Writer A chorus of snorts and squeals echoes through a field of towering shade trees. Big as a house, a sow lustily buries its snout in a moist compost bed, while another lounges in the pungent mix of manure and soil. Hunching to her knees Friday morning, Susannah Grove inspects the damage to a steel fence that separates the hogs from her goat herd. Hogs are very aggressive, very vocal. Hogs are destructive.
Goats are docile.
In the past week, Ms. Grove has had to fix the fence in four other places where pigs have busted through. For nearly a century, her family has raised hogs, cows and chickens and planted hundreds of acres of cropland on Piney Meadow Farm along Route 610 near. In the 1920s and '30s, more than 1,000 hogs roamed the southern Fauquier farm. Now, Piney Meadow measures 440 acres and each year sends about 150 hogs to the slaughterhouse. Independent hog farmers face a tough road, says John H. Parker, executive director of the Virginia Pork Industry Board.