The Tickled Pig Farm was established in 2003 by Matt Cordonnier of  Russia, Ohio. Matt's vision was to develop a holistic, organic small scale farm so he could raise the best possible food for his family. He knew that raising his kids on a farm would provide them with learning opportunities that only farm life can.

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Embarrassingly, Matt used to pride himself in trying to buy the cheapest meat he could find at the grocery. One day his mother suggested that he go to meet Frank Greishop, a local organic guru, who was one of the founders of the organic movement in the state of Ohio. Matt began volunteering on his farm. Frank taught Matt what it really means to be organic and what sustainable living looks like. Frank was nearly 100% self-sufficient and even farmed with horses.

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Through this experience Matt was transformed. He understood the meaning behind the words organic for the first time and learned key tenets from Frank like, "A healthy soil leads to a healthy animal. It all starts with the soil".

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During this time Matt also volunteered for Dan Kremer of E.A.T. Food for Life Farm. Dan is an apostle for the organic movement in the area and considers it his mission to educate others in the question of why

organic. Matt learned from Dan that "eating is a moral act."  Buying the cheapest piece of meat at a store involves much more on the moral scale than just getting meat at a low price. It opened for Matt a whole flood of questions that he never pondered before. How were the animals raised?  Who raised them and why? What were they fed? What would eating chemical fed GMO meat do to ones body? 

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"We're not a big farm, but we are focused on doing the right thing, morally and ethically when we raise our animals."

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In 2019 Matt married Crystal and while her farm life was new to her, her childhood dream of having "Wilbur," the piglet from Charlotte's Web, became a reality. The addition of Crystal to the farm brought a tender caregiving touch to all the animals. She was the reason the farm was named Tickled Pig Farm, as she spends a lot of time scratching or "tickling" the pigs, keeping them happy and mild mannered. Crystal's favorite farm activity is helping the sows deliver piglets, even in below zero weather in the middle of the night. 

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Crystal witnessed Matt's love of the Large Black breed of hogs and his desire to save the critically endangered breed. So in 2022, after years of raising mixed rare breed hogs they decided to start breeding registered Large Black hogs. They have three registered LB sows and one registered LB boar. They also own two extremely sweet mixed breed Mangalitsa hogs, a sow and a boar, who create the cutest striped piglets. 

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All of Tickled Pig Farm's hogs are fed locally sourced certified organic grains and organic raw milk. Large Black hogs are considered 'bacon type' pigs, which is frowned upon in commercial circles since they put on a lot of fat. Because of this, the meat micro-marbles like beef, is red (pork is not supposed to be the other white meat), and is very tender and full of flavor. People comment all the time that The Tickled Pig Farm's pork is the best meat they have ever tasted. As part of Matt's mission to save this rare breed, he offers both registered piglets and high quality feeder pigs.