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Feral, you said earlier that on the next batch you have some things you're going to do different. What changes are you gonna make? What worked, what didn't? We used to have a large pig pen on the farm decades ago, before my time. Been thinking about getting into pigs lately. I have 6 goats and 1 sheep right now as pets. They eat as much as you fed those pigs and I not getting anything out of them. On a related note, anyone have any experience with pig watering nipples? Could you use them on a stock tank or water barrel? Mostly minor changes. Gonna relocate their pen a bit. Want to have two exercise areas so when they turn the first one into a mudbowl I can move them onto the second. I want the loading area constructed in advance. Probably the biggest change I'll be making is timing their processing to occur Oct./Nov. rather than during true cold weather. That'll make watering them infinitely easier and Mrs. Feral will be thankful she doesn't have to tote any more 5 gallon water buckets. 
I don't see why you couldn't run a pig nipple off of a barrel. I used an automatic cup drinker on a 55 gal barrel and that did quite well. |
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What kind of automatic cup drinker did you use? Brand, gravity or low pressure? Link This unit, exactly. Gravity feed. Ace Hardware carries a two piece barrel gasket with pipe threads that goes through the barrel. I put a pipe nipple on either side of the gasket. On the outside to extend the drinker a little, On the inside just to get a little reach into the barrel to minimize freezing. Worked well for us. |
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Got our hams and bacons in today. Spent the evening processing them into vac bags.
Good stuff here. We fried up some ham trimmings and put 'em in Kaiser rolls that Mrs. Feral baked. Mmmmmm. Had to stand around a bit and just enjoy some ham slices too. The baby was yelling for more. Sorry for no pics of the finished Kaiser rolls––too busy eating them to take pics.
The bacon is phenomenal. Can't buy bacon like this. We got one bacon sliced and one whole. Figured the slab bacon would store longer. Vac packed everything. I'm tired, so I'll let the pictures tell the tale: 
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I JUST came in from watering ours. Now I'm drooling. Their days are NUMBERED!  When are yours going, Dave? When the free food runs out,LOL! Thinking about cooking one whole before it gets too much bigger. One of my brothers made a cooker out of an old 275gallon tank, and does a few every year. He offered to haul it over, but I told him I'd deliever the hog to him.
Then butcher one myself, then farm one out to get bacon,smoked hams,etc. Probably wait another month or two on them. Will have to do it before I start working 60-80 hr weeks though. 
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Then butcher one myself, then farm one out to get bacon,smoked hams,etc. Probably wait another month or two on them. Will have to do it before I start working 60-80 hr weeks though.
The bacon and ham are pretty awesome. Mrs. Feral fed a ham sandwich to someone today and got: "This is the best ham I've ever tasted." 
We were pretty pleased by that. Do you know yet what your local charges for kill/cut and curing/smoking are? I'm curious. |
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No idea what the current rate is.
Depends on whether I go Amish,Mennonite, or English. But having seen some of what I've seen on Amish/Men. farms around here, (  ) I'm going to look CLOSELY!
A guy in my local trapping district processes them, so I'll check with him next meeting. |
| There was a seeds discussion on another thread that reminded me of the pig party here –– do you have enough property to plant squash to feed the pigs? Because I was thinking about how a hybrid butternut –– Argonaut –– or a hybrid c. pepo –– Hasta La Pasta, a spagetti squash ––would work, but the first one (Argonaut) needs 140 days. Obviously, it's a little early to plant in your area now ... |
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There was a seeds discussion on another thread that reminded me of the pig party here –– do you have enough property to plant squash to feed the pigs? Because I was thinking about how a hybrid butternut –– Argonaut –– or a hybrid c. pepo –– Hasta La Pasta, a spagetti squash ––would work, but the first one (Argonaut) needs 140 days. Obviously, it's a little early to plant in your area now ... Saw your post in Food & Garden and it's a good thought.......we may plant pumpkins as a small commercial venture and could certainly plant some squash as pig food. That gourd you linked to over in the food forum looks very promising. Argonaut may work here as well. Thanks for thinking of it. |
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There was a seeds discussion on another thread that reminded me of the pig party here –– do you have enough property to plant squash to feed the pigs? Because I was thinking about how a hybrid butternut –– Argonaut –– or a hybrid c. pepo –– Hasta La Pasta, a spagetti squash ––would work, but the first one (Argonaut) needs 140 days. Obviously, it's a little early to plant in your area now ... Saw your post in Food & Garden and it's a good thought.......we may plant pumpkins as a small commercial venture and could certainly plant some squash as pig food. That gourd you linked to over in the food forum looks very promising. Argonaut may work here as well. Thanks for thinking of it. Sure. Pigs love winter squash –– when they know what's coming, they get very exited and vocal, and they will stuff themselves with winter squash. I suppose that they could eat too much, but I am now sure how. And squash with some minimal care grows pretty well everywhere (although Argonaut is a 140 day crop, which might be pushing it where you are, and no squash that I have ever seen really likes being transplanted all that much). Just thinking about how to get additional food for cheap. ETA: The Argonaut squash reminds me of "Long of Naples" that people grow in Texas. It stays gree, but you can get 60 pounders with decent rain. That's a lot of pig food! ETA: You are in what –– Zone 3 or something? I am in Zone 8, so perhaps you shouldn't listen to my advice about squash varieties. The idea is sound, and you stack most hard squash for 2-3 months or more without a spoilage issue. |
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You are in what –– Zone 3 or something? I am in Zone 8, so perhaps you shouldn't listen to my advice about squash varieties. The idea is sound, and you stack most hard squash for 2-3 months or more without a spoilage issue. Nah, I'm 6a......can grow squash. We fed a few of our butternuts to the last bunch of pigs and they did indeed love them. I'm excited about this idea......this may well help fix my feed cost issue....and do it in a way that fits my sensibilities. 
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You are in what –– Zone 3 or something? I am in Zone 8, so perhaps you shouldn't listen to my advice about squash varieties. The idea is sound, and you stack most hard squash for 2-3 months or more without a spoilage issue. Nah, I'm 6a......can grow squash. We fed a few of our butternuts to the last bunch of pigs and they did indeed love them. I'm excited about this idea......this may well help fix my feed cost issue....and do it in a way that fits my sensibilities.
Oink! That would be a fun project –– plant a dozen varieties of productive winter squash and see what works best for your area. The pigs will eat everything and you get to see what works! I guess the question is what is the lowest input (money, fertilize) and lowest impact (soil exhaustion) source of the sweetest protein that pigs will stand on one another to get to? Perhaps sweet potatoes down here, perhaps squash. Do pigs eat snap peas? Perhaps a rolling harvest of them. This sounds like an interesting spreadsheet problem! |
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Pigs LOVE squash
Pumpkins esp. (chickens also love squash) Pigs will not eat zuchinni (really, i was appalled too) chickens will though. we plant a lot oif squash. feed them the summer varieties while they are growing and the winter ones to store. Throw a pumpkin in the pig pen and they'll roll it around like a toy and then all of a sudden it will break open and it's FEEDING FRENZY. pretty funny. |
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Pigs LOVE squash Pumpkins esp. (chickens also love squash) Pigs will not eat zuchinni (really, i was appalled too) chickens will though. we plant a lot oif squash. feed them the summer varieties while they are growing and the winter ones to store. Throw a pumpkin in the pig pen and they'll roll it around like a toy and then all of a sudden it will break open and it's FEEDING FRENZY. pretty funny. Oink! Indeed it is. I always wondered what they would do with a big one, like Mammoth Chile or Big Max or Wyatt's Wonder (the last grows well down here) –– would the cooperate and roll it around together? |
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Pigs LOVE squash Pumpkins esp. (chickens also love squash) Pigs will not eat zuchinni (really, i was appalled too) chickens will though. we plant a lot oif squash. feed them the summer varieties while they are growing and the winter ones to store. Throw a pumpkin in the pig pen and they'll roll it around like a toy and then all of a sudden it will break open and it's FEEDING FRENZY. pretty funny. Oink! Indeed it is. I always wondered what they would do with a big one, like Mammoth Chile or Big Max or Wyatt's Wonder (the last grows well down here) –– would the cooperate and roll it around together? I bet they would we got an old bowlling ball for them to have something to play with. they roll that sucker around. |