Pig Day Out

What is Pig Day Out?

Pig Day Out is a day-long workshop to teach people about owning and breeding pigs. Hosted by Fiona Chambers, you’ll be learning from someone with over 16  years experience in breeding free range, rare breed organic pigs.  You can download Fiona’s biography here.

Why we have Pig Day Out?

Fernleigh Free-Range is regularly inundated with calls from small-scale pig farmers, would-be pig keepers and pig lovers who are keen to know more about the best way of handling and managing free-range pigs.

As a result of this growing interest, Fiona started running one-day pig handling workshops in 2008 to provide a way for people to find out about owning pigs, learn some skills and ask a full array of questions. Since then more than 150 people have participated in our on-farm pig handling workshops – some people even coming back to attend a second time to build on their skills.

The workshops comprise of a full day on the farm. They are hands on and focus on small-scale free-range and organic pig farming. You’ll learn about subjects such as practical ear notching, litter recording, hoof trimming, animal husbandry, feeding and nutrition, breeding management, animal identification, council and industry requirements and more.

It’s a packed day that will give you a great insight into the world of small scale pig farming.

To help you make it through, we’ll put on a beautiful lunch using produce from our farm.  You will be able to taste the meat we’ve lovingly grown, and of course there will be free-flowing cups of tea and coffee and tasty morning and afternoon teas along the way.

Comprehensive instruction notes will also be included so you can pay attention and get stuck in to the day’s activities.

Registered stud animals are for sale by arrangement. We generally have a 3-6 month waiting list, so it pays to put your name onto our waiting list.