educate me on pigs...

thinking about putting some productive (edible) livestock on the farm. I have about a half acre of overgrown/shrubby pasture that i"m looking at putting 2 or 3 pigs on. best time to buy? any particular breed or issues to look for? any insights on raising a few pigs for family pork?

Are you planing on extra grain feed besides the overgrowth?

You will want to feed some grain. They will be tuff and taste like a wild boar if you don't.

Gary

We raise ours in a portable pen and move it every week on average. This makes a lot less fence to maintain, and gives us more control over how torn-up any particular spot becomes. We buy in the spring and have them butchered in the fall, have been doing it this way for 9 years now. Two pigs are enough pork for us for the year.
Zach

I've heard butchering a gilt that is in heat causes the meat to taste "strong" , similar to boar meat. For that reason I'd get barrows for the table.

Don't think the breed is going to matter much, todays' hogs are all bred to be taller, longer, leaner than those of yesteryear.

It will be a "fun" experience if you are a first-timer. To put it simply, hogs are obstinate. They never want to be herded in the direction you want them to go. Always seems like their head is on the wrong end when trying to herd them. When they make a break for the woods, seeing the shortest route is between your legs, you will find hog rides are most often given with the rider mounted backwards. Riders often find the animal is too tall for both feet to reach the ground at the same time for dismount purposes. Spectators to these events often tear up with laughter.

how big is that pen? What are you feeding them? How big are they when you get them, and how big when you get them butchered? Your deal sounds just like what I want to do....

Now is a almost a good time for buying, feed a little starter then spring on the pasture,month before butchering back on grain to get rid of whatever brush they ate all summer. Keep them away from acorns ! Don't invite your nnalert neighbors to the hog roast.

Jose, I know ya"ll got hay burners so get them girls in a 4H club.
Lots of info and training, since its a VT thing and ya"ll are close to that other school you might have a hard time finding 1.
Just jokin. Lots of clubs and events around Fredericksberg.
Matt chose chickens but his club 3 Rivers Livestock
has kids with pigs, goats and cows. Had a good time at the Fair this year.

I just dont have enough pasture space to put my hogs on pasture but every year we raise at least 4. our pen right now is 30x30 with a 2 ton bulk feeder and a water trough with a pig waterer in the side and id say this is minimum for 4 pigs. we are gonna make it much bigger and make 2 pens to alternate between. We feed a non GMO Corn ground really fine and mixed with an organic no soy protien supplement. I figure it takes 700lbs of feed per hog to get to market weight 250 lbs and i sell at 1.50 a pound live weight and the customer pays processing. we make $125 per hog some times more depending on how much food the get from our garden scraps, exess eggs and whey from the wifes cheese makikng. We keep one for our family and sell the rest to extended family, neighbors, and such. but we are getting alot more requests for our pork so we are gonna expand and see how it goes but the market around here for Natural raised, or pastured, or Organic pork is huge. I think you may want to separate our pasture into 3 or four or more paddocks and rotate them through, this will help manage you pasture limit the rooting damage and break the parasite cycle. i really enjoy raising pigs they are my favorite farm animal. good luck.

If they're running outside you might want to be a little choosy about the breed. The modern lean crossbreds don't do as well outside even in the summer. They're bred so lean that they've lost some of the ruggedness, and flavor, in my opinion. Maybe an older breed like Hampshire, Duroc, or Yorkshire would work a little better. Personally, I'd favor the Hamp cause it has a little nicer personality. A Hamp is fatter, though. I have no idea where to find them in your area. Maybe a livestock sale barn? A fella about ten miles away from me still pasture farrows but it's the old breeds and he has a special market for them. Jim

I have American Guinea Hogs they're about like Hampshires but grow to a maximum weight of around 200 lbs.,they do well on pasture,easy keepers,extremely gentle and mild natured (even the Boars) and the meat is great.

Make sure you get a newer self-oiling breed that way you don"t have to find and buy a hog oiler. lol. Good luck, when I was a kid we had several hundred head of hogs that were always getting out and causing problems. I remember one that wouldn't stay in and kept getting over to the neighbors, we loaded him in the truck at the neighbors one day and left him in the stock rack with another one that had gotten over there. The next morning there was only one in the back of the pickup, turns out he went back across the road. That time we just went straight to the stockyards and spent the whole ride trying to keep him from jumping up, hooking his front legs over the top of the rack, and climbing out again. So as you might guess I don"t want any pigs here

you were doing goats, weren't you? I had one goat, it did really well here but the girls swapped it out of a minature horse when my back was turned. I figure I can slowly wean the wimmin out of jumping animals and into some eating ones- if I keep them (the pigs, not the women)far enough from the house and don't let them name them.
I may live in Cavalier country,my brothers were Hokies...but my money and daughetr go to Mary Washington

Greg's post got me to thinking about fences. Horses go over fences, hogs go UNDER fences. If it's a woven wire fence the bottom wire needs to be right down on the ground and it doesn't hurt to have it stretched tight. If they start lifting the fence with their noses you'll have to drive a steel post in that spot to tie the wire down. If you only have a half acre, three hogs will eventually want to find out if the grass is greener on the other side. They will find the wife's or the neighbor's tulip bulbs first, then they dig up the lawn for grubs. Ask me how I know.Jim

They stink.

Gene

Rooting? Try bar rings in the nose, then 5 to 7 across the top of the nose.

Getting through the fence? Get the hottest electric fencer you can find.

This type of treatment is all a damned hog understands.

Gene

We always ran one strand of tight stretched barbed wire at ground level underneath every woven wire fence to prevent sows from lifting the fence or digging under it. Two more tight strands of barbed wire went 3 inches and 9 inches above the woven wire for hogs. It worked well as long as the wires stayed tight. Cattle required a third top strand about 8 inches higher.

If you put 40-50 pound feeders inside a good electric fence by the time they really start rooting they are trained to the fence.

We raise 10 a year, on about 4 acres, start with grower then switch over to cracked corn and hay to supplement the "pasture". I just stick 5X6 rounds in with em. 10@ 175-250 pounds will go through a bale every 3-4 weeks along with their corn and rooting.

Rick

The pen is 14x14, the pigs are typically 30-40# when we get them and get up to 200-250# by fall, about 5-6 months time usually. They get whey and extra milk, and hog mash from the feed store. They also eats bugs and dirt and plants and whatever they can get. There is a hole in one side of the pen which opens into the pig shed, which is sort of a glorified doghouse on skids. You can see it in the picture in my earlier post. That gives them a place to go when they want to get out of the sun or the wind or whatever. I am the pig mover, I just pick up one side of the pen at a time and walk it forward and then drag the shed up so it is over the hole again.
Zach

We've found that we like a Hampshire/Duroc cross best, they are friendly and taste good when they're dead. We do have a little place for them to get out of the weather.
Zach

A single hog is relatively laid back and tame. Two or more hogs running in a herd are curious plus aggressive.
They have 24/7 time, dexterous noses, curiosity, intelligence and strength to break out of pens.
Corn fed hogs and their manure stink more than mixed grain fed hogs.

Went down to te local gin mill last week. Couple of pigs down there weren't too expensive, but ugly as all geddoout and their perfume was on the cheap side , too--

You do not need anyone to educate you. Just get a couple and you will get all the education you want. I have raised pigs all my life of 58 years. Like one other writer said. Pigs think in reverse. You push them forward and they will go backwards. You push them backwards and they will go forward. So you practice same reverse psychology and push them backwards if you want them to go forwards but then they will go backwards too. You can never out guess them.

Call me ignorant, but I've never heard of hogs eating hay.

We do a few every year just for our family. We're in tight with a local bread vendor. In this state if the bread is more than 2 days old they legally can't sell it. I'll get a pick up truck load for $5. We're also in tight with a local produce vendor, and get 2 or 3 buckets a week. Other people will suggest supplements for optimum nutrients, our hogs are healthy, grow at a fine rate, and taste fantastic.

Like anything else, it's what you can afford

Around here most of the pig farms (the ones that are left) have mostly crossed pigs. Landrace, Poland China, Berkshire seem to be the most popular

BTDT. Duroc, reddish color American seed. Feed them Corn, not Milo. Texture and flavor of the meat is very different.

If you have a smoke house available near by, use it. Injection of the hams and all is ok, but smoke is better. If you haven't had cured pork chops you have been missing a truly fine meal.

The Duroc is a lean hog and a real treat to eat. Tried Yorshires (black-white band)and Poulan Chinas (white). The York's were ok the Poulans were too fat....lard hogs.

I got piglets and raised to 200-220 hoof wt. Had in a pen with about 10'x15' per hog. I tried to keep fresh water in front of them and they refused. Every time I did they would "flavor it" before I could get out of the pen.

So I decided to outfox them. I put a snout activated waterer with a little cup on one of the fence posts about 6-8" off the ground thinking that I could have "unflavored" water available.

Kid you not, one day I am on my way out to check on them and sure nuff, one was backing up to the little cup and flavored it while I was watching......I said XXXX with it and let them do as they chose.

Urine and feces are pungent and getting either on your clothes will get you run out of the house cause the whole house will stink like hogs.

The end justified the means and was worth the effort.

If you put them out to graze they will plow up the field where you turn them out. They like roots and dig everything up.....but you have some nice loose (uneven) soil when they have finished.

Smart too. If you put a hot wire around the field, they will walk the wire and if ever it happens to accidentally quit, they know it and will be out of there in a heartbeat.....smart critters.

Unlike my experience with Nubian goats.

HTH,

Mark

I used to raise a couple of hogs a year and kept them in about an acre of fenced area. That area was pretty rocky and overgrown when I started with the hogs. The hogs rooted a whole lot of rocks out and removed all the smaller vegetation. I was afraid they would smell, but with that much area, the hogs chose a corner for their latrine and there was almost no odor. The hogs liked to have an area under a big pine tree kept wet for a wallow in the hot part of the Summer. They dug quite a hole there. I never had any trouble with them getting out, as the area was fenced with old hog wire and a couple of strands of barbed wire over that. I always kept my hogs very well fed, and maybe that was part of the reason they stayed in so well.

I quit raising hogs after I figured out that I could buy pork in the supermarket cheaper than I could raise it and pay for the processing. We also found that we didn't use all of the meat from our hogs--much of the sausage ended up being given away, as my Wife didn't like it and would not cook it.

If you really want to raise hogs, I would suggest only raising barrows and not letting them get too big before you process them. If you get boars, they need to be castrated ASAP--that job only gets more difficult as they age, and you really need to do it a while before you eat them. In my experience, females seemed to grow more slowly than barrows and as they mature, they come into heat, which makes them harder to work with during that time.

I always enjoyed my hogs. They are intelligent animals and mine were very friendly, inquisitive workers that cleared the area very well. But they also were some work, and I found that they just ended up costing too much as compared with the supermarket pork. Good luck!

Used to raise them as a 4-H project for the county fair. Good way to earn $600 in the summer when I was 9. I agree with the gentleman who suggested Duroc. Very hardy adapatable breed. Started feeding them a ground corn 16% protien mix in April. By the end of July they would be in the 220-240lb. butchering range. But also like the gentleman who could buy it cheaper in the store I also found that to be true. Local butcher will sell you a whole hog cheaper than what I can raise it for.

I would wonder if its even legal anymore to raise some on a pasture?Here if they arent in a pen they are considered feral.Its against the law to turn them loose, or free range them.Just curious..Ive never messed with any except at the stock yards,so i cant help you any on raising them.

Amen to that. You don't want them anywhere near your house. And factor in the prevailing wind!

I don't raise them myself, but a friend of mine does.

He finally got smart and poured a cement pad for his pen. SOLID wood fencing around it.

Keeps them cleaner and dryer, and a whole lot less smelly (but they STILL stink). They can't dig out. And he can just come in with a bucket and scoop it all out in one or two passes and it's perfectly clean.