Oaklands Pigs - Sharing our Expertise
Clare & Robin welcome you to the Oaklands Pigs website
Oaklands Farm is a working farm on the Kent/East Sussex Border, near Tunbridge Wells.
We started keeping pigs over 25 years ago, mostly raising weaners for the freezer before starting breeding from our own stock.
We are not currently running any pig keeping courses.
In early 2005 we replaced our many assorted pigs with new pedigree saddleback breeding stock, the foundation of our saddleback herd today.
Apart from these, we have examples of some of the other traditional pigs, including Tamworths, Old Spots and Kune Kune. We have also kept Middle Whites, Welsh, Oxford Sandys, Berkshires, Large Whites, Landrace, Large Blacks and Mangalitzas in the past. With rising costs we have recently reduced the number of animals at the farm and now only keep one or two of each breed (Saddleback, Tamworth, Old Spot) as adult breeding stock.
So between us we have many years of experience of buying, keeping and breeding pigs, and offer friendly advice to those new to pig keeping, or those thinking of moving on to breeding pigs.
Here at the farm we have set up a number of different environments in paddocks, woods, and barns with an assortment of styles of fencing and numerous varieties of arks, so there is always something going on at the farm.
Being a small farm, we can take the time to discuss and help you choose your pigs, and give help and advice on setting up and all aspects of pig keeping.
For disease control purposes, we do not hire any boars from this farm, or accept sows for mating.
We are not able to offer any vet student or work experience placements, as there is very little maintenance required for our outdoor herd.
Latest News
Preparing for Winter
With the outdoor pens getting increasingly muddy, it starts to become difficult to feed the pigs at this time of year. Luckily our main paddock has a large concrete pad onto which we can put the feed to avoid it becoming lost in the mud and we have also taken delivery of our first round of sow rolls in the silo. Normally we use the smaller sow pellets for the majority of the year, but during the winter the larger sow rolls are easier to feed and don’t get lost so easily.
Whilst we still have a number of fatteners and young stock in the woods and about 15 sows left in the main paddock we have brought a batch of pigs into the straw filled barn to ease the pressure in the outdoor pens. And although the barn is over 50ft long, they all want to bed down in one corner, but they do seem content with this arrangement.
Runner up in National Competition
Oaklands Pigs was a runner up in the National Pig Association annual award ceremony which took place in London on Monday 6th November.
A finalist in the Pedigree Breeder of the Year category, which was judged on our breeding statistics, number of pedigree sales made, showing successes and how we promote pedigree pigs to the general public.
The awards ceremony meant that everyone was dressed in their posh frocks and no wellies in sight.