Posted: 6/4/2013 7:17:50 AM EDT
| so I have some cows and chickens, but would like to get two pigs. I have a fenced in section that 100' x 20' that all I would need is to build a gate for. the max I would want is two for that area. anyone here want to post some pics of their set up and offer some suggestions? |
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No pics , but I used to raise them commercially. Pigs like to dig. Make sure your enclosure is secure at the bottom and that the hogs have nose rings to prevent them from escaping. Hogs are very smart animals, and dangerous. Be sure you keep kids, unwary adults and pets out of the pen. Hogs will kill and eat anything, including other hogs.....yes they are cannibals. have some type of impact device handy when you go into the pen, I carried a piece of pvc pipe. when aggressive, a sharp whack on the nose will suffuce to chill them.
Hogs are pretty hardy, a 3 sided shed will do for shelter Most farm supply stores sell hog panels, ( welded wire fence panels 4 x 16 ) check em out, they works pretty well, easier than regular fencing Check out the different breeds, they all have a bit of different personality. My personal favorite was Duroc, the red ones. Have fun with your hogs, they are smart and can actually be trained to do tricks etc if you get em young Good luck with your hog venture. Great eating, excellent sausage when mixed 50/50 with deer elk etc..... Lastly DO NOT LET THEM ESCAPE, the feral hag problem is bad enough already |
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It's been along time since I raised any hogs.
Everything said above me is true. We used pallets nailed together for hog pens. We raised a few each year for slaughter. Fed just the cheap hog grower feed and fed them corn the last two weeks before we carried them to the butcher. |
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I raised them for a few years for sale to 4-H kids and for butcher. I had two sows and my own breed boar. I had Hamp/Duroc crosses.Two litters per year per sow. It was interesting to say the least. My breed hogs were hand raised by me from piglets and very docile but I still watched it while working around them. Sometimes I was able to stay in the pen when they had new piglets, other times good judgement prevented that.
I used 4 - 12' x 3' gates I got from a dairy I worked at for each pen. Put the gate ends over 2' t-posts and #9 wired the corners top and bottom. No gates to mess with as I could easily step over the sides and they never tried to climb them. Center-hog rung all of them but later had to add rings on the sides of their noses as they figured out how to lift things. I had misting systems up for summer time as it gets brutal for hogs here in July. You can't beat home raised pork but be prepared to have something around you have to outsmart nearly every day. They are intelligent. 
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| a buddy of mine worked on a pig farm, but this was a rather large scale operation. he said they were pretty smart when it came to getting out of things. im not looking to have tons of pigs, just two for the year. plan on sending these right to the butcher once they get pretty good size. I can always make the areas that they stay bigger if needed. anyone east of Dallas know where to get some pigglets? |
| You've already gotten some good advice from the members that commented but also remember their real smart, will did up anything including water pipes and under fences. Whatever you do underground do it deeper and sturdier then you think you need to. If you breed them you'll need a separate area for birth and to keep the babies away from the boar. |
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a buddy of mine worked on a pig farm, but this was a rather large scale operation. he said they were pretty smart when it came to getting out of things. im not looking to have tons of pigs, just two for the year. plan on sending these right to the butcher once they get pretty good size. I can always make the areas that they stay bigger if needed. anyone east of Dallas know where to get some pigglets? Just google weaner pigs for your area |
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We raise feeder pigs every year. Currently have six.
Fencing is a big deal as others mentioned. Water and feed are issues too. Hogs drink LOTS of water. Watering from a trough isn't convenient unless you want to spend lots of time filling it and cleaning it. We started with a 55 gallon barrel with a cup waterer and that was OK but have since moved on to nipple waterers fed from a hose. You'll need a galvanized show feeder to let them feed when they want. Feeding them on a schedule works poorly. Well fed hogs are happy hogs.....hungry hogs are the ones that tear out your fence cause they think it looks better on the other side. 
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We raise feeder pigs every year. Currently have six. Fencing is a big deal as others mentioned. Water and feed are issues too. Hogs drink LOTS of water. Watering from a trough isn't convenient unless you want to spend lots of time filling it and cleaning it. We started with a 55 gallon barrel with a cup waterer and that was OK but have since moved on to nipple waterers fed from a hose. You'll need a galvanized show feeder to let them feed when they want. Feeding them on a schedule works poorly. Well fed hogs are happy hogs.....hungry hogs are the ones that tear out your fence cause they think it looks better on the other side. This is very true with goats as well, I have never had a problem with escape attempts or destruction until the food runs low in their pen.. |
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LOL, my "soil" is just about concrete!
I use scrap 6' chainlink, with a hotwire a few inches up and out on the inside. No issues. A buddy has real soil and laid 16'+ pieces of slabwood a few wide inside the pen, tight to the fencing, and again, no issues. Above said, after a couple/three years of hogs rooting and fertilizing in a new pen, I magically wind up with 6-8"+ of soil, then move the pen to a new spot.
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| Never thought of a hotwire. Pretty good idea. Nipple system for water is a good idea but do they like it? The spot that I'm looking at using is a low spot so in a good rain we get some standing water. Sure they will enjoy that in the summers. Still looking for some pigglets in the area, most are further away. The calves are all off feed now and the chickens are pretty much too since I let them out in the fields to roam. So pretty much I'd be paying for hog feed. |
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Pigs are great fun. We try not to keep more than 3 at a time though. They can be a handful.
As others have mentioned - they are very smart. We made the mistake the first time around of raising them till they were too big. We should have butchered them at 250lbs. Anything bigger than that and you are no longer at the top of the food chain in that pen. They will shove you around and if you fall, it's your ass... A hotwire works great! Before we got the hotwire set up, our pigs got out. Neighbor called the cops THEN me. I walked out of the house to see 4 pi...I mean cops, chasing 3 pigs. Or was it the other way around? Either way... As was mentioned: Hotwire Drinking nipples or watering bowls Stainless feeders Premetherin Children's Benedryl A happy pig is a pig that stays inside the fence. A hungry/ thirsty pig is a pig that destroys worlds... Oh, and Goats are the devil's work. They will humble you... |
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We made the mistake the first time around of raising them till they were too big. We should have butchered them at 250lbs. Anything bigger than that and you are no longer at the top of the food chain in that pen. They will shove you around and if you fall, it's your ass... Well put. 
I had a 300 pound gilt run me out of the pen last year. She was a bit on the aggressive side and I shed no tears when we hauled her big ass to butcher! |
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We made the mistake the first time around of raising them till they were too big. We should have butchered them at 250lbs. Anything bigger than that and you are no longer at the top of the food chain in that pen. They will shove you around and if you fall, it's your ass... Well put.
I had a 300 pound gilt run me out of the pen last year. She was a bit on the aggressive side and I shed no tears when we hauled her big ass to butcher! Haha yup some of them get nasty. I felt sorry when we took our pigs to get butchered - but felt much better when the first chop went to my stomach ;) We had 1 mean boar. Always a good idea to cutthem when they are little, I guess? |
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Checked out a local auction on Tues night all they had were 400-500 lbs breeders. No feeders at all. Found a guy local who has some for $65, a little high but there's not much to choose from. Craigslist Depending on how much of the experience you want, you should buy weaner pigs, feeders are already there weight wise and you will pay for that 200 lb range of weight, with weaners, ( 40 lbs) you can feed them what you want and like the saying " you are what you eat" feeding pigs good stuff makes good pork ( we fed ours [ the ones we were going to butcher] apples from the orchard in addition to grain.....yum!) DO NOT FEED PIGS GARBAGE!. In addition You will have input on their behavior development at this age . Like dogs, how they are treated determines their temperament. Be wary of sow with a litter, pound for pound, the meanest creature on God's earth. If you are looking at pigs , do not get into a pen with a sow with a litter. If you get boars ( not recommended) they must be castrated , this is better done when they are of a manageable size ( under 40 lbs or so) , the bigger they get, the more dangerous and hard it is to do. Trying to castrate an 80 lb boar is like wresting a crocodile. Not recommended for a novice. The meat is not so good on an uncastrated boar....avoid it. I used to castrate the boars at about 10 days of age. Pretty easy then, a razor blade and some iodine was all it took. I have assisted in castrating a full size boar, not for the weak of heart. Be wary of buying hogs that have no record of immunizations. Hogs are susceptible to several diseases, some backyard breeders have no clue ....remember you are going to eventually eat these things, buy your stock accordingly . Much easier to buy furniture on craigslist than to buy livestock for consumption. Do a little research ( Google is your friend [ key words weaner pigs, your location,) and you should be good to go). Raising hogs is fun, get it right straight away and you will want to do it again and again. |
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Be super careful with this, this is the reason why many states are over run with feral hogs. Hogs make Houdini look like an ammeter when it comes to being an escape artist. We had some pigs ( 2 or 3) escape from this type of fencing ( as shown in the film), before we could recapture them, the hogs had laid waste to about 20 acres of wheat. Some hogs just are tough enough not to care about electric shock. |
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Got 3 weaners off a guy on Craigslist, they're kinda small about 25lbs. I'll set up a free choice feeder & nipple waterer when they get a little bigger. Those are perfect, not too small, 40 lbs was when we would sell em, 25 lbs is pretty manageable . treat em well and you will really enjoy the experience, don't forget to ring em ( nose rings) to prevent digging, you can wait until you turn em outside to ring em. |
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discovered just about the best way to keep pigs...
keep them at your buddies
friend has way more land so we raise them there. our first hog we raised in the barn. he was docile and only rooted around enough to dig out a cool spot he stunk but it wasnt all that bad. tame enough that the day he went to the processor we just opened his gate and he followed us into the trailer we picked up 3 this year. one sow as a breeder, going to try that out however these 3 are pure hell to keep. smell is 20x worse. wont feel nearly as bad dropping them off for processing the meat quality makes it all worth your while though, fantastic tasting pork 
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discovered just about the best way to keep pigs... keep them at your buddies
friend has way more land so we raise them there. our first hog we raised in the barn. he was docile and only rooted around enough to dig out a cool spot he stunk but it wasnt all that bad. tame enough that the day he went to the processor we just opened his gate and he followed us into the trailer we picked up 3 this year. one sow as a breeder, going to try that out however these 3 are pure hell to keep. smell is 20x worse. wont feel nearly as bad dropping them off for processing the meat quality makes it all worth your while though, fantastic tasting pork For what its worth, pigs are actually clean animals. If you keep the stalls mucked out and provide them straw you can keep the smell down. They like / need mud to keep cool, as they do not sweat, that or provide a misting system. Pig manure / straw is pretty good fertilizer, you could probably sell it. |
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FWIW, we buy pigs in early fall and raise them over the winter.
Less heat/stress, less odor, pigs are CHEAPER vs in the spring, lots of excess garden produce available and we have qaccess to other, no longer mainstream free feed. We give them a place to stay dry and get out of the wind with some straw bedding if it turns too cold. Every 3 or 4 wintes we get a real winter and watering is an issue for a spell , but most years, works great for us. |
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Depending on how cold your winters are you could simply be throwing money down the drain as they wont gain any weight as they are eating just to stay warm and use up what reserves they have.
We purchased 5 pigs this weekend that were 30 lbs each and will butcher them in Nov. I wont ever try to over winter pigs again here. |
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Depending on how cold your winters are you could simply be throwing money down the drain as they wont gain any weight as they are eating just to stay warm and use up what reserves they have. We purchased 5 pigs this weekend that were 30 lbs each and will butcher them in Nov. I wont ever try to over winter pigs again here. After noting your location, I could see your point. It does not get that cold in Oregon ( Willamette valley , average winter temp 50 degrees) , so we can raise year round |
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Depending on how cold your winters are you could simply be throwing money down the drain as they wont gain any weight as they are eating just to stay warm and use up what reserves they have. We purchased 5 pigs this weekend that were 30 lbs each and will butcher them in Nov. I wont ever try to over winter pigs again here. Just like in the real estate biz, it's location, location, location. Sure, when it's cold they have to eat more to stay warm, and feed conversion drops, but gains suffer in hight temps too. Can tell you, they are miserable here when temps get in the upper 90s/low 100s. High temps hurt us, again here, worse than low temps, unless it's an EXTREME winter. Then, the wife and kids spend lots of time breaking ice and hauling water. 
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