By Tara de Ryk

DAVIDSON—Of all the pigs roaming the land at Cobblestone Farm, Joanna Shepherd admits to having a favourite.

A purebred Berkshire sow named Pickle is closest to her heart.

“She’s just a really good mom,” Joanna says as the object of her affection tends to her three-week-old piglets. They are asleep on a bed of straw, soaking up the sun on the first day spring.

The pigs have free-range at Cobblestone Farm, although during farrowing season, as it is now, the sows and their piglets’ room to roam is somewhat curtailed to fenced-in corrals in the farmyard so Joanna can keep an eye on things.

Most of the sows and the registered Berkshire pigs have names. Joanna points to one sow. “She’s Bonnie—on a good day.” Joanna says, adding, “She’s not super duper smart.”

They have Gertie, a registered Berkshire who had that name when the Shepherds acquired her. Another one is called Punky because it came with three rings in her nose. Somewhere on the farm a sow named Pitter Patter is wandering around. Joanna says she named her that because when she was born, it was very cold outside and her mother laid on her so Joanna took the piglet off her and bottle fed her in the house. She called her Pitter Patter for the sound the tiny piglet’s hooves made while wondering around the house.

And then there’s Pancake, thus named a couple of years ago after she was found laying under a hay bale that had fallen on her.

Joanna figures she was under the bale for two days until they realized what had happened.

“Pigs have a will to live. They’re a lot better than sheep. Sheep have a will to die,” she says.

She was raised on a family sheep and cattle farm in England, so she has a lifetime of experience on which to base this opinion.

Pancake is due to farrow soon. Joanna checks to see if her milk has come in. It’s not there yet, so Joanna won’t be straying too far from Cobblestone Farm.

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