By Chris Aldridge
Kentucky Ag News

Sam Larrabee is not a chef or a nutritionist, but the Kentucky farmer passionately claims his pork tastes better than anything you can buy in a store.

“My pigs graze on grass, so there’s more vitamins and minerals in their meat,” Larrabee said. “Your body accepts it better because it’s healthier for you.”

Larrabee, who owns and operates Palisades Point Pasture Pork in Mercer County with his wife, Shelley, is often asked by other hog farmers how he gets his pigs to eat grass.

“I did my research and found pigs that eat grass,” said Sam, who shunned the usual Yorkshire pigs for heritage hogs, which he crossbreeds. “It’s in their genetics. If you get an old-fashioned heritage pig, you’re going to get a pig that eats grass.”

The farm’s boar is a Gloucestershire Old Spots, and its sows are a Red Wattle, which are listed as critically endangered by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, and a couple of Large Black hogs.

“The quality of meat is so much better being from a heritage breed,” Sam said. “It’s a quality you just don’t get in store-bought pork.”

Sam is proud that he doesn’t give his pigs any antibiotics and shared his secret to raising healthy hogs.

“I feed them a probiotic in their grain that I get from Alltech over in Nicholasville,” he said. “As long as you keep a pig’s gut healthy, they’ll flourish.”

Sam claims his hogs are happier and have less anxiety because they’re not confined in a pen or barn.

“We have open stalls in the barn, so they can come and go as they please, to and from the field,” he said, noting his pigs have access to six acres. “I have some run-in shelters in the pasture, and I throw a couple of bales of hay in them.

“Pigs are complex emotional animals. When confined, they get annoyed and may bite. A pig that’s not confined can walk away if it’s annoyed. It leads to a less aggressive environment.”

Sam also doesn’t confine his pregnant sows in farrowing crates.

“I put my sows in 12x12 (foot) stalls,” he said. “They make a nest in the hay and have their babies there. Heritage breed sows are very good mothers.”

Sam, who’s originally from Chicago, didn’t grow up on a farm. He was exposed to raising pigs when he spent a couple of weeks every summer on his grandparents’ Yorkshire hog farm in Iowa, but he didn’t see farming in his future.

“I got my (bachelor’s) degree in L.A. (Los Angeles) to be a social worker, and I moved to Kentucky (in 2004) to go to UK,” he said, noting he was pursuing a master’s degree in social work at the University of Kentucky. “I got burnt out, really.”

Sam met and married a Kentucky native. Shelley, now Dr. Larrabee after earning her PhD, is head of the Chemistry Department at Bluegrass Community and Technical College in Lexington.

The Larrabees recently moved their heritage hog operation from Garrard County. They had leased a farm from Sam’s uncle located along the steep, scenic gorges that line the Kentucky River, called The Palisades, near High Bridge. Hence the name of the farm, which they decided to keep after encountering the myriad of red tape involved in changing it.

“Normally, I have about 30 head, but this year, knowing we’d be transferring the farm, I trimmed the herd down to 15,” Sam said. “I had four processed last week, so we’re down to 11, but one sow is pregnant and ready to farrow at any time, so that number will likely go up.”

Raising grass-fed hogs is a labor of love, according to Sam.

“When I became an adult, I started getting interested in food, how it was raised and where it comes from,” he explained. “I saw how commercial pigs are treated, and I fell in love with this other way to raise pork that’s rarely done.

“I have to work another job because there’s only a 2-percent profit margin from my pork. But I don’t do it for the money; I do it because I love it. We (he and his wife) eat it. In fact, I don’t buy any meat, eggs, or milk from stores because of the quality of product I get from local farms.”

Palisades Point Pasture Pork sells frozen a la carte cuts as well as quarter, half, and whole pig packages at the Boyle County Farmers’ Market in Danville. Its best seller is – no surprise – bacon.

“We process every two months, and bacon sells out within a month every time,” Sam said. “If we could generate more bacon, we would.”

Sam highly recommends his pork chops.

“Have you ever eaten a big meal and felt really tired?” he asked. “That doesn’t happen after eating one of my pork chops.”

You can also place an order by messaging the farm’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/palisadespointpasturepork/, and Sam or Shelley will deliver it to nearby locations.

“We have our mobile meat sales permit, so we do a lot of deliveries to Lawrenceburg, Danville, Harrodsburg, and Lexington,” Sam said.

You can also buy pork direct from the farm at 326 McCroskey Pike near Harrodsburg. Sam said he’ll be glad to show you around.

“We do farm tours,” he said. “Contact us, come take a look at our pigs, and see what we do and why.”