I'm surprised that I haven't written a post about our pigs sooner, as pigs were our formal introduction to animal husbandry here on the homestead.
Behind our tool shed there is a sturdy, fenced off kennel. It had been sitting empty and overgrown with weeds when we moved in, and I remember commenting to my husband, "This is a great space. We should do something with it."
Shortly after that comment, my husband was perusing Craigslist, and saw a local ad for pigs. "How about pigs?" he asked, and very soon afterwards, four little piglets were dropped off and making that kennel home. While my father-in-law had raised pigs in the past, neither my husband or I had any experience with our new porcine farm residents. We quickly discovered that pigs root constantly. They dug up all the weeds in that kennel, and all the rocks in the ground beneath that. Since they were destroying the space, and quickly outgrowing it as well, we put together some makeshift fences using cattle panels and bunk bed frames, and fencing panels we'd found in a junkyard and set the pigs onto pasture. They loved digging up the grass and wallowing in the dirt.
That fall/winter was wet and cold and windy. Because all of our animal structures were temporary, we were constantly battling the elements to rebuilt and relocate their pen to keep the pigs warm and dry. It was an uphill battle but many lessons learned. Since those first set of pigs, our set up has gotten a bit more sophisticated, and I'd like to say that we're pretty comfortable with the piggy side of farm operations. Here's our journey so far:
Our inaugural pigs were a Berkshire/Yorkshire mix. They are a fast growing (commercial type) heritage breed pig. Yorkshires tend to be a heartier breed, but lean and Berkshires are fattier but more delicate so the mix of the two types was a positive combination.
Commercial breed meat pigs grow big. Fast. We got the piglets at 2 months old and they were probably about 30-40 pounds. Within 4 months, they reached a whopping 300 pounds each. We fed the pigs kitchen scraps and free choice grain. Their feed would go into a big hopper with a latch door at the bottom, and a hungry pig need only lift the door to grab a snack. All day long you could hear the clanging of that door as the pigs fed at will.
For water, we set up a garden hose with a water nipple, kind of like a giant hamster waterer. They just needed to press down on the end of it to guzzle a cool drink. In the summer time, they would clamp their mouths around the nozzle and let water pool on the ground to make large, muddy wallows with which to relax in. Some difficulties with this included:
1) In the winter, the water can freeze in the hose. And it's inaccessible until it melts. For most days, this wasn't a problem for very long because we don't usually get many days below freezing, and if it is a frosty day, by mid-morning, it's warm enough for free-flowing water....but still, a minor inconvenience
2) In the summer, we get hot days. We live in a high desert climate, and the relentless sun bakes the water in the hose until it is too hot to touch. We try to have the hose run through the shady spots, but sometimes on the hottest days, we would come out several times a day to clear out the scalding hot water and make a big wallow for the pigs to cool off in.
[Fun Fact: Pigs don't have sweat glands in their skin like people do. Combine this with the density of their flesh and their delicate skin, a hog can overheat and sunburn very quickly. That is why they wallow. The mud provides a protective coating and cools them down. On the other hand, you don't want to blast a pig with icy cold water on a hot day because that can send them into shock. It's all about moderation.]
3) If there was a power outage, our water pump would no longer work, and so neither the humans nor the animals would have access to water. These usually coincided with very hot days, so the lack of water was doubly dangerous.
4) We attempt to rotationally graze our animals, meaning, instead of opening up a vast field and releasing the animals to cherry pick around the pasture and therefore requiring larger areas of land per animal, we section off smaller areas so that grazing is done more uniformly, the ground is less damaged and grass growth is better managed, and so the benefits of animal manure is concentrated and better implemented in a smaller area---but with a hose, the rotations are limited to our distance from the nearest spigot.
For these reasons, we moved to using big barrels of water that can be transported by cart/truck and that aren't affected by power outages, and can be sheltered from the elements. Irrigation is on our list of projects in the future, but for now, the barrels are working well for us.
Pigs taught us how to butcher. Our first round, we hired local butchers. They were honest and hard-working, and we had heard many positive things about their services, but even moving the pigs from our farm to their local workshop was a stressful, and scary experience for them. Seeing that, we made the decision to butcher our pigs at home ourselves.
Thankfully we had a friend who was an experienced hunter who walked us through the process. Because our pigs were at their home around familiar faces, the worst part of raising meat animals was over in a fraction of a second. And we had full freezers and more to share with our friends and family because when were doing the cuts, there was no wasted of meat.
We raised more pigs for more friends and family. We discovered that in the winter time, pigs are tolerant of cold but not wet. They got a shelter with windbreaks and lots of warm bedding on a concrete floor that doesn't get muddied and trampled down.
Because pigs are fantastic diggers, we tried to put them on parts of our property where we would like to plant. They did the hard work of tilling up the ground, eating up grubs and roots and adding their own fertilizer to the soil. And once they moved on to another patch of grass, we could plant freely.
We switched from the fast growing commercial breed to a slower growing heritage breed of pigs called American Guinea hogs when we made the decision to start breeding our own pigs. (Pigs keep growing. They get bigger and fatter. The 6-month timeline of the commercial breeds is when the meat-to-fat ratio is the most ideal/profitable, but if you were keeping a pair for breeding, that means a bigger, heavier animal to care for and potentially, a more aggressive animal as the male pig is obviously left intact) Guinea hogs are a grazing breed of pig. They don't need much grain like the commercial breeds (towards the 5th month of raising a pig, a couple of big hogs can go through 50 pounds of grain in less than a week.) and are happy munching on grass and digging up acorns. They grow slower, a year and a half to full size vs. 6 months, but their slow growth means the pork is super marbled and tender (I don't have a particularly discerning palate, but difference between store bought meat and homegrown meat is astronomical. The difference between a commercial breed pig raised at home versus a slow growing pig is also noticeable. Have you ever had pork that tasted like steak? Our pork tastes like steak.) Slow growing pigs are lard pigs, and that can be used in cooking and making household products like soap and candles. Guinea hogs have gentler dispositions and the children are comfortable around them. Because they are smaller in size and really friendly, my girls often just hang out with them (with an adult close by), feeding them fruits and watching them munch grass.
[Sidenote: In the summertime, there is no grass because it is so hot and dry. When there is nothing to graze, the pigs get hay to eat. We've also been really lucky in that a local farm that delivers produce also sells us their unusable fruits and vegetables at a fraction of the cost for human consumption. We get 50 lb. boxes for $5 each! And many times this produce is still perfectly fine (i.e. a scratch on an orange or an apple with a spot) so we use a bit of it too, very prodigal son-esque.]
Regarding pig safety---you have to be respectful of any animal on the farm. The cows, the dogs and cats, the pigs, and even the chickens, can all do some damage to a person if treated unwell or without caution. Pigs have a low center of gravity and large size means they can push people over. Sometimes they take a curious bite. They eat anything, and I've heard it said that the best way to dispose of a dead body is to feed it to a pig. (Dark fun fact, children.) That being said, if it's not a sow that's recently given birth, or a boar competing with other males, the pigs we have on our farm are very docile and approachable.
We experienced a farm tragedy last year, and our breeding boar died. This year, we got a new boar of a different breed. Inigo Montoya, the new male of the herd, is an Idaho Pasture Pig/Kune Kune cross. He's another type of slow growing pig, although the IPP breed is ready for processing at 10 months rather than a year and a half. He's another grazing breed, and will hopefully introduce good, strong genetics into the herd. Even though he was only six months old when he arrived at the farm and half the size of our female pigs, he quickly asserted his place as the head hog, and you can see him running circles around the ladies, squealing and nipping and throwing his weight around.
So that's where we are now. Between the pigs, chickens and compost, we never have any organic waste on the farm. The pigs aerate the ground, they clear out any unwanted bugs and roots, and they provide security from food shortages and an uncertain future. I don't think I had ever envisioned myself as a pig farmer, but now I can't envision my farm without them.
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