Our Hard-Working Girls

VIOLET is Opal's cousin and Betty Lou’s niece. Her first litter was of 15! She has been with us for nearly 10 years, is a wonderful sweetheart that loves a bit of a chocolate now and then and a good scratch behind the ears. She has had a lot of babies over the years, but her final litter last year consisted of only 5 large babies, and the labor almost killed her. As soon as her babies were weaned, she became our first retiree. She will live out the rest of her days as the first worker in our Compost division.
We bought KATIE from another farm in 2003. She is Opal's half-sister as well, and has had a lot of babies. She's nearly 10 years old and still going strong, still healthy and fit and birthing 12-13 babies each litter. She's timid, gentle, and always has a spring in her step. We bred her to a top-quality Berkshire boar last spring and kept one of her daughters, Lucy.
MARILLA came from yet another farm and is Violet's sister. She is nearly finished raising babies as well. We are hoping to keep a daughter from her current litter and she will get to join Violet in retirement.

SHIRLEY is one of Opal's daughters from her final litter of 14. She reminds us of Opal in so many ways—her sweet disposition, playfulness, and white ear tip. She has had nice litters of about 12 pigs and is a good, gentle mama.

EDNA is Violet's daughter. She is half Duroc, which is why she is red with black spots. When we started getting concerned about Violet's health, we decided to keep a daughter, just in case. She is two years old now. When she was just two months old, she went to Vashon to live with two girls who wanted to train a pig for their science project. She came back from her studies knowing various tricks, including walking on a leash! She is very friendly and still comes when called.
BESS is Shirley's daughter. She is purebred Berkshire and reminds us of her Grandma Opal, but with more of an independent streak.
TAMARA is Violet's daughter from her final litter of 5. Her father is on a farm in Iowa. We have great hopes for Tamara, in combining the genes of both incredible parents.
BOARAMIER is our new purebred Berkshire boar. He's kind of prissy about getting his shots, but he's not aggressive and does his job well. He'll be 2 years old this year.
LUCY is Katie's daughter, by an impressive boar from Iowa, and part of the Japanese kurobota breeding program. Her father, 5-Star, rated top in the U.S. meat quality scores last year.
LYRA is Shirley's daughter, from Rusty's last litter before we had to put him down. She's very mellow, just like her papa.
No Longer With Us:

Betty Lou was our first sow. She was a big girl, but had big litters. She was very gentle, but a protective mother. When she was free of piglets, she liked to occupy herself by collecting large sticks (which she kept inside her house) and pebbles (which she saved in her water dish).

Opal was our favorite pig of all time. She was Betty Lou’s half-sister. Her first litter of 7 was disappointing, but there were 12 in her second litter and 14 in her third. She turned out to be a great mother and she's the only one of our sows who actually played with her babies. It was heartbreaking to go out and find sweet Opal dying one winter morning in 2001, two weeks from the due date of her fourth litter, from no apparent cause. We still miss her.

Rusty was a big, sweet boar. Never an aggressive bone in his body, and it was a very sad day when we had to put him down. He had simply grown too big to do his job, he was too heavy for the sows. Don't believe all the stories about mean boars—it's all in how they're treated.

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