Upcycling

Upcycling repurposes waste products which reduces trash and in our case food waste. At Casitas Valley Pastures we upcycle in various ways.

Food waste:

In addition to eating the natural plants and grasses that grow on the land our pigs eat organic food waste produced by Carpinteria microbreweries and local fruit and vegetable producers. The spent grain from the breweries would go into the trash if we didn’t go and pick up the grain on a weekly basis (don’t worry spent grain does not have any alcohol, it’s just grain- wheat, barley, etc. that has been soaked in water). Spent grain has a high nutritional value and since pigs are omnivores they naturally eat grain in the wild. After the fruit and vegetable producers finish selling their products at the weekly farmers markets, there is often a lot of organic produce left that would be made into compost. We have worked out a bartering system with these producers so that the left over produce can be fed to our pigs. This gives our pigs healthy nutrients and the produce gets turned into manure which fertilizes just like compost. So not only do these left over fruits and vegetables help fertilize the soil but they also help produce healthy meat.

Animal structures:
Many of our animal structures are built with repurposed materials. For example our pig houses (which we call pig-gloo due to their shape-similar to an igloo) are made from old water storage tanks cut in half. Our egg laying chicken tractor is made from an old trailer which we wrapped in chicken wire, attached recycled medal sheets for a roof, and added egg laying boxes too.