Homemade Healthy Happy Farm & Farmstay is a small-scale ethical pork farm near Port Macquarie on the Mid-North Coast of NSW. We raise organic-fed pigs on pasture, selling our ethical pasture-raised pork direct to customers in the local area. We have a beautiful little farmstay, and we love to open the world of farming and homesteading to inquisitive adults and children. For more information on our farmstay, click here. For more information on our farm philosophies, click here. For more details on how we raise our pigs and how you can buy our pork, keep reading…
Local Customers (Mid-North Coast, NSW)
To buy our ethical pasture-raised pork by the cut, visit us at The Secret Weekly Farmers Market in Taree on Thursdays (we are there a couple of Thursdays a month) or pop in to Organics MattR in Port Macquarie any day of the week. Farm pick-up can be arranged for pre-orders with a minimum $150 spend, just contact us to organise a time. Farmstay guests and farm tour attendees can always purchase our pork by the cut while they are here, with no minimum spend.
To buy our ethical pasture-raised pork at our wholesale price, contact us to get added to the mailing list and we will email you when we have half pig shares ready for purchase. We have a fantastic local butcher who will cut your half pig how you request it cut, including delicious gluten free/preservative free sausages and nitrate free bacon. This is by far the most economical way to purchase our pork.
Sydney Customers
Stay tuned for some exciting new stockists!
If you run a butcher shop, organic supermarket, or café and you’d like to stock or serve our ethical pasture-raised pork, please get in touch!
We now do deliveries for bulk orders to Sydney customers! To buy our ethical pasture-raised pork at our wholesale price, contact us to get added to the mailing list and we will email you when we have half pig shares ready for purchase and have scheduled a Sydney delivery run. We have a fantastic local butcher who will cut your half pig how you request it cut, including delicious gluten free/preservative free sausages and nitrate-free bacon. This is by far the most economical way to purchase our pork.
Continue reading to learn more about how we raise our pigs…
Ethical Pasture-Raised Pork
It is our mission to bring truly ethical pasture-raised & organic-fed pork from the paddock to the tables of consumers across the Manning Valley and down to Sydney. We don’t take shortcuts when it comes to ethics and animal husbandry, we truly love all our animals, and we make terrible business decisions in favour of animal ethics – we always put pigs ahead of profit. We build connections with our customers, nurturing a nose-to-tail philosophy so that our pigs’ lives are honoured and utilised completely.
Heritage Breed Pigs
We are committed to raising only heritage breed pigs. These pigs are fantastic mothers, have beautiful sweet temperaments, still have all their piggy instincts to forage for food, and produce delicious pork. They also have black hair and skin so they don’t get sunburnt under our intense Aussie sun! We primarily breed purebred English Large Blacks, and we also breed some English Large Black x Berkshire. This results in pork with phenomenally delicious carcass qualities – but above all, heritage breed pigs still know how to be pigs!
Natural Farrowing
Our mama pigs always birth outdoors, without any confinement (no barns, farrowing crates, sow stalls or concrete floors here!). We provide them with nesting material, shelter and, most importantly, a stress-free and familiar environment. Of course this is the ideal scenario for mama pig, allowing her freedom to move around however she needs to, but it also means the piglets have exposure to minerals in the soil immediately and eliminates the need for iron shots after birth. We also don’t dock tails, clip teeth, castrate the males, or notch ears.
Natural Weaning & Slow Breeding
We don’t wean our piglets early – we leave it up to mama pig to decide when she is ready to wean her piglets. The standard weaning time across the industry tends to be around 4 weeks (indoor factory farming) or 6-8 weeks (free range farming), so that sows can be bred again almost straight away (meaning they hardly get a break between pregnancy, nursing, and the next pregnancy – all in the interest of profit). We allow our sows to nurse their piglets for as long as they choose, and we give our sows a long break after weaning before breeding them again with our boar.
Farrow-to-Finish
We won’t ever buy piglets from another property to raise as growers; all of the pork we sell is from our pigs born and raised on our farm, fed 100% certified organic feed, raised without antibiotics or any other chemicals, and allowed to express all their piggy instincts.
Certified Organic Feed
All our pigs are fed 100% certified organic feed. We also source as much local certified organic food waste as we can to supplement their diet. Pigs are omnivores and they can’t survive on pasture alone, due to their high need for protein and certain amino acids. Supplementing their feed with grains is necessary, although our pigs do enjoy a variety of pasture grasses and roots! Conventional grain used to supplement pigs’ diets may be genetically modified and is desiccated with Round Up prior to harvest, whereas certified organic grain is not GM nor treated with any chemicals. We choose to feed our pigs only the best chemical free certified organic feed – because it’s not chemical free pork if their feed contains chemicals! Of course, we also don’t ever use antibiotics, vaccines, or any other chemicals/medicines – opting for natural/herbal alternatives if needed.
Rotational Grazing/Regenerative Agriculture
A core aim of our farm is to improve and regenerate the patch of land in our care. Pigs are amazing regenerators, but they are also amazing destroyers if not managed carefully. If left too long in one area, they will dig up every green blade of grass in sight and turn it to barren dust. We move our pigs regularly, giving them ample space to forage and be pigs, whilst ensuring their impact across our farm is even and appropriate. We rotate them around the farm, allowing the old areas sufficient time to recover before the pigs are moved back there. Their manure (nature’s best fertiliser!) is thus spread all across the farm, aiding the recovery process. This encourages increased biodiversity, improved soil life & structure, carbon sequestration, healthier pastures, and healthier animals.
Low-Stress Transport
When it is time for our pigs to go to the abattoir, we let them spend at least two weeks (often more!) getting used to their trailer before loading day. This greatly minimises stress during loading and transport. In 2019, our local abattoir unfortunately stopped processing pigs. The abattoir we now take our pigs to is further away – and we almost stopped raising pigs out of concern for their welfare on these journeys, we take animal ethics that seriously! However, after the change to the new abattoir, we have closely monitored for signs of increased stress and have not observed any – so we feel confident in our decision to continue raising pigs, in the interest of local (and organic) food security for the Mid North Coast.
Transparency, Honesty & Customer Connection
We love customers that are just as interested in how we raise our pigs as we are, and we love talking about our pigs – so ask us all your curly questions! We will always answer honestly and openly. We are also more than happy to provide inspiration and recipe ideas for using those cuts you don’t usually cook with – especially the bits that don’t often get used! We open our gates to farmstay guests and private farm tours to connect consumers with farming and food production, because an educated consumer is a conscious consumer. Click here to book your next holiday in our farmstay cottage, or contact us to book a private farm tour.
