Ok, I'm tired of dogs and possums and owls eating all my chickens. I'm thinking of replacing the lost meat with a pig. I found some 80 pound feeders for 50 bucks and I figure that I can build a shelter of straw bales around the dog pen, put it in the middle of the fenced in gaeden area (when the garden is done) and have fresh pig by February. Am I crazy? nybody think this would work? At least they are too big for possums and owls to carry off and I don't think the dogs would want to tangle with a pig even if they could get to them.
Crazy Pig Idea
I have discovered that anything that you build for pigs needs to be extra strong. They are like little bulldozers with excavating abilities included. I think they would move the dog pen - straw bales and all - where ever they wanted to go.
You might ask over on the Farm Forum... there's some pig growers over there.
I don't know how big your dog pen is, but don't forget pig poop is pungent. (hoooo-weee, don't stand down wind). And the only penned pigs I've ever smelled were in the desert (NM and AZ), where it rarely rains. Can't imagine what their pens would have smelled like in a wet place like MI.
I agree with porkpal - you'll need some heavy duty enclosure to keep them in, probably coupled with electric fencing. And, didn't you say you weren't zoned for livestock (apologies if I'm mis-remembering)? I think the nasty neighbors would turn you in really fast if they smelled pig.
Pigs are actually quite fastidious creatures and can be kept odor-free - in a dry environment.
I respect your fortitude.
The pigs will have a fairly large area and be moved from one to the next in a few months, so I don't expect smell to be a problem, I also hope that this will help prevent them from digging out of their pen. The neighbor will probably not be an issue as she doesn't want to call attention to her illegal horse boarding business. If someone does raise a "stink" I figure that I can always sell the pigs (2) for what I have into them. The dog pen will just be for them to have a toasty spot to sleep.
The cook at the casino will be getting the other pig and will be providing a 5 gallon bucket of veggies and left over breads. I'll be picking up as many apples, pears and left over pumpkins as I can. I'm trying to find some kind of sturdy awning set up that will provide them with a snow free outdoor area in their pen.
My garden will certainly be tilled and fertalized by spring!
I have heard that pigs will not poop and pee in their sleeping area if they have an alternative. Any thruth to this?
Yes, pigs want to be clean.
Some people have pigs (not just the pot-bellied ones) as house pigs. I've heard they are easier to housebreak than dogs, and they do like to be clean.
Have fun if they escape,I had pigs a long time ago and they got out once and we were forever trying to catch them to put them back in the pen,it was electrified after that and had no problem,.
Mine come when I call them. They are very food motivated and therefore easy to train.
Oh Porkpal, I like you more and more all the time. Thanks for all the support and encouragement. Any other wisdom to impart? All I want to do is humainly raise a good tasting pig, that I can afford. he will be treated well and with respect, have lots of playtime and good holesome food with no meat products or antibiotics (unless absolutely nessisary) He will be loved from the time he enters my yard to the time he is on our plates (ohhh, especially on that plate.) If it wasn't for the snow, the pig would think he was in paradise!
Do you tink I'll have any trouble keeping them warm? Annother questionshelled corn or pig , cob corn, chow?
I've fed corn chops and/or an all-stock sweet feed pellet. Warmth isn't a concern here, but you do need to provide a sleeping area up off the ground with shelter from rain/snow. Also I provide plenty of hay to tunnel into and snack on as well.
This message was edited Sep 6, 2009 9:47 AM
You will need a much sturdier fence that hay bales. I have 2 pigs and keep them in a stall in the barn. They stayed clean and dry until the boar I borrowed to breed my sow taught them ugly housecleaning habits. Now they are messy and nasty and they stink. Good luck with yours.
The straw bales go on the outside of the dog pen when it get's cold. They won't be able to reach them from their pen. They will have lots of hay in their pen that I can hide tasty tidbits in to keep them busy. Right now they will have a large beach umbrella for shelter and lots of shade from trees. They come tomorrow!
Is the dog pen made of heavy gauge wire? Pigs are very strong rooters and it will amaze you what they can uproot. I don't know how cold hearty they are. Ours are inside the barn so it hasn't been an issue for us. We have 1 going to slaughter in the next couple of weeks and we are hoping to sell the bred sow. Won't have any room for piglets and their momma when we move the animals. (We moved) Hope your experiment is a successful one.
There won't be any pigs here.
Oh, what happened?
Oh dear. Issues?
Apparently we need to remember that this forum can be read by non-members, and temper our comments.
I must have missed something?
I read back _again_ and still have no idea what caused this. Maybe something has been editted out?
ok i just read it clear thru & i can't figure it out either... Seems alright to me.. but i have thought of that before.. bc it was the fact i could read the poultry/livestock forum before i joined that caused me to buy a subscription. I try to remember that when i post. I am curious what happened with the pigs tho.
just remember that cute little pigs grow into HOGS!!
ROOT ROOT BITE BITE
I have owned some very sweet hogs. Then again my uncle had a sow that had to be fed by lowering her bucket down from the hayloft; you'd lose an arm if you reached into her stall - she was half razorback - they are individuals like all of us!
And hogs get eaten!
Due to neighborhood situations, we instead, purchased a fine pig that two little boys are raising nearby. He will be ready in a month or so and we take him treats such as buckets of apples, pears and garden produce that didn't quite make ti to the canner this year. I constantly tell him he is a fine pig (even though he was a 4H wash out) and that he will be deeply appreciated. Now whe are trying to decide if we want to butcher him ourselves or have it done. With the current financial situation, it would sure be cheaper to do it ourselves.
the price of slaughter and butchering of pigs has sky-rocketed around here. So we do our own now.
We just got done "baby-sitting an one year old boar for a neighbor. He was the sweetest pig. We kept him on our farm for a couple of months while his sow was pregnant and he was fixing up an area just for him. In exchange, he's giving us a couple of the piglets. The sow just had 9 piglets yesterday; haven't seen them yet but can't wait!
We've never had a problem with the smell. We keep them in a large area in a fairly dry part of the farm. But I have seen(and smelled) other people's pigpens when the area is too small-el stinko!
The only time we have noticed smell around the pig was a warm rainy day.
I miss "Wilbur"(our neighbors boar)! Everytime I went out into the backyard, he'd come running out and wait for me to come down and give him a nice scratch w/ a treat!
Pigs make great pets! We always have one or two. They are easy to train, if you're so inclined, and they take care of the food that you don't want to eat but is too good to throw out - with great enthusiasm!
One of the pigs we had this past spring was such a sweetheart. I would tap on the coop and he would lumber on in then turn around to get pet.
Here's a pic of my absolute favorite sow we had 9 years ago(pic quality is kinda poor):
Our pig now recognises the truck when we pull up and comes to see what we have.
Don't ya just love it!
I envy you your pig and it sounds like you found a creative solution for getting some pork. We have a friend who has a farm and also grew up on one; we have tried to talk him into raising a pig but he remembers how much work scraping them down and butchering them was. I think it would be doable if you had friends to help. We always cut up our deer, and lamb if we have it.
We remove the hide to avoid all that work. I rarely have the hams smoked so this technique works well for us.
That's interesting, Sandy! Do you make bacon, then, or not?
Sometimes, we aren't huge bacon eaters; however, there are a lot of people clamoring when they find out we have some! We have brought the belly up to our previous butcher; also, our next door neighbor smokes his own. He gave us a sample and it is excellent; so we will have him smoke it next time around. We have also used it for sausage(I can hear people cringing out there as I type this!).
Why would people be cringing? We make deer sausage whenever we get a deer. We do love bacon, though.
We make bacon and hams even if the pig is skinned. If there is not a good layer of fat on the outside, I wrap it in parchment paper bekore smoking in my smoke house.
The kids moan and groan when we don't get the bacon!