Hog Pen

Pig Shelter

We want to show our pig pen and give you some idea of what you may be looking at to raise one or two for yourself.
First of all we were very lucky to have been given this shelter. It is on loan our friend said. But as you see it is not something that is moved easily. In fact our friend had it delivered via flat bed tow truck. So should he ever reclaim it we would survive. Just another way that people help people. Of course he gets all the fresh pork he wants! It is a win win. First of all you do not need this kind of shelter. What we were going to do is for two pigs about a five by five pen would work. This should have a roof and three sides and the open side face the south. Can be made of pallets or metal sheets, etc. But you do need some kind of sun barrier. Pigs burn easily and do not sweat. For these reasons pigs need to be able to cool them self and have shade. This is the reason for mud holes. They get cooled off and the mud actually provides a beerier from the sun. I do not want to get too technical I am just wanting to show you how we do it.
Things to consider if you are planning on raising a pig or two:

Placement 
Try to put the pigs down a hill or on a slope, they smell!
Okay, they sink! lol

Now if you can not do that put them where the south wind will be away from you. The south wind is the smelliest because of the summer months. The winter not so bad. But if you put the pigs directly south of your home you gonna be stinky and probably unhappy. We are doing this to provide not regret.    Alright

Keep in mind that you will need to back up to the pen to load them when time comes. So with this being said, it may be raining or frozen ground or muddy from the rain. So you do not want to get stuck with a 350lb hog stuck in a truck! lol  If it is hot it will not be good for the pig to be in the sun stuck and it just creates a lot of problems you can avoid if thought of prior to set up!

Fencing
We have enclosed from the left side of this pen back and across and back around to the front of the pen. Now, we enclosed the front of the pen for loading purposes. You will need to think about how you will load a large hog when time comes. They can get argumentative to say the least. So we enclosed in front of their gate and it becomes a chute for loading later.
Our fence is nothing more than T post and hog fence. It is all used by the way. We dug small trenches from T post to T post for the fence to set in and then attached the fence to the T post with bailing wire that comes on a roll. Then we pushed the dirt onto the bottom of the fence. This makes the push power of the hog rutting (pushing) not so powerful. You can always get hot wire but so far we haven't needed to.

We have a fairly large fenced area but you do not need a large area for one or two. When we put ours up we were not sure how many we were going to raise at a time. So bigger is safer with us, not better but no more labor down the road if we needed more room. We could probably cross fence our yard there if we wanted to and it would be plenty of room. 

Feed and Water

There are large self feeders to put inside the pen. These look like large dog feeders. We say inside the pen because that's where we feed our pigs. We feel that it cuts down on bacteria to a point. Pigs root for tree and plant roots more than wanting their food in the dirt. Yes they are pigs but I don't want to eat my food off the dirt do you? Yes I will throw some veggies or fruit over the fence once in awhile. I'm just saying Typically we put their food in a trough. We have the large self feeder inside the pen and we use this for dry feed. We wire this to the side of the pen wall because the pigs get ornery. Also the pigs get board. The picture above is our feeder trough and water trough. This was free! All this is, is an old hot water tank cut in half the long way. These are easy to come by and ask a friend to cut it with a blow torch. Or this can be done with A hand held grinder with a (cut off wheel). You can weld legs as seen above or bolt them on. This will allow them to set in the pen and not roll over. Now if you can not put legs on them you can put these on the dirt and they will seat them self's in the dirt. And this is still off the ground! There is also a water heater that we have recently purchased for the winter months for the water trough. Before this we would simply go down there and break the ice and add more. 

What we do beyond the basics:

When the pigs are young you can play with them, even get into the pen and pet and play etc. I have seen many people and kids raise and play and command large hogs...We are not those people.

We name them for reference as to who goes first to slaughter and to reference the quality after butcher as we will butcher at different sizes. We have butchered one of two in spring and then one in fall. The spring pig was 350lbs and very good meat. The one in the fall was 650lbs and it was very good meat as well. I actually preferred the larger pig. If you raise a male you need to nutter him 30 days prior to butcher if he was not neutered when born. Now we do not care for the male pig meat. We also prefer Hampshire over other breeds. The pigs pictured are Yorkshire. It is all personal preference. So, yes we name our food lol Our pigs usually have a ball to play with. Get an old basket ball or football. They get board so let them have something to do. Our pigs also get a baby pool inside their pen in the shade. They love love laying in the water in the summer. We put soak er hoses along the top of the pen just below the roof and leave on most of the time in the heat of the summer. Direct this water run off toward a low lying spot behind the pen that they can root around in. A happy pig is good tasting meat! We bought some fruit trees just to plant around the outside of the pig pens. This way the fruit  will drop right into the yard of the pigs! Cleaver huh? lol 

Oh don't forget to gather this great fertilizer!

Win-Win-Win

Happy pig farming!

Enjoy