Raising pigs

Last summer we wanted to raise a few pigs. I found a local farm that raised their pigs on pasture using organic practices. Their pigs were a Berkshire tamworth cross. I contacted them and reserved 3 piglets. They had just recently been born so we had to wait a few weeks until they were weaned. We used this time to finish setting up the fence and building a shelter for them.

It was mid June when they were ready to be picked up. We drove out to the farm which was about 2 hours from us. We chatted with the lady who was at the farm while she finished milking the goats. We would need this milk later. We she was done we pulled the car over to the pig area and got ready to load the pigs. We were bringing them home in a large dog crate.

Then came the fun part, catching 3 squirmy little piglets. We started by baiting them with grains soaked in goat's milk. The piglets went crazy over the grains and catching the first piglet was pretty easy. The farmer grabbed it and passed it to my wife who quickly put it in the crate. Wow, those little piglets are strong and wiggly. The rest of the piglets were spooked now and much more difficult to catch. We chased them around for a while before we were able to corner them in their shelter. After grabbing the last 2 and loading them, we headed home.

On the way home, we learned that pigs get car sick. About 30 minutes down the road, one of the pigs throw up. The other 2 started vomiting shortly after. When we got home, we unloaded the crate into the pig pen. This was harder than expected since there was over 100 lbs of wiggling pig in the crate.

Pig pen setup

We wanted to use electric fencing so we could move the pigs to different areas. It is important to train pigs to an electric fence. We started the pigs in a square of hog panels with electric netting on the inside. A pigs instinct is to charge forward when it gets shocked. The hog panels provide a strong physical barrier so they learn to back up instead. The farmer we bought them from used electric fencing so they quickly respected the netting. They stayed in the hog panels for a few days before moving to just electric netting.

One of our goals, was to use the pigs to help clear some blackberry bushes. They did a pretty good job at this. They would eat all the leaves they could reach and dig up the roots. I would throw some of their food on the ground near the base of the blackberries to encourage them to dig in these areas. Every few weeks we would cut a new path through the blackberry thicket for the fence and move them into the new area.

Escapes

Pigs are notorious for escaping their pens and our pigs did escape a few times. The first time they escaped my wife and I were both working. We have cameras on our house and I got a motion alert. When I looked at it, I saw the pigs roaming around the property. Slightly panicked, I called my wife and she was able to take an early lunch break to run home. Luckily it was a hot day so they were just laying in the shade under a tree when she got home. They were excited to see her and followed her back into the pen.

They escaped a few more times but they never went very far and were pretty easy to get back into the fence. We learned it is better to lure them back instead of trying to chase and catch them. We would show them that we had a delicious treat, usually eggs which was one of their favorite foods, and walk back to the fence. Most of the time they would follow you all the way back. We started to notice a pattern. They would escape any time they had eaten most of the grass and blackberry leaves. After this we started moving them more frequently and they stopped escaping.

The pigs were a great addition to our homestead. They were smart, friendly and liked to play with our dog. They would get excited every time they saw us outside. There is no waste when you have pigs. In the end they provided us with a lot of clean, chemical free meat. Overall, we both really enjoyed the pigs and look forward to raising them again.