Not only is pig keeping now actively discouraged on dairy farms because of the risk of spreading diseases such as leptospirosis and salmonellosis, it has, like dairying itself, become the realm of large specialist producers.

Like most dairy farmers of the time, Peter Bennenbroek kept a few pigs when he came to Puni in the 1960s. Well before the heady days of Fonterra’s high payouts, dairying was the poor cousin of farming, much affected by market vagaries – and pigs were the lifeline for many a cow cocky.

“When the guts dropped out of dairying in the ‘70s, we were nearly forced out,” Peter recalls. “We were thankful we had the pigs to fall back on. They literally saved our bacon.”

The revival of dairying sidelined the pigs eventually but Peter continued to keep half a dozen breeding sows. Their offspring were fed unwanted milk and a wide variety of food processing leftovers from bread to cornflakes – one way to get the snap, crackling and pop into the pork. Rather than pork, however, Peter’s pigs became bacon, giving them an extra couple of months’ lifespan.

The free or cheap fodder was important for the economics of the operation, although equally vital was ensuring the animals had a balanced diet.

“Nowadays there are regulations about what you can feed pigs, making the whole exercise more costly,” he observes.

With the right facilities, Peter found pig rearing ran smoothly. He says they get a bad rap for their personal hygiene but in fact, make their own ‘en suite’ area of their pen for toileting separate from their feeding place. But let them out in the big wide world, and you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

Once, after a much needed holiday, Peter and his wife Pauline came home to find several sows had escaped the barn and made the most of their freedom by rooting up an entire paddock.

“The mud was unreal!” says Peter.