Cattle

They're free while they last
Adopt a weanling for homegrown food


By Ron Friesen - The Co-operator, July 8, 2008

If you're looking for some cheap, home-grown pork, Clinton Cavers has a deal for you.

Cavers will give you a free weanling pig to raise and slaughter for your own meat.

No, this is not a scam. This is for real.

Cavers has roughly 400 four-to-five-week-old weanlings in his barn near Pilot Mound. They're free for the asking, provided you find a proper place to raise them and a facility to slaughter them.

What he's offering you is $500 worth of pork for your freezer, no strings attached.

Mind you, that's not a net value. You'll have to pay for the pig's room and board, as well as for the expense of slaughtering and packaging. Cavers estimates it might cost $150 to feed out a pig and another $150 to $200 to process the carcass. But it's still a big saving.

What does Cavers get out of this? Nothing but the satisfaction of seeing people connect personally with the food they eat.

Cavers got the pigs from a hog farm which was about to euthanize 1,300 piglets as a side effect of a federal sow cull program. A neighbour who works at the farm phoned to ask him if he could find a home for some of them.

Cavers arrived the next day and loaded about 400 of the little critters. He would have taken more but a Canadian Food Inspection Agency veterinarian at the site told him he would be overstocking his truck if he did.

The piglets are now in Cavers's barn getting used to their new home. In a couple of weeks, they'll be foraging outside with the regular pigs.

Cavers, his wife Pam and their three daughters own Harbourside Farms, a wholistic management farm which practices small-scale sustainable development.

They also operate Country Style Natural Meats, processing their own pigs into sausages, hams, bacon and other specialty products.

Up to now, they've been using the services of a local abattoir. In a few weeks, the family will open their own licenced meat shop on the farm.

Cavers says he's willing to give a liberated pig to anyone with a genuine interest in locally-grown food. The only fee required is a $10 donation to the Harvest Moon Society, a local organization which promotes sustainable rural living.

Cavers emphasizes he's not adopting out pigs as pets. These are food animals intended for slaughter and consumption.

For more information, phone (204) 825-2465 or e-mail cpcavers@goinet.ca.

But you'd better act fast. As of last week, 50 pigs had already been spoken for and inquiries were coming in every day.