AgriCulture bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week, Peter writes:
We have discovered that the farm world has a language all its own. Before starting the farm more than 11 years ago we were not much further along in farm language than the “duckie, goosie, piggie” terms we had learned as infants gazing intently at the fascinating images in our little cloth books. True, by the time of our farm incarnation we had evolved to the point where we had dropped the “ie” endings and had more of a sense of what these animals were —as well as the horrible realization that they were intended for eating. But not much more than that.
For instance, in a vague way I associated “steer” with cowboys and the West, assuming it was just a cowboy term for beef cattle. But, of course, now that we have not only learned the meaning of the term but actually participated in the process of creating steers we know a steer is a castrated bovine, one usually raised for beef. The steer’s equivalent in the sheep world is a “whether,” a castrated male whose role (if he is not sent to market —which most are) usually becomes a bell-wearing leader of the flock, hence our term “bell whether.” We have learned that the practice of castration evolved in part because having more than one bull or ram to a herd usually leads to fighting, as well as posing certain dangers—and that a castrated animal grows and puts on more weight faster, and, importantly, has meat with a more pleasing flavor.
I vaguely sensed before owning one that a “heifer” was a young female cow but I now know “heifer” refers to a cow under three years of age that has not produced a calf, hence one that is probably a virgin. We have also learned, to our dismay, that bulls are extremely fascinated by heifers. And, consequently have learned that “to freshen,” which means “to give birth to a calf“ (and hence to become a milk producer) signals the end of heifer status.
And we have learned that baby turkeys are poults (as an aside, we just received our 120 poults destined for Thanksgiving tables yesterday). The question of why a turkey, a relatively recent addition to the European/American farmyard, should have its young referred to as “poults,” a term obviously related to “poultry” (the generic term for most barnyard fowl), remains something of a mystery. As, for that matter, so does the name “turkey” itself—an odd name for a Europeanized bird that originated in Mexico and Central America. Now “ducklings” for baby ducks and “goslings” for baby geese make sense. But “poults” for turkeys? And then there is the moniker “keets” for baby guinea fowl. But one of the richest farm vocabularies for some reason seems to have to do with pigs. What, I began to wonder, when confronted with these critters, is one to make of “pig,” ”hog,” or “swine?” I was surprised to learn that “pig,” which I thought was the generic term for the species, actually refers to a swine of either sex weighing under 120 pounds, while “hog” refers to a swine weighing over 120 pounds, destined for market. It came as quite a revelation to me that “swine” is actually the generic term for what in common usage is a domestic pig, that is, the genus sus scrofa domestica, regardless of weight or destiny. So, I learned, after all these years, that my little cloth book was wrong: it should have read “swinie,” not “piggie.” And that one should restrict the term “hog” when applied to greedy, objectionable people, as in “oh you big hog,” to those weighing over 120 pounds.
You probably know the difference between a “boar” and a “sow.” But there is more. What, for instance is a “barrow” or a “gilt” or a “shoat,” or for that matter “farrowing,” you may ask. With “barrow” we return to an earlier subject, for a “barrow” is a castrated male—the pig version of a steer. “Gilt” also takes us back to an earlier subject, for a “gilt” is a female swine that has not yet produced piglets or is not evidently pregnant—the pig counterpart of a heifer. A “shoat," a strange term deriving from the Flemish ”shote,” is a weanling piglet, that is, a piglet that has just stopped taking milk from its mother (and is, therefore, no longer a “suckling pig”). “Farrow” which can serve as both noun and verb, also strikes me as a strange term. It can refer both to a litter of piglets, a “farrow,” and to the process of giving birth to a litter of piglets,”to farrow.” And this takes us back to the cattle term “freshen.” The oddness of “farrow” is explained by its descent from the Old English term “feahr,” giving this farm term a very long history. However, “farrow” is, perhaps, now in competition with “to pig,” as with “to calve” for cows and “to lamb” for ewes. Apparently what we neophytes refer to as piglets were once called “piglings” as in ramlings and ewelings. Remember the term “pigling bland?” To my surprise, “piglets,” I have lately learned, is not really a legitimate farm language term at all, but instead an expression used by newcomers to farming like us—a sure sign to established farmers in the know that we are not to the pigpen born. Strangely, farm language, despite its richness of vocabulary, has—with the mysterious disappearance of “piglings”—left today’s pigherds (as in shepherds or cowherds) with just the mundane terms “little pigs” or “baby pigs.” But maybe we newcomers are on the way to changing all of that by introducing into this ancient farm language “piglets” or at least resuscitating the equally attractive term: “piglings.” To which a momma sow might raise her head from the trough and, turning her mind to Shakespeare, ask “What’s in a name?” —Peter Davies
