Pannage Pork
14th September 2020
This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home, this little piggy had acorns…………. Acorns? Yes, it’s that time of year again – Pannage season.
As the summer wanes and the bracken and leaves start to turn golden, so the arrival of pigs on the New Forest heralds the start of autumn. Commoners with the right of Common of Mast turn out their pigs to forage the forest floor for acorns, beech mast, chestnuts, crab apples and whatever else they can find.
This year’s pannage season will begin on Monday when pigs are let loose to gobble up acorns in the New Forest. For 2020, pannage in the New Forest begins on 14th September lasting for a minimum of 60 days, the season will last until the 15th November.
The practice of pannage (also known as ‘Common of mast’) dates all the way back to the time of William the Conqueror, who founded the New Forest in 1079.
The pigs are released onto the forest to eat the fallen acorns, beechmast, chestnuts and other nuts that are on the forest floor, which are poisonous to New Forest ponies and cattle!
But the Right of Mast, is not only a good way of fattening up pigs but a surviving example of traditional land management in open heath and woodland. New Forest ponies and cattle govern the character and ecology of the forest but in autumn they risk being poisoned by green acorns. Certainly ponies and cattle develop a taste for them and will gorge themselves to death, but with the annual introduction of pigs, a species unaffected by eating acorns, this hopefully helps prevent unnecessary deaths.
There are quite a few different breeds of pigs that you will see on the forest, including Tamworth, Gloucestershire Old Spot, the British Saddleback and the Wessex Saddleback. All pigs must be fitted with a ring in their nose, which enables them to forage through leaf litter and other vegetation on the surface, but stops them from rooting into the ground with their snouts causing damage to the Forest and marked with an identity tag in the ear – and pigs could not be turned out until they had been inspected by one of the agisters.
Did you know that the New Forest is one of the only places left in the UK that still practices pannage?
We have let 10 pigs out on to the forest – including Lady P (our breeding sow), two gilts, a barrow and 6 piglets