsa!

They are about a year old, originally bred and farrowed in Washington (by Wooly Pigs), grown in the Midwest (Wooly Pigs farm#1 ), sold and delivered to Mosefund and finished in New Jersey on a special diet designed to optimize their fat quality.

I picked the biggest ones out last August, knowing that they'd be Mosefund's first pigs. They were about 40# the last time I saw them. From the moment they received the pigs, the clock was ticking - they started feeding them their finishing diet to prepare for their big day. In the meanwhile, they managed to make the New Jersey Star-Ledger in a story about Mosefund and Mangalitsa.

The pigs - famous all over New Jersey.

If they'd have been smarter, they'd have realized that when strangers get in your pen and others strangers take pictures of you, something is probably going on. When they load you in a trailer and drive you somewhere, something is definitely going on.

They look quite fat to me. That's a lot of leaf lard in that pig. It isn't easy to see, but these pigs were about 350# live. They were very heavy for being only one year old, evidence that we fed them on a high plane of nutrition.

Soon, Michael Clampffer will deliver the pork to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Elements (Princeton) and a few other fancy places mentioned in the article.

The Mangalitsa dinner at Elements (Princeton, NJ) is really going to be something:

• 9 courses
• $130 for food. Alcohol additional.
• first 3 courses done family-style
  

New Jersey Star-Ledger

G. Chris Andersen and his pigs.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger just wrote about Mosefund and their Mangalitsa operation.

Vicky Hyman, the journalist, wrote a very good article. It is extremely informative, and I don't see any obvious mistakes. That says a lot; in any complex article, there are normally a few mistakes.

There's lots of neat things in the article:

Mosefund Farm is the only outfit east of the Mississippi raising Mangalitsas, and its first customers include Princeton's Elements, Restaurant Latour at Crystal Springs Resorts' Grand Cascades Lodge in Hamburg and Westchester County's award-winning Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns is the New York equivalent of The Herbfarm. For example, they raise their own pigs too. Pig's from Mosefund's first kill are going to one of New York's most respected restaurants.

And then there's this:

Mosefund will also be hosting "Pigstock 2010" in January, a , three-day, hands-on class open to all on butchering, curing and cooking the pigs.

Michael and Mr. Andersen are just some of the Americans who are really excited about Mangalitsa. In my dreams, I'd be hosting two 3-day classes on Mangalitsa slaughter and processing (and having Americans fly in from all over to take the classes). It is amazing to me that Mr. Andersen is into that too, and has the resources to make it happen.

It wouldn't be happening if Mangalitsa wasn't so superb.

Sow Cannibalism

Bad sow.

Sow cannibalism, aka "savaging" is a problem with pigs and other animals. Here's some references:

Pig Progress: savaging, puerperal psychosis
The Pig Site: savaging of piglets
Google Books: Domestic Animal Behaviour and Welfare

The Pig Site lays out the common case clearly:

This is a condition mainly in first litter gilts that may account for up to 3% increase in piglet mortality.

• Offending gilts can often be identified by their nervous apprehension at the onset of farrowing.
• They have a "wild eyed" look.

That's fairly excusable: they haven't been through birth before and are very stressed. When stressed, pigs attack things.

Some Mangalitsa sows engage in cannibalism. I first encountered this in Austria. We saw an old sow that only had 3 pigs and asked why there were so few.

Christoph Wiesner explained that she'd eaten some of her piglets. He explained further that when the sows get older (this one was about 5 years old), some of them don't like the little pigs anymore, so they attack them. It doesn't take much for a sow to kill a little pig; she's got a mouth full of very sharp teeth.

As described in "Domestic Animal and Behaviour", the cannibalism Christophe described is an extreme variety of cannibalism - the sow purposefully maims the piglets. Other forms of cannibalism can be benign: she kills them accidentally and nibbles on them.

Lucky to be alive: the bad sow's three surviving piglets

This came up today because one of our star sows savaged one of the first pigs that she farrowed. She typically weans 8 to 9 pigs, substantially more than the breed average of 5.5. The herdsman was really looking forward to her farrowing today, because he had justifiably high expectations.

This morning, he heard a pig screaming. It kept on screaming and screaming, which is unusual.

The herdsman finally discovered that sow #22 had attacked her litter's first newborn piglet, minutes after birth. She'd bitten off one foot, one leg and ripped open its belly such that its guts were coming out. Yet it wasn't dead, so it was screaming. The herdsman euthanized the piglet by knocking its head on the ground.

Later on, he saw a pig drop out of her vulva (smacking the floor) while she was standing and eating. That's unusual; normally sows lie down to give birth, and the pig just slides out. It looked like maybe the whole litter was going down the tubes. Yet a bit later, she was lying down, letting 4 pigs suck. She wasn't done farrowing when we talked, so maybe she'll have more than four piglets.

A number of points came up in our conversation:

1) She can still be worth keeping. If she weans more than 5.5 pigs, she's doing better than average, savaging or no.

2) Because the breed is known for savaging, taking drastic action isn't indicated. E.g. if she's produced otherwise good gilts, keeping them would be fine. The same for her boars. We won't cull her offspring just because of her bad behavior.

3) Maybe she just had a bad day. Maybe if she'd woken up on the right side of the pen, she wouldn't have savaged that pig.

4) Although we really despise this sow's savaging, she's just a sow. She isn't a human. She doesn't have the impulse control that humans have. If pigs were conscientious creatures, able to delay gratification and resist the urge to lash out, they wouldn't be pigs.

5) We'll probably give her another chance. Hopefully she won't savage the pigs next time. of course, the problem will probably get worse over time. But until we've got replacements expected to be better than 22, she's worth keeping around.

If humans behaved like pigs, we'd take measures to protect the pigs, at the expense of the mother's freedom. E.g. we'd restrain the mother, preventing her from attacking her newborn baby. As mentioned in this book, farrowing crates, can help to protect the pigs from sows: unless the pig walks right in front of the sow, she can't bite him.

Some people attack farrowing crates, because they restrict a sow's freedom (even if only temporarily). Those people have probably never had to euthanize a savaged pig. People who work to prevent (directly or indirectly) farmers from taking care of their animals (with things like crates) are causing unnecessary death and suffering.

Seam Butchery, Rib Pullers

I had a customer thank me for putting up seam butchery videos.

The people who like those videos really like them. While I was doing the work to make them available, I didn't know who would appreciate them. In general, my experience with Wooly Pigs has been like that; I never would have expected people to be so enthusiastic about this stuff.

Deboning a belly with a rib puller.

I was talking with Michael Clampffer of Mosefund, where they'll have Christoph supervise students killing and butchering pigs in January. He told me you can order rib pullers here.

If you google "rib puller", you'll find, among the results for the devices, this info about professional rib puller salaries. If you had to do that job hours every day, the rib puller tool wouldn't seem so fun.