What Wooly Pigs Does to Ensure Meat Quality
We attempt to carefully control diet, raising, slaughtering and ripening of the meat, according to the Austrian system.
Those practices result in meat very high in flavor, monounsaturated fats and antioxidants - so that the meat can keep long and cure well (if you choose to cure your meat). Monounsaturated fat melts pleasantly on the tongue.
All our pigs are outdoors year-round, even in our cold winters. All have shelter if they want it, and we keep the sows and their piglets safe from local predators like coyotes and eagles.
They receive a typical Austrian diet: forage and supplemental barley, wheat and hay. Most feed comes from our immediate area.
Our pastures include herbs like tarragon, mint and oregano, which are particularly high in antioxidants. Those improve the flavor and keeping-ability of the meat. Fresh hay fills in when the forage is gone or covered with snow.
As per the advice of Austrian farmers and food scientists, we avoid finishing on feed high in polyunsaturated fat, like corn or soybeans.
We do what we can to reduce or manage slaughter stress, whether it be on the farm, during transport or before slaughter.
We try to use slaughterhouses that allow our meat to ripen properly. That's particularly important for the older animals that make the best cured products.
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