I’m here to tell you about raising pigs. I love bacon, also ham and pork chops and pork pie, so about a year ago, I decided to raise my own pigs. That way, I could have all the ham and bacon I wanted! This is what I learned.

First of all, you need to choose a place for your pen. You want it on dry ground, and you want to keep it well away from your house. Oh, and the neighbors’ houses, too, unless you want very angry neighbors.

The fact is, pigs smell. Even when you work hard to keep the pen clean and change the bedding often, the pen smells, and it doesn’t smell good. A lot of the time, pigs smell too. Neighbors don’t like that. They were very clear about it.

I have a small yard, so I built my pigpen in my Aunty Dia’s yard instead. She has lots of room at her place in Lyndleby. If you build your pen in somebody else’s yard, you should probably ask for permission, even if the somebody is a relative. I would have asked Aunty Dia, but she was out of town, so I couldn’t.

Luckily Aunty Dia wasn’t too angry with me. She didn’t get rid of the pig pen, and I only had to go a month without biscuits. Oh, and for a few weeks, I had to carry a cushion to sit on. But that was because when Aunty Dia yelled at me, I jumped into the pen and startled the pigs. Did you know that pigs can be aggressive when someone startles them?

Once you’ve chosen the place, you need to build the pen. You need a very strong pen to keep the pigs from running off and also to keep the wolves and dogs from getting in and eating the baby pigs. I discovered that a simple board fence is not enough. Pigs can dig under it and if the boards aren’t strong enough, the pigs can push their way out and eat your aunt’s lettuces. Also her carrots, squash, melons, and berries. That makes your aunt mad.

So use very thick boards and sink the fence under the ground a bit, or dig a trench and put in stones and build a stone pen. Whichever you choose, your back will hurt for a while, but it’s still less painful than upsetting your aunt.

You also want to include a shelter so the pigs can get out of the sun in the summer and the cold and snow in the winter. Give it a good roof and give the pigs plenty of straw for bedding.

Pigs like company, so it’s best to get two. Once you’ve gotten comfortable caring for those two, you can add more. I tried starting with older pigs, but that didn’t work out very well. They got made into chops a lot sooner than I’d planned. At least the lettuces, carrots, squash, melons, and berries they’d eaten made the meat taste good, and it didn’t really take all that long to build a new pen.

Start with two weaner pigs. Weaner pigs are young pigs that have just started eating regular food instead of getting milk from their mother. They’re probably still smaller than you are, which means they’re easier to train. If they start to give you a hard time, you can make them stop. With luck, they’ll start thinking you’re their mother and will do what you want. This does not work with older pigs. Older pigs might attack you, and they have strong teeth and weigh much more than you do. If you’re lucky, you’ll manage to climb out of the pen before they hurt you too much.

If you happen to have a male pig, then once it’s grown a bit, but before it’s actually grown up, you’ll need to, uh, castra—uh, well, make it be not quite as male as it was before. Otherwise male pigs smell and their meat doesn’t taste as good. Oh, and I discovered that the pigs may not like you trying to do this to them, so you’d better find someone bigger and stronger than you to do it.

Pigs need to be fed every day. Yes, every single day. Sometimes twice a day. And they eat more as they get bigger. Plan on buying a lot of peas, lentils, wheat, barley, and corn, and also plenty of vegetables and fruit. But be careful not to overfeed. You don’t want them to get too fat, because that’s really hard on their bones.

Not only will you probably have to buy a lot of pig food (unless you have your own farm and can raise it yourself, which I can’t because my yard is too small), you’ll have to carry it home and put it in the feeder.

Then there’s water. Pigs need plenty of water, and you have to haul it, too. Food and water get pretty heavy, so you’ll need some kind of ointment for your strained back. The good side of all this hauling is that after a while, your arms and legs will get stronger.

Pigs have a bad reputation, but they aren’t really dirty animals. The reason they like mud is that their skin easily get sunburned. Rolling in the mud covers their skin and blocks the sun. It works really well, but if you try it, your aunty might make you take an outdoor bath before you can come in the house for supper. Outdoor baths can be very cold.

Once the pigs are full grown, which takes eight to ten months, although it will seem like much longer because of all the feeding and watering, it’s time to make them into ham and bacon. But first, you have to, uh, well, kill them.

You shouldn’t have named them and gotten too fond of them. It’s easy to get attached, and to start thinking of them as pets. Pigs are very smart and they can be friendly and loving animals. Snort and Squeal, for example, are wonderful pigs.

Probably it’s best to have somebody else slaughter them. Or, if you want, you can take the pigs to market and sell them while they’re still alive. I expect that’s what I’ll do, once I’m ready. Someday. But not just yet.