Sepp Holzer raises cattle, bison, yaks, water buffalo, ducks, and chickens on his farm, but his centerpiece animal is clearly the pig.  His swine are nearly self-sufficent, and also help out by eating spoiled fruit in the orchard, increasing plant diversity by creating small patches of bare ground, and regulating the snail population.  Holzer scatters feed on the ground when he wants the soil loosened, and his pigs till that specific patch of earth.  And, of course, they provide meat.

Holzer's pigs (and other livestock) live in rotational paddocks that encompass his entire farm.  So the pigs move through the vegetable garden when it's fallow, through the orchard to clean up windfalls, and through the green manure areas busy improving the soil.

The pigs are stocked at a density of about one to five pigs per acre, and are allowed to do a moderate amount of damage before moving to the next paddock.  Holzer ensures that perennial tubers like Jerusalem artichokes aren't entirely dug up by swine snouts, and finds that pig action spreads smaller tubers around so that the plants actually expand before the livestock come through again.  In the vegetable garden, he makes sure to leave lots of crops unharvested at the end of the year, including beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage, and potatoes, so that the pigs have something to eat during the winter.  And after the pigs leave a paddock, Holzer seeds bare ground with green manure crops, tree seeds, or vegetables.

For those of you who want to follow along at home, the trick to making sure that pigs don't create a moonscape is variety choice and plenty of space.  Holzer's favorite breeds are Mangalitza, Swabian-Hall, Duroc, and Turopolje, heritage breeds that may or may not be available in the United States.