Win a kit to knit Bubble Jersey by naming our new piglet!
By Alice
There is no day out that I love more than going to a rare breed sale at an auction mart. It is fortunate that there are no such sales less than 2 hours drive away as otherwise Whistlebare may have become more zoo than farm! Last Saturday, not only did we visit the rare breed sale in Lanark, but we went with the intention of buying sheep, pigs and chickens!
As I’m sure you know Whistlebare is a fibre farm where we grow and produce yarn. So what I hear you wondering were we buying pigs for? Well, pigs are wonderful animals, one of my favourite species in fact. So much so that my husband gave me two beautiful ‘Large Black’ (a pedigree breed) gilts as a present when we got married. Whilst those two girls were the beginning of several hundred pigs Whistlebare has been bereft of them for many years now. The reason that we are re-introducing pigs is all to do with managing our land and animal welfare in as environmentally sound manner that we can.
Large black piglets.
All animals are prone to intestinal parasites – worms! With particular species being prone to different groups of parasites. For example goats and sheep all suffer from the same worms which are different from those hosted by pigs. This is key because worms are contracted by an animal ingesting the worm eggs which are in the pasture having been excreted by another infected animal. There are several ways of controlling worms in livestock but the real key is to prevent / reduce infection in the first place. One of the ways of doing this is to turn livestock out onto ‘clean’ pasture, that is fields that are not infected with eggs. Pigs clean pastures for goats and sheep and vice versa simply by eating. The pigs that we bought are Kune Kunes, the smallest breed in the World, and crucially, they are largely grazers rather than diggers so will not destroy our herbal leys in the process of cleaning them.
new piglets on their way to Whistlebare!
One of our new pigs is a little girl who will be staying on the farm to be mama – she needs a name! So, this is our competition in which you could win 2 skeins of our Cheviot Blue 4ply, in the colour of your choice, and the pattern to knit ‘Bubble Jersey’.
name the piglet!
All you have to do is suggest a name for our new sow in the comments below. The winner will be announced on 7th September after the children are back to school and some semblance of normality has returned!
Bubble jersey and Cheviot Blue 4 ply. Bubble Jersey .
What lovely, healthy looking pigs! They are such amazing, helpful animals – so glad you have them on your farm. My suggestion for a name is Coraline, since I am also a Neil Gaiman/ Gothic fiction fan! Good luck to her as she grows into her place on your farm!
Oh that’s a lovely name, I love that book although the button eyes are a bit terrifying!
Flora, because she will keep your flora healthy and parasite-free so your fauna can flourish!
“Chacha” is a short form of muchacha which means girl in its happy sense!
that sounds like a fun name to call a pig x
’Aroha’ – Kune kune pigs are from New Zealand and Aroha means ’love’ in the Maori language.
Pearl , as in pearls before swine, because she is a very lovely swine and deserves a pretty name. ?
Very clever!
I was going to enter this but your Flora entry is so perfect I’m not sure I can come up with an alternative!
Flora is a lovely name isn’t it x
Flora, that’s a lovely name, if we don’t use it for this piggy we’ll name on the goat kids Flora as they all need a name beginning with F this year.
Treacle or BlackBerry ???
Treacle is good, she is definitely the colour of black treacle.
Petal ??
that’s a fun name
Luna. She just looks like Luna, don’t know why.
I love reading about such natural pest control! It’s so important that people, even/especially those of us who don’t live close to land, re-develop an understanding of the natural beneficial symbiotic relationships between land/flora and fauna.
I was thinking of Freya, as in the Old Norse goddess who was associated with fertility (both for piglets of her own but also soil fertility) but also fine material possessions (the delightful Whistlebare yarns).
so glad you enjoyed reading about the pigs and their helpfulness on the farm. Freya is a perfect name
Puddles, cause one thing that keeps a pig happy and healthy is a good roll around in a nice muddy puddle 🙂
muddy puddles sounds like a lot of fun for a pig.
Loved learning about this lovely breed of pigs and I think she should be called Kiri in honour of her New Zealand roots.
A name with heritage is a lovely idea x
She’s so cute!! It’s got to be Squeak to go with that lovely bubble jumper!
brilliant! she squeaks too!
‘Truffle’ because she’s a rare, beautiful small thing that’s going to enrich your lives and your farm ?
thats an excellent name x
Midnight Tonight
yes she’s the colour of Midnight x
Ruffles because the wrinkles in her nose in the posted picture of her sleeping/napping. She looks so cozy! I want to run my fingers over those wrinkles, just irresistible! If she was mine I would always want to be reminded of those adorable wrinkles aka. ruffles. So I would call her Ruffles. Ruffles Whistlebare!
It’s funny that animal wrinkles are so endearing and humans cringe at theirs.
Ruffles is a lovely name, although I think wrinkles would be too!
I think she looks like a Doris to me!
I love the name Doris, it’s a shame the old fashioned names have become so unpopular, perhaps all the pigs should have vintage names.
Mrs Overall after Julie Walters cleaner character from Acorn Antiques.
she is certainly going to be doing lots of cleaning for us.
rusty as she has hints of rust on her
She does have lovely highlights in her colouring doesn’t she x
Black beauty? Cos she really is!
lovely idea x
Black Beauty? Because she Is!
“Brownie”, because she looks so sweet ……. 😉
she is very sweet! that’s a cute name x
Puddles! Cause piggies are happiest when they can have a good roll around in some mud puddle ? and, after visiting your farm this May, I think the piggy will be very happy there.
I do think she will like playing in puddles! I’m glad you think she’ll be happy here x
Daphne
Daphne is a great name.
Black Beauty!
It BB (bibi) in short?
Bibi is a very cute short version of Black Beauty, I like that!
Dora? What adorable pigs!
Dora is another lovely vintage name!
Luna – because it just came into my head when I saw her picture. 7 year old suggests muggle because it rhymes with snuggle.
Luna and muggle, good names for Harry Potter pigs?
Hi Alice
Pamela Pig I think.
Hope she settles in well