Minnesota!

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scandiafowl said:


Happy Birthday Minnie!
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Looks just like me!

Thanks everyone! Bad weather on my birthday is nothing new. When I was growing up in Western NY, near Buffalo, there was often a blizzard the week of my birthday. My 19th I was house-bound for 3 days from one doozie of a blizzard that shut down most of the county.
I would be happier though if I were still fighting this crud I have had the last couple of weeks.
 
lalaland said:
flock is pretty miserable this morning.  everyone fed and watered and hunkered down.  rescued one egg before it froze.  

have a great day everyone and stay warm!
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Mine ventured out into the sunshine for a while, then back in, then back out. I deliberately threw some scratch out in the hay so they would stretch their wings.

So glad we are on the upswing with temps!
 
I went out to find a hutch door open where I have been keeping 4 young bantam roosters. I couldn't find feather nor footprint anywhere. So, I went about doing chores, and I see one of them under an empty coop I use in Summer. I squeezed through the fencing that is frozen in and get over to him, and here comes Jerome, my silly cat. He scares the rooster, who then flies off out of that section of the pasture and onto a different coop where I can reach him more easily. I get back through the fence, and go grab him. As I am walking back over to his hutch, here is the other little rooster sitting in the snow. I don't know where the heck he was, but both are back in where they are supposed to be. I have no idea how that hutch ever got open though, and that bothers me a bit. I have a hook and eye latch on it, and I know it was closed after I did chores yesterday.
I am letting the cats sleeping in the brooder house until it starts warming back up tomorrow. They are making a mess in there though and knock stuff down and pooping where they shouldn't be, even though I have a litter box in there and they both know how to use it.
 
So feeder pigs are looking more and more like a reality for this year. I have the feed part sorted and put the finishing touches on my pen plans for them today!

I base my plan on a 100x120x100 trapezoid sliced into 4 spokes around a central hub. The central hub will allow me to build a solid raised water tank with bite valves and not have to move it. The pigs will spend about 4 weeks per paddock. I picked this size based on an average 'square feet per pig per day' ratios based on several sources I read from books and other blogs. My average was about 32 square feet per pig per day. This is based on not overgrazing as i do not want to kill off the grass. By my plans each spoke is ~2450 square feet allowing for up to 40 or so day per hub if I had to (I know this is not an exact science but the numbers help me). I got the hub and spoke idea from the Smiths Medows Farm (http://smithmeadows.com/farm/how-to-raise-pigs-on-pasture) blog but watered it down to my size. They do 26 half acre slices for 50-60 pigs moved every 2 weeks. Crazy!

Anyways, water in the middle with a portable shelter and feed trough. Pigs start on one side and work their way to the other for easy fencing. I picked a trapezoid over a square as I don't think the pigs would make good use of a sharp point on the outside triangles. Adding 10 extra feet of fencing per paddock is nominal compared to the added usable area.
I plan on using 3 or 4 strands of electric wire around the outside and 3 on the inside moving 'walls'. There will be a solid gate at the bottom center for entry per this photo




This whole thing will be set in the back portion of my property that used to be dairy pasture about 50 years ago. It is all overgrown now and I plan to seed in some alfalfa or other perennial pasture mix to add to the nutritional value for pigs in the future (assuming this goes well and we want to do it again)

 
Can I recmmend something Klop?? I would put your chickens in one paddock after moving the pigs so they level out the crap and what they rutted up. Its the beginnings of permaculture. It would be the same as it is with cows. Some GENIOUS wrote this... Not everyone will get the GENIOUS part but Klop should
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OK every article I wrote is gone. Its was even erased off the facebook page!! Why? They are gone...
 
holm25 said:
Can I recmmend something Klop?? I would put your chickens in one paddock after moving the pigs so they level out the crap and what they rutted up. Its the beginnings of permaculture. It would be the same as it is with cows. Some GENIOUS wrote this... Not everyone will get the GENIOUS part but Klop should
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My chickens all free range back there on their own accord so i am sure they will be in there checking it out
 

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