considering hogs

[Alan]

After building our new Goat enclosure and working on a new chicken coop and some turkey houses we are now looking at the possibility of adding hogs to our small farm. It would basically be free (minus our labor) to build the pen in the same way the goat pen was built, by cutting cedar or white pine posts from the woods and with four sixteen foot hog pannels already on hand for fencing as well as plastic 55 gallon barrels for houses.

Now the question.....what type of hogs. I don't want a bucket of lard and would prefer something that can "self replicate" for a few generations in a small area. Not a particularly huge hog and not something overly expensive due to it's genetic disposition. Any opinions?

[grungy]

Landrace or Yorkshires would be a good place to start.

[flowerpower]

I'm a little confused. The pigs are supposed to sleep in a 55 gallon container? My pot belly pig wouldnt fit in one and he is less than 200 lbs.

Blue raised Tamworths at the farm. They are nice looking pigs. She can tell you how bacon-y they are.

[plantsnobin]

I'm still partial to the looks of those Red Wattles. If you are planning to raise little ones, you will need more substantial quarters for them though.

[bluelacedredhead]

Alan, we raised pigs for 13 of the 15 years on the farm.
Rule number one. Do Not feed them the cheap feed from the feed store, AKA COB (corn oats barley). Nothing puts fat on their back faster than that crap.

We fed Hog Grower. A leaner (but also more expensive) mixture with lots of home raised veggies and fruit as well. Even some raw poultry scraps when we dressed chickens for the freezer. They had ample exercise with access to a larger outer pen and sometimes they had access to the grassy field by the barnyard or even once, the garden when confined by electric fencing.

For several years, we just raised whatever breed or Crosses that we could buy for a reasonable price.

But when we saw the little Tamworth boar baby, we just fell in love with him and we spent the last few years raising Tam's and Tam Crosses.

The Tam is most definitely a baconator!!! They are long and lean and they are excellent foragers! I've heard some horror stories about them being Escape artists too, but they don't take kindly to confinement for long periods of time, so I'm almost certain that was part of the problem on that particular farm.

They were wonderful mothers, having large litters for the most part.

And they take kindly to hand raising. Very calm and affectionate if handled with respect.

Housing. I agree with FP. a steel drum is no place to house a hog. It will be hot in summer and cold in winter and by the time they hit 50 lbs they aren't going to be able to turn around in the drum??
Build them A Frames if you want to try to make them sleep alone. But hogs are one of the most Social animals you will ever meet, and you'd be better off to build them shelters where they can sleep in pairs or en masse.

Pigs can't sweat either, so raising them in summer requires a mud hole or at least shade with dirt to snuggle down into and cool off. In summer, be prepared for them to dump their water (bucket/tub/trough) to wet the ground or floor to cool off in.

[johno]

As my b-i-l has taken an interest in my agriculture, so have I taken an interest in his swine program. So I don't have a of of experience with swine, but I've been doing a lot of research.
It seems to me that it's vital for them to have room to roam and forage as they do in the wild. It makes them healthy and happy, and they stop eating each others' tails like they do in [too much] confinement. Electric fencing with a solar charger is much cheaper than regular fencing, and takes vastly less time and energy to put up. It's easy to add to and move around for rotating livestock.

I've got a link or you on forage for swine:
extension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/ansci/g02360.htm

And a confidence booster for electric fencing skills:
www.pasturemanagement.com/mistakes.htm

[bluelacedredhead]

BTW, electric fencing needs are different for each species of animal.
Horses are very intelligent and just a single line.
Cows are very large And very stupid. They need well maintained fence with high voltage to keep them in. Sometimes that doesn't work either. They just jump over the fence.

Sheep need at least two lines about 10" apart at the bottom of the fence and then another about half way up.

Pigs.....Minimum Two lines. One at ground level to teach them NOT to dig under the fence. The other at their shoulder height. BUT, pigs are also very intelligent critters and need only get a good jolt once, maybe twice and they won't go anywhere near the fence again. This was the problem we had with temporary fencing around the garden for the pigs. They didn't want to leave the garden because they were afraid of being electrocuted. It worked a little too well in that case, lol

[flowerpower]

I actually thought he meant plastic rain barrels. I can't imagine the pig backing into it or going in snout first. lol The pigs would rather sleep together than alone. But they will need an enclosure with a door come winter. They shouldn't be exposed to the wind and snow. Just allow them access to go out if they want. They will pee and poop outside if they can, even in the cold.

[Alan]

Thanks for the advice guys, I've asked plantsnoobin about pigs probably 10 times now, she probably gets tired of me asking the same things over and over again, but that's why she is awesome!

Anyhow, I'm not really sure why I was thinking of barrels, probably because it was what I had on hand and I've been thinking of relatively small hogs lately. Anyhow, I've got some posts cut and ready to go and some hog pannels laying around the farm, would like to let them forage more and in time probably will with the addition of electric fencing. For houses I am thinking of doing the same thing I did with the goats, four foot by four foot boxes like I use for raising red worms, fliped upside down and with a door cut in them, I can also put two or three of them together and cut out the inside wall so they have some more room to manuever within.

Later this fall possibly! First I have to get these Turkeys and Guineas hatched out and get the Orchard going!