This little piggie went to the market....

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Brunty_Farms

Brunty_Farms

Songster
12 Years
Apr 29, 2007
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Ohio
Well the meat pig adventure is now underway. I think I have lost my mind. They are about 80 lbs each and I thought the mother was going to kill us when we caught the babies.

I'm excited but very nervous. I'm using my Premier poultry netting to keep them in and I have raised up one of my tractors to house them in. I will have to take some pics to show everyone... my project tomorrow.

They are very neat, but very stinky and strong! I ended up with six of them instead of 5, I'm such a sucker!

Any how, any advice? I posted here as they are destined to be meat pigs and I know how touchy the rest of the site is about processing animals. Plus I like the crew that hangs in the meat birds forum!!
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we have heritage weiner pigs on order for the spring, only 2 though.. I am not comletely crazy (yet) ... I am sure I will be a little off when taking them to the processor but its why we moved so I will evenutally get over myself....

I will watch this post with interest... as I do many of yours actually!
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How big of an enclosure are you using. They're a lot easier to clean up after when they have a lot of room. They'll pick a corner and 90% of the mess will be there. If they're too cramped they just mess all over the pen and it gets gross fast.

I haven't used poultry netting before so I don't know how much of a charge it carries. We usually use hog/cattle panels with a hot wire a couple of inches off the ground to keep them from getting their snouts under the panels. Pigs are strong and smart, if you have power outages I would strongly suggest having some kind of fencing other then the electric as back-up. They're not like cows or horses who don't often test if once they've been "bitten." Pigs know when it goes off and will be in your garden, feed house, etc. with a quickness.
 
Oh, good for you guys!!
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We raised one Black Russian Boar ummm...about 10 years ago and I cannot wait for the day we move to raise more. There is nothing, nothing like the taste of home raised pork-there is no comparison to the drivel from the store. We only have a half acre and back then we had no neighbors, so it wasn't such a big deal. We are out in the country on a half mile road parallel to two main roads and only 8 houses on this stretch. Fairly quiet and peaceful, neighbors think the chickens are cool and so I don't want to press our luck!! lol The only advice is in line with other posters regarding fencing, the stronger the better-especially now that you've got a half a dozen on your hands! You don't want those critters escaping, they are a major pain in the butt to catch as you already know. They do stink, but it's so cool how if you give them enough room they keep it fairly clean by using one corner. Granted we only had the one, but my buddy raised pigs and he always said that they just used up one or two corners and the rest was pretty clean. The stench, well......ya know-they are pigs! Sorry, I couldn't resist!! lol
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dang, when do something you do it big! LOL

I wouldnt rely on electric fence at all. pigs are too dang smart for their own good. I've seen wild boars short out an electric fence. seriously. I dont know if they did it on purpose the first time, but once they fiqured it out, they would do it every time.

I have HUGE hog pens. way bigger than mine need. and honestly, having too much room, they do get bigger slower.

I have mine done with the corner posts being railroad ties, then the panels are 16 foot long, so every 8 feet is a 3 or 4 inch round wooden post.
We used pig panels on the one that has babies in, and just cattle panel on the ones that have the big pigs. I've never even seen the need to put electric wire up on that, its sturdy.

we have food out at all times for the feeder pigs, so that keeps them happy. the breeders we feed twice a day.

I have never had a problem with mine trying to get out. well, I mean, they would, if it was possible. But for the most part they dont try to break out. I am not sure I would use regular feild fencing for them though. I did on my pot belly, but he didnt care to leave.
 
We did pigs for the first time this year. We started with two and just got them back from the butcher a couple of weeks ago. This is the best tasting/quality pork I have ever had and the bacon is better than candy lol. I had a 20' x 20' chainlink dog kennel that I put my pigs in to start and I trained them to respect the 1 wire of electric fence I put in the kennel all around the inside perimeter. It only takes a couple of zaps and they will respect the fence. Once the pigs were trained to the electric fence I removed the kennel and increased the size of their area to about 40' x 60' with just electric wire. The pigs never escaped and had plenty of room to run around. They acted like two hyper dogs running and playing all the time. I built a three sided shelter which I kept full of hay for them to sleep in and eat, added a pig nipple to a 55 gallon drum that I filled with water and added a feeder that I partially buried so the pigs would stop tossing it around. I also dug out a nice size hole and filled it with water for the pigs to cool off in the mud. The pigs did choose one corner of their pen to poop and pee. The smell never got to bad. I would cover the whole area with hay every once in a while so when the pigs were rooting, playing and pooping they were making some nice quality soil. I can't wait to get more pigs this spring.
 
Follow the link at the bottom of the page to BackYard Herds, there's a big section of the forum for discussions about pigs. I would keep some if I could get more of my family engaged with the chores.
 
That's cool, Jeff. I want to eventually do pigs but not until we get our meat goat and meat rabbit projects going. So I assume you will be pasturing them, hence the netting?
 

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