The Orwell Herd of pedigree Gloucester Old Spots and Large Whites

When Georgina Woolf first met her now-husband, Ben, in 1995, she didn’t like livestock, but she quickly mucked in. Fast-forward, and she now enjoys looking after the cattle and is in charge of the pigs which were her idea!

- Rachel Graham

Ben grew up at Oak House Farm near Ipswich after his parents bought it in 1984, and as a teenager he would fatten a few weaners over the summer and sell them fresh in halves to friends and family. Oak House Farm was originally a pig farm, built in the 1950s and had one of the biggest Large White herds in the country before they fell out of fashion in favour of commercial hybrid breeds. Although Ben’s father demolished some of the pig sheds, some remain and have been brought back into use, with the addition of attached outdoor yards. The farm’s land is unsuitable for outdoor production, being a bit too heavy. It’s knee-deep with mud in winter and rock-hard in the summer. The indoor system utilised has growing pens that are designed for small groups to be housed together on a straw-based system. The farrowing pens do not use farrowing crates. All of the pigs have access to an outdoor area.

Georgina’s mother-in-law, Madeline, had been selling beef from the farm’s Red Poll cattle since 1995, and Georgina and Ben decided to fatten a few bought-in weaners to sell alongside the beef. It went well, but they decided it made more sense to produce their own pigs, and they wanted to have a pedigree herd. Georgina explained: “We settled on Gloucestershire Old Spots, initially because I liked the look of them. It was just fortuitous that, in hindsight, I’d unintentionally plumped for a breed that offered everything we could want. They taste amazing, they’re such good mothers, you don’t get many aggressive ones, and so they’re easy to look after.