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PASTORAL SOUL
Farming rare pigs is an unusual move for a music graduate, but Louisa Craigs is a rare breed herself, as Christine Harle discovered. Pictures by James Byrne.
COME on, piglets", trills Louisa Craigs. Seventeen black and white British saddlebacks lift their heads as one and gallop, ears flapping, across the paddock towards her, grunting an excited welcome.
This is charm on the hoof. In the depths of a recession and at the age of 24, Louisa has ventured into a sector of agriculture many old hands have abandoned.
There are other options for a young woman with a music degree, but she is following her instinct. Though from generations of farmers, she had never seen pigs on the family farm at Tritlington, near Morpeth. Her grandfather's herd was gone before she was born. Yet this was what she was drawn to.
Her dad Ian was not encouraging at first. He remembered the work he faced helping with his father's large whites.
"But I just had this feeling that I wanted pigs," she says.
After a visit to a herd at nearby Blagdon, she was even more smitten. "They are fascinating. I find them lovely and their temperament is so nice to work with." She chose saddlebacks because she likes their markings and they are said to be the best mothers among rare breeds.
So Higgledy Piggledy Pork was born. She has just bought two gilts - young sisters bred at Belford - who a day after arriving are snuggled together, shyly settling into a stall. Louisa has named them Wilma and Betty.
Outside in a sloping orchard are her first breeding sows Ethel and Violetta - mothers of the piglets - with their recently arrived consort Lennox. "He reminds me of a boxer - he's big and chunky," Louisa says.
The sisters, owned by her since they were piglets, have a sweet tooth and spent the autumn enjoying windfall apples, enhanced with the occasional piece of chocolate.
"Because they are sisters they have a bond. When I got Lennox they were a bit ‘hmmm' and he had to sleep outside for a while before they let him in." Louisa will keep two female piglets, so by the end of 2010 will have six breeding sows.
In scenes reminiscent of 101 Dalmatians, the two sows gave birth to 25 piglets between them, Violetta producing 15. "My mum watched her give birth and kept saying, ‘There's another one, there's another one'."
Pigs have 14 teats, so rearing so many is a large task. One piglet died and seven had been sold by the time I visited. Pregnancy is three months, three weeks and three days and the piglets stay with their mother for eight weeks. Louisa hopes each female will produce two litters a year.
The sows will probably have breeding careers of eight or nine years and stay with her in retirement, so she allows herself to become attached to them. She doesn't name the piglets - they will go to slaughter after about six months, but it will be a contented six months. They will live outside as long as it is comfortable and be brought into an old cow shed deep in sweet-smelling barley straw when the weather closes in.
"I try to keep a barrier and try not to get too attached to them, so it's not too hard to take them to the slaughterhouse when it's time to go."
Their lifespan will depend on what the butchers want. Louisa goes with them to the slaughterhouse at Whitley Bay. "I'm seeing them from breeding, at their birth and right through to their finish. You see the carcase - the meat that's come out. You see the full life cycle - I'm proud of that."
She admires the campaigning by chef Jamie Oliver to inform people about pig welfare. "It's created more public awareness. A lot of children don't know where their pork comes from."
Meanwhile she is educating herself in her new life as a businesswoman. "This is going to be a learning experience this time because I'm going to sell some pigs to butchers. One I'm speaking to at the moment likes them about 50 to 60 kilograms."
Until now they have gone to friends and family as well as being sold through the online supermarket, Food Local Food. She expects to sell half a pig direct to the public for about £100 and a quarter for £55. "That's a lot of pork for your money. I don't want to charge massive rates so not many people can buy it. I'm only charging enough to make a profit."
The Craigs family have farmed at Tritlington Hall since it was acquired by her great-grandfather John in 1917. It passed to his son John and her father Ian. The early 18th century gate piers, with finials carved as baskets of fruits and flowers, are listed though the house, a reworked medieval tower with a 1595 wing, is not.
Ian has two brothers, Nick, who specialises in vegetables, and David, a sheep farmer. Ian concentrates on general arable farming and cows. Louisa also has two brothers, Simon, 31, who runs a business supplying posh toilets to outdoor events, and James, 19, who is at Harper Adams University College in Shropshire studying agriculture.
After Tritlington First School Louisa went to Westfield in Gosforth, Newcastle, and then on to Kingston University in London. She plays the saxophone in a three-piece jazz and soul group, Rolling Rock.
She lives at Kirkley, near Ponteland, where the family manages a farm for Northumberland College. At present she is taking a marketing course at Newcastle College to help in blowing her own trumpet.
Louisa clearly has plenty of options and has followed her heart as much as her head. "Sometimes when it's cold and miserable I think ‘what am I doing here'? But on a day like today, and when you see the animals doing well, it's quite satisfying."
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