Thank you for all of your input and advise. I can see the pigs are going to be a wonderful help at least for the next few years anyway.
Irene, thats exactly the result I want to see in my bracken patches! For some reason the burs are as thick as thieves there too! I can not wait to get the baby girls out there with their little snouts sterilizing the soil and eradicating the stuff.
In this part of Australia ragwort, bracken, dock, cape-weed, etc are a big problem. Because our place hasn't ever really been looked after as it should have (too small an area for a serious farmer) I can't even begin to imagine the seed bank in the soil... as they say "One years weed, ten years seed" Despite the fact I have just spent the last two days spot spraying out a group B herbicide to get a bit of control on the situation for this summer while I have no stock on the place I'm not keen to keep it up for so many reasons... I hate sprays but everything in its place and something drastic needed to be done.
I used to Dairy with Dad and the Pigs will be run on a similar rotation program to the cows and be constantly moved. I have no desire to keep them on one area of the farm until the soil is so compacted and depleted that nothing will grow as that would totally defeat the purpose too.
After the pigs have done "Gods work" in one area I will move them off, harrow, lime and EM (effective microbes) and scatter seed about including deep rooting vegetation to ensure all the goodies become more readily available and the soil stays healthy, a lot of them that I want to plant are also very beneficial herbs for stock anyway.
