Spring is usually a busy time of year at Winfield Farm: tilling the soil, seeding and out-planting vegetable starts. This spring was doubly busy, with the arrival of 54 Mangalitsa piglets since March 18!
Although Bruce managed to plant some spring carrots, beets, potatoes, shishito peppers and heirloom tomatoes, and just finished planting a row of Costa Romanesco zucchini squash, most of his waking hours have been devoted to pig husbandry. In fact, heirloom Mangalitsa wooly pigs have become Winfield Farm’s mainstay!
Bruce has turned over most of our fields to pig rearing, so planted pasture instead of produce, and spends a lot of time building and moving fence. We corral our pigs with hog panels wired together so he can rotate the herd: when the little shovel-noses root up one section, he moves them to new turf. People driving along Highway 246 from Lompoc to Buellton can spy our herd of purebred swallow-belly Mangalitsas cavorting in the field. These wooly haired pigs look a lot like black sheep.
The 54 new arrivals are the offspring of 8 sows and 4 boars (3 more sows produced another 20 piglets last winter) – so our Mangalitsa herd now numbers more than 100 pigs total. It’s amazing to think that just 2 years ago we began this pigdom with only two pigs. We’re now able to provide fresh (or fresh-frozen) Mangalitsa pork virtually year-round.
We’re marketing our heritage Mangalitsa pigs to a growing number of discerning restaurants in the Santa Ynez Valley and beyond. For example, you’ll often find Winfield Mangalitsa prosciutto, lomo and pancetta at Industrial Eats restaurant in Buellton, and Clark Staub at Full of Life Flatbread in Los Alamos makes magical dishes – and pizzas – with Winfield Mangalitsa pork.
We also offer USDA certified, cryovac packaged frozen Mangalitsa pork products on our online Mangalitsa Market store.
We recently took several pigs to market, so have a fresh supply of frozen cuts available, including chops (a handful of skin-on, bone-in loin and a lot of skin-on, bone-in rib with a glorious cap of pure white Mangalitsa fat), bone-in sirloin roasts, smoked hams (both bone-in and boneless), sliced bacon (and a couple of belly slabs), ground sausage (fresh and sweet Italian flavors in bulk 2-lb packs), smoked hocks (yummy!), trotters and leaf lard (the best baking fat EVER!).
Please call us at (805) 686-9312 or email us at bruce@winfieldfarm.us to order.
Or you can order from our online store, but please call first to make sure we still have what you want. If we don’t have it now, we can custom-order it for you the next time we go to market. We’ll be taking more pigs to market in late June, and at least monthly throughout the summer and fall.
If you haven’t tried Mangalitsa pork yet, you’re in for a treat. Try Winfield Mangalitsa and taste the magic for yourself!