This little piggy went to market, redux

Like last year L. has raised her pig to be sold at the 4H livestock auction at Cumberland Fair next week. For people who prefer to eat local and know where your food comes from, this is a good event to check out. All the animals in the auction - beef, pork and lamb - are exclusively grain-fed and treated with a caring touch. So if you're in the market for some locally grown meat to stockpile in your freezer this year, it's a great place to do that and support a great youth program.

For the 4Hers selling their animals at the auction, there is a "marketing" component to it in addition to feeding and caring for their animal. L. wrote a letter to send to potential buyers about her hog and sent it out to several people earlier this month. Please forgive the shameless plug about this event. I just thought I'd post it here for any who were interested in learning more about the livestock auction at the fair. I had no idea this sort of thing went on at the fair before my kids started raising animals in 4H.

I would really appreciate it if you could come to the Cumberland Fair to bid on my market hog at the 4-H Livestock Auction.

I have grain-fed my hogs since I got them this past spring and I have taken good care of them. My hogs have had plenty of attention and exercise and are very healthy. They also have a lot of muscle because they dig and run around their pen all the time.

I am selling one of my hogs at the livestock auction and I plan to put the money I get from selling my hogs in to my savings account to use for college.

People who go to the auction to buy hogs sometimes go with friends and then they buy a  hog together. If you buy my hog with a group it is cheaper for you to do it. Hogs are bid on by the pound. My female hog, Petunia, is about 220 pounds right now and will probably be around 260 by fair time I think. My male hog, Groovy Smoothie, should be about 210 pounds by fair time.

And just so you know, there are processors at the auction who will take the animal right to their shop so you don’t have to worry about that part. Or you can take my female hog home to breed her (she is a mixed breed of Yorkshire, Hampshire and Landrace).

I have learned a lot about raising healthy hogs in 4H and I hope to raise more next year. I think hogs are fun to watch and play with because they run around the pen and act silly all the time.

I hope you can come.

4-H Livestock Auction
Wednesday, September 29
4 p.m.
Show Arena
Cumberland Fairgrounds

From,
L. Almeida

And for those who have never raised livestock, the inevitable question about how L. feels about selling her pig is (again) a mixed bag of emotions.

She's been working with Petunia and Groovy Smoothie since early April and she does enjoy them. She and her pigs have daily "conversations" that are pretty darn cute. If you've never heard a pig talk, they have a wide range of grunts and pitches that sound like they really are responding to your voice.

But at the same time, raising livestock is a lot of work and there is a part of L. that will be relieved her chores - that take more than an hour per day every single day - will be over soon. Feeding pigs is a messy affair because of the mud bath in the pen, which the pigs recreated every time we filled in the hole(s) this summer. L.'s pigs are very social and must greet her with snout kisses every time she brings food in to the pen to feed them. She's said she's looking forward to being mud-free for an entire day after the fair.

Oh and just to clarify this point, L. is not selling her lambs at auction. Minnie and Symphony have been raised for wool and breeding.