Pigs

[Wolf-Kim]

Just thought I'd get it off the other thread.

We just raise them for ourselves to use. We process 1 per week and sell a few to our friend, the custom slaughterhouse. We sell whole hog sausage and chops each weekend at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market. Do very well.

get a few hogs. they are just so easy to raise and the meat is wonderful. I am a porker..LOL..I just love pork....even though I personally don't like the hogs, I love them on the plate.

We love pork as well. I keep bugging Adam to go hunt the feral hogs again. The first one he took was a 130# sow, we cut her into ribs and tenderloin, then used the rest to make the best sausage I have EVER eaten.

There have been a few people selling weaners and various sized pigs on CL in our area. I hesitate, because I would like to get a cow first, that way all the "extras" from the cow, to the pigs.

Maybe you'll be able to help me out. Our pasture is electric fencing, 3 strands, and the 3 is not low enough in some areas to keep a hog in. I was reading "Raising the Homesteading Hog" and they said I could tether a hog, just like a dog. Is there a special harness for this, or is it simply a rope around the neck? How well does a tether work? We just want to be able to put the hog whereever we want, and not have to worry about it getting into the garden. The horses did last year and the blackberries recovered this year and bore no fruit.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

tether a pig!??!? wow i'd love to hear what FC says about that!

i cant imagine it would work, tho - ours have always been incredibly strong. humm

can you add another wire so the electric is low enough? or could you add another smaller area to keep them in or use portable electric?

ours have never gotten out - electric fencing is a dream.

or you could just use hog panels and heavy duty tposts and shift them around that way. but be advised, moving pigs isnt easy.... we had the misadventure of moving them this summer and it was a nightmare.

do you have an area that you want cleared?? we are using ours to 'hog down' a big area of poison ivy (no it doenst hurt their skin) and they are doing a great job. we're feeding cooked eggs - and when we were milking, tons of goat milk. the great thing about pigs is that they 'one season' - and not a year round thing.

good luck!

 

[big brown horse]

"tether a pig!??!? wow i'd love to hear what FC says about that!"


Do pigs even have necks?!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

thats what i was trying to imagine.... hummm...

honestly they are just one huge muscle.. i think they would just start walking, put the stake out and keep going! wowza!

plus you wouldnt want to take a chance and ruin the jowl... if you know what i mean (licking chops from breakfast of fried, smoked jowl......heavenly.....)

;-)

 

[FarmerChick]

HA HA HA
Do they have necks?



Honestly I don't have a clue. I never tried to tie a hog. I do not have any idea if it would be OK or not.

Mostly not I would think because being small when bought, they would be fair game for a predator. Dogs could easily kill a small hog. Of course at night you could "walk" it on a leash into a barn?? LOL---I don't think it would "walk" well on a rope.

I never did it.


One thing is while small they are manageable....when bigger---they do what they want, when they want, why they want and do not care a fig about YOU. They are very hard to deal with and it ain't no joke..HA HA

A permanent pen with shelter etc. would be the best I would think.
Or electric tight low strand fencing that couild be slightly movable with their shelter in there.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

When I read it, I thought the exact same thing! "I didn't even know they had necks!" I thought, this person must not know what they are talking about, because if a dog can slip a collar, I'm sure a hog with those big fat necks would slide one right over their heads.

How low must an electric fence be? I think ours is roughly 12-18 inches high in some places. It's only used to keep horses in, and maybe a cow. We do have an acre in the back, that's wooded/swampish and overgrown. It creates a triangle of cattle fence and the third side is the horse pasture. Would hogs stay in cattle fence or would they push under? May just have to run electric along the inside. They'd be in heaven back there, root it all to helll. LOL

 

[FarmerChick]

yea you have to give them a cooler type area. pigs don't have sweat glands that is why they wallow and root also in the ground...to create cool places to lay. they heat up fast.

pigs sunburn and get overheated quickly so that is definitely something to consider when pasturing them

 

[Wolf-Kim]

The back acre is perfect for them, because it it forested and in the lower spots it's actually marshy. The horses were "escaping" one year and we could never figure out where they were going. Well, we set up a deer stand in the woods, and noticed that there were horse trails all around back there. In the heat of summer, they were going back down in there and hanging out. We've stopped them from doing that because the fence was down in a couple of areas and they were truly getting "out"(chasing a horse through early morning traffic is NOT fun) AND they were eating the corn we were throwing out for the deer. LOL. With the thought of getting a cow and maybe a couple of pigs, we would fix the fencing.

Thank everyone.

Roughly, how long does it take a hog to reach a market size?
And about how long before they are able to be fairly predator free? Young ones, we'd probably keep in the barn until a decent size they could fend for themselves.

 

[user251]

im just bgetting into raising pigs for the table and am curious to know what is the best breed for meat, we have the pen ready but just dont know when to get one or which type to get.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

firem3, thank you so much for reviving this thread. I just realized from the posts above that I have a perfect spot for a pig, if I can fence it in adequately.