The bonus with buying weaners is that you only have to keep them for four months before they are ready to go.  We buy them in at eight weeks old when they are cute and we can play with them and after four months when they are far less cute and have started to play with us they go to the freezer.  The other benefit is that you can have variety.  We have tried saddlebacks, gloucester old spots, oxford sandy and blacks, large whites and even wild boar crosses.

They are great and so like dogs it is scary.  We have sat and watched them fascinated for hours, as have the dog who think it is a weird new toy!! The sheep are less keen on the new arrivals and have not quite worked them out yet, but given time I am sure they will all settle. The pigs are more than happy in their enclosure and are making a right mess of things by rooting everything. 

We have bought our own smoker and make our own hams and bacon.  This has the most incredible taste and it is always described by people as being "like bacon used to be".  It is a fairly intensive process by the time you have cured the bacon and then smoked it and then cut it all and stored it but it is really worth the end result.