Helen Babbs visits a smallholding in west Wales that’s raising the profile of local pork…
Pigs, bees and computers sound like a strange mix – but for Nic and Mikhaila Caine, this combination is making their smallholding enterprise thrive. “Nic’s a software developer, while I teach digital apprenticeships at the Northeastern University London,” Mikhaila explains, “but we wanted to start spending a little less time staring at computer screens – so we decided to keep pigs!”
MEET THE HERD
Nic had first looked into pig-keeping in 2019, but with the interruption of the Covid pandemic, the couple didn’t move to their smallholding in west Wales until 2023. “We have 25 acres here, on the edge of the Preseli hills,” says Nic, “plus an extra dozen acres we ‘borrow’ on my mother’s farm further over in Pembrokeshire.”
After careful research, they decided on Oxford Sandy & Black pigs, and bought a breeding trio of a boar and two sows. “We looked at various different breeds, but OSBs stood out as being an ideal breed for ‘newbies’ – docile, friendly and easy to handle, with good quality, flavoursome meat too. Ours have certainly lived up to this, they’re brilliant,” Nic enthuses.
With Oxfords being listed as “At risk” by the RBST, Nic and Mikhaila like to feel they’re “doing their bit” to help preserve rare breeds too. “We now have four females, the two adult sows, Margot and Betty, plus two gilts, who are all from different bloodlines, and Brian our boar, who’s yet another bloodline. He’s very friendly,” Nic notes with a chuckle, “and absolutely daft about being brushed or scratched.”
“They’re lovely characters, with such personalities,” Mikhaila agrees, “although this can make sending them off on the ‘final journey’ a bit hard. Out in the field, both the adults and the weaners are really playful. They love to race around the paddocks, and they think it’s funny to tip the water trough over. We make them mud wallows in each paddock, but they also like to sunbathe. Surprisingly, they’re fair weather pigs, and all go dashing into their arks when it rains!”
FREE-RANGE FEEDING
The pigs are fully ‘free-range’, living out all year round with access to Solway plastic arks for shelter. “We’ve found these cope better with our very windy weather,” Mikhaila notes, “plus they have floors to keep the pigs up out of the mud overwinter.”
The fields are subdivided with electric fencing, with the pigs moved to fresh sections once the old section is rooted up.
“It takes them about half a dozen tries, then they learn to respect the fence,” says Mikhaila,“although we did have some escaping last winter, when they’d managed to bury the fence in the mud.”
“The pigs do a good job of clearing the weeds and rushes in the fields,” Nic describes. “They’re not so keen on actually eating the rush, but they dig it up anyway while rooting around. We’re also looking to make their feeding and grazing more natural, by growing a ‘pig rooting mix’ from Cotswold Seeds. This is sown on the paddocks once the pigs have rooted it over, then we rotovate it in along with their manure and it’s ready for the pigs to go back on it about 8 weeks later.”
Image caption: Betty the sow, with piglets.
This article extract was taken from the July 2025 edition of The Country Smallholder. To read the article in full, you can buy the issue here.
