A buddy of ours raises pigs on pasture in Petaluma, and like every other such operation uses hundreds of pounds of grain feed per pig. Unlike our pigs who feed themselves and play all day. Because they cost nothing to raise but the trouble of fencing them, we can raise small slow-growing pigs. They have small litters the sows can care for more naturally, which includes guarding them from coyotes. There’s a huge coyote population feeding on rodents and migratory birds in the fallow fields. At night you hear them howling in all directions. Before we raised our fences, they ran through all the time. Now they’d have to come in the front past humans and their stuff, which just hasn’t been happening.

If coyotes run the breeding program, you get lean leggy pigs that can outrun a coyote or outfight a pack. Some friends went on a guided hunt elsewhere and after catching a pig had to buy bacon to get enough fat for sausages. But with humans on the farm everything gets better. Coyotes stay away and we can select for calm, chubby pigs with short legs and great personalities. This is the old way to raise pigs and our breeds were created for this over thousands of years.

One of our Laotian neighbors grew up in a village with free-range pigs. Everyone knew whose pigs were whose and the pigs knew to stay out of the gardens and rice fields. She brings her grand kids to play with our pigs. We just gave her her own pet pig, which she already leash trained and named "Lucky."

The free-range tradition was once standard in America and Britain, hence the tradition of hog calling. You'd call the hogs and give them leftovers for a treat. That way they stayed close so they didn't miss a party. A wall of a field cost the same as the wall of a house in the old world because it was almost the same, dry masonry stacked stones.

So the domestic breeds really were domestic. They liked people and got along with them. The ones that ran away got eaten by predators. After a few thousand years you ended up with pigs that get along with people really well. The less well-adjusted ones are delicious too and when they're gone the habits of the whole herd improve surprisingly fast.

When a pig wandered too far someone would call us about it. We took it straight to slaughter and after just a few, the remaining pigs were homebodies.

We know which of the sows will come back. So we let them out to eat fire hazards on the other side of the fence. There's a one-way door they can come back in. It makes a "clank" sound so we can count and tell when they're all in. You keep a good sow a while so you get to know them.

Pigs are amazing. they don't poop where they eat, sleep or wallow. And they’re very well socialized with humans. Our conditions are beyond humane, people come from the richest city on earth to hang out in the same conditions as the pigs. When vegans see how well the pigs live they’re typically willing to try the pork. Often they do the happy dance and ask for more.