Oh my, pigs on the fly! Pic! got 'em!

[Mitra]

YAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!! Balloons and streamers falling from the sky for you and your piggies!

From the picture in the ad, they looked like they were free to roam on that farm. They are probably NOT trained to electric. For me, electric has been the best way to keep pigs where I want them to stay. I think they may be young enough still to train them to it. Whatever pen you have them contained in, put a single strand of electric in one corner of the pen, approx. between pig knee and snout level. They will investigate, get zapped, and learn quickly to leave that tape alone. After a few days of this "training", you can electrify the entire perimeter of their pen, electric tape on the inside of the pen. I don't know how far the pig pen is from the garden but once they are trained to electric, it would be easy to set them up in your garden area. A rectangle of hog panels and a single strand of electric on the inside and you can set ip up and move it around like a pig tractor. I guess the only issue would be getting them from their current pen to the new pen area. Since they follow treats already, that might not be too big of a problem.
For my feeder pigs, I give them hog grower free choice, and feed them a slop bucket twice a day on top of that. The slop bucket is clabber or whey, whole raw eggs with shell, kitchen scraps, and leftovers. I never feed them anything moldy or "off" - no moldy bread etc. I feed them all the chicken bones from our dinners or ones leftover from making stock. They are omnivores. They love meat. I feed them all kinds of leftover meat bits, except anything pork. I also feed them whole chickens, feathers, feet and all. Sometimes we just can't face dealing with the scalding , plucking, and gutting of an annoying rooster or young cockerel. We slit their throats and put the carcass in the pig pen. Next time we come out, there is NOTHING left. When chickens die inexplicably, as they sometimes do, I never feed those chickens to pigs - only ones I know are healthy. The only exception to this is my mutant meatbirds - when they have heart attacks - they become pig food. The best part of it is, nothing's ever wasted.
Have fun!

[Stacy]

Thanks! That was a big help.

Another question, how long do you suppose it'll be till we can process them? And if we choose to just do, say the boy first, then wait another month or so to do the girl, would the girl start to get into trouble because she was alone?

[missevelyn]

;D You go super mom!

Regina

[sigpros]

We have raised feeder pigs for a few years now, and I am no expert, but I will let you know what we do. We use straw in their houses and it is fine, just try to make sure it isn't moldy as that can make them sick. They will root around in it and make themselves some cozy beds. Our pens are made up of cattle panels and tposts. I know some people make anchors with tposts in bucket with concrete at corners and a couple in middle and wire cattle panels to them so they are portable. They will do wonders for your garden area. No need to plow after they get done with it! We have a small stock tank with heater in it and give them fresh water every day or two, because they don't like dirty water but they seem to always make it dirty.....grrr! They will probably chew on your wooden feeder and when they get bigger they will probably tear it up. We have a metal trough we use when we feed them scraps and they love to pick it up and move it. They do the same with the water tank. If you have to use a water heater then be sure to secure it to fence or they will take it out of tank and play with it. We don't feed ours any meat scraps unless it is like leftover hamburger helper, but no steak or chicken. Watch feeding too much bread as it can make them overly fatty. We have a self feeder so they can eat when they want. In order for them to gain the most you should have food available at all times as they eat throughout the day. If they are finishing their feed and still looking for more you might want to feed them more. They will eat until they are full and will leave food if they are full. If you don't have anyway to let them have food available at all times then you should try to feed at least twice a day. We use a mix of corn, alfalfa, and Kent protein supplement ground together into a fine mix. I don't think I would feed them whole corn as it isn't enough protein and they won't convert it as well, you will have a lot going to waste. I also take the moldy bread and rip off the moldy part. They LOVE milk and it is a great weight gainer. We let our hogs get to about 250 to 300 lbs which takes about 4 months when they are 50lbs. You will get decent size pork chops out of that size. Any smaller and there isn't much meat on the chops. Pigs are also a social animal and do better in groups. You would probably be ok to butcher boy then a few weeks later do girl. I think they are a lot of fun. They get to have such personalities. I think they are pretty easy to raise and don't require a lot, just food and water. You may want to worm them pretty soon. We use atgard. Just put a little bit on a piece of bread with peanut butter and feed it to them. We raise anywhere from 10 to 40 year around. There also is a way to tape them so you can track how big they are getting. I will look for the formula and send it to you. If you have any more questions just write or pm me and I will try to help you. Congrats

[Stacy]

OH yeah..I gotta question right away. HOW do you hold a pig to tape it?! These things freaked OUT when we had to move them yesterday. I'm not thinking I want to play with them all that much....

I'm SURE I'll come up with more questions... Thanks for the advice!!

[sigpros]

Well, I haven't been able to find formula, but I will ask hubby in morning. When they get used to their surroundings and get used to you being the one feeding them they settle down and can actually become little sweeties! We usually tape them when we feed them slop. We pick out the smallest one of bunch and use a sewing tape measure, the ones you buy in fabric dept. made out of vinyl like material. You measure around them right behind shoulders and then down topline from shoulder area to top of tail.

[Shelby]

Stacy,

What we found with raising our pigs to get them to stand still for anything, is to take a garden rake (Not a leaf rake) and use that to scratch their backs with it, they may be afraid of it at first so just be patient, but ours loved to be scratched by the rake.

[Janene]

Ohhh Shelby---"ancient Chinese secret", eh?!!! (Do you remember that commercial years ago??)
Good idea!!!
Janene

[Stacy]

;D ;D ;D Too funny!!! GOOD secret! I'll have to remember that! Kinda like the "drag 'em by the hind legs" one! But easier.

[Liz]

Here is the formula:
www.thepigsite.com/articles/541/weighing-a-pig-without-a-scale

[Stacy]

Thanks Liz. I don't think we need to worry about taping them just yet, but I will definately be using that in maybe a month or two to see where we're at.

The pigs are doing well out there. So far, so good. Thank goodness!

[sigpros]

thank you Liz for posting that. My computer crashed at Christmas, and I am just now able to get online. Yea!! I'm glad your pigs are doing well stacy. They are pretty easy to keep. Are they getting more used to you and your family yet?

[Stacy]

I think maybe they are. They seem to be growing a LOT now. Maybe because we have them more confined and we feed them quite a bit rather than them free ranging for feed? Either way, I may be using Liz's formula sooner than I thought!!

I got told last night a good way to move the pigs is to slap them in the jowls to get them to move where you want them. Anyone have a thought on that?

[Shelby]

We always put a bucket over their heads and pushed on it to make them go backwards and steered them with their tails.

Now the big sow we had we just had to call to her and rattle a bucket with a little grain, loaded up and moved pens like a dream.

[Stacy]

Now...I have another probably DUMB question... Do the males and females pee from a diff area? We're trying to find out if we actually have two females and not one castrated male. Mike said they both have pee coming from the same back area and both pee the same way. Ok...told you it was a dumb question!!

I can't BELIEVE how big these pigs have gotten in the SHORT amount of time we've had them. Of course, we have totally changed the dynamics. They were allowed to roam pretty far and scrounged for food in the woods 'au natural'. Now we've got them kept in a very small pen and are feeding them... maybe too much? They eat it all though (they don't like the carrots from the garden). The smaller one is almost indestinguishable from the larger one now as far as size is concerned. And I kid you not when I say they've probably put on 10 or more pounds each already! Probably more! We won't be keeping them long, as this is our first time trying this and we'd like to just put this small amount of effort into them and butcher to see if a future endeavor will be worth it to us. Mike wants to pick up one bag of corn when they are done with their last bag of hog feed and when that's gone, butcher.

[Liz]

Not a dumb question at all.
Watch them urinate--females urinate out the back and males urinate underneath.
Sounds like they are both girls!

[Stacy]

Well, then, we've got two girls it would seem! We'd always thought the bigger one was the boy!! It's a girl.

Thanks Liz for the info. (It felt dumb anyway! LOL) What an adventure!

[Liz]

Don't feel dumb, I thought we had a heifer calf once, I had completely overlooked the testicles!

[catherine]

ROFL...and we thought the calf our cow had last February was a boy, because the umbilical site hangs down and makes a she look awfully like a he. You just have to watch how critters pee.

Glad someone mentioned electric fencing to you. We swear by electrified poultry netting. We trained our pigs to electric with 2 low hot wires inside a cattle panel pen. The four pigs acted like they'd been attacked by a predator when they first touched the wires. They all freaked, braced their front feet facing outwards, with their hind quarters in to the center, on the look out for whatever "bit" them. Now, they won't go NEAR electric fencing! Good luck with your piggies...we love ours!

[outbackfarm]

They do grow fast, don't they. I just looked on the calendar and I got my 4 pigs Sept. 6. They were maybe 6-8 weeks old then. They go to butcher Jan. 14 and they are all probably between 200-250 pounds now. So in 4 months they have grown to be huge!

They have also ruined my whole pasture area that was my chicken yard. I'll have to use the money I get from 2 of them to pay a friend to come plow it all up and replant. It's about an acre of land they're on. They've done a good job on the garden, but really didn't want them to be where they are now. But a pig's gonna do what a pig's gonna do! And that's root til the fat lady sings. So I am so looking forward to Jan. 14. Can't come soon enough for me. I feel like a pig slave now.

Have fun with yours, Stacy.

Kris