Post by Tammy on Nov 30, 2010 8:58:41 GMT -5
We have successfully made it through the first chapter of our pig adventure!
We bought some "mutt" pigs from my brother in Georgia back at the end of May/first of June and then stopped in the Bedford, Virginia area and picked up some Red Wattles and Red Wattle crosses from Steve (rezefullacres). We were also picking up for friends, and we let them have two of the pigs we got from my brother and two of the pigs we got from Steve. That left us with two "mutt" pigs, two pure bred Red Wattles and two pigs that are 50% Red Wattle. (The mommas of these pigs are now owned by Stacy.)
It has been quite an adventure. All in all, things have gone very well. The biggest problem we had is that we were not set up correctly for the pigs and they learned to escape. We soon learned that the electric netting we had put up was not going to work for us (we should have used the netting inside of cattle panels at first and we did not). We then put up cattle panels and ran two strands of electric wire inside of the cattle panels. This worked very well except when the pigs got bigger and the females came in heat and knocked the gate down to get out.
We had one in the very beginning (a RW cross) that was smaller than the others and was somehow injured. She seemed to have an injury to her front leg but it took us a while to figure out exactly what was wrong with her. In the mean time, she pretty much gave up trying to compete for food and water with the other pigs and "gave up" on life. So, we separated her and nursed her back to health as a "single" pig. Of course, she became quite spoiled, received a name, and won her way into our hearts. My husband wanted to keep her, so Miss Piggy was spared from the date with the butcher. Miss Piggy healed up nicely and then my husband wanted to buy her a boyfriend. He saw a picture of a little "mutt" pig on CL and was intent on saving that little boar pig from a less than desirable end. So, we drove two hours round trip to pick up Zinger, the mutt boar. Zinger had been spoiled as well and is a big pet.
We never put Miss Piggy back in with the other pigs because we knew she would never be able to compete with them for food. We had a terrible time with her and Zinger getting out constantly. We did not have electric wire within their cattle panels and they would get out quite frequently.
We are suppose to get up to three inches of rain and are under flash flood warnings and we knew we would not be able to get the truck and trailer down the hill to load the pigs without getting stuck (lesson learned from loading ButterCupp in the rain a while back). The pigs are at the very bottom of a very large Virginia hill. We decided we better load them up last night and let them stay on the trailer for the next 48 hours until we take them in to the butcher. We had a young man help us and he and Mike had the first two loaded when I got outside to help. The last three were a pain in the behind. We do not have a chute and they had to step up onto the trailer. It was not a big step, but a step nonetheless. A 300 pound (estimate) hog does not step up very gracefully or easily! We had made a temp chute with cattle panels but the two RW's were smarter than that! They pushed up under the door of the trailer where the cattle panel met the side of the trailer. We would corral them and try again. Again they would scream and go under the trailer and run around the cow's pasture rooting and having a ball. Finally, we got them corralled in a smaller space and after much work, finally got them on the trailer. We know you can't "herd" a pig but the pigs were not falling for the old "I've got food routine" and we were not able to bribe them with food.
So, I guess the worst is over. We have them loaded, they are calm and happy in the back of the big cattle trailer where we will feed and water them until we get them to the butcher.
I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO looking forward to pork chops, hams, sausage, roasts, bacon, lard, etc!!!!!! The whole pig adventure has been very educational, although frustrating at times. We were fortunate not to have any health problems and the pigs grew very well on a diet of mostly milk.
We learned a lot about fencing and because we don't have the room to actually rotate the pigs to new pasture, we learned how quickly and how deep they can root! Wow! The next phase of our pig adventure will be breeding Miss Piggy and Zinger. If this goes well and we can get some better fences and housing and
make our mistakes and learn from the breeding and birthing experience with Miss Piggy and Zinger, we may begin raising pigs to sell as well as to butcher for ourselves and our customers.
I am still waiting to see if I can tell a difference between the RW and the "mutt" pork. We are going to have two hogs butchered for us and are going to get one of each so we can compare.
Maybe in time, once we have got all the "kinks worked out" and know what we are doing, we will get some purebred hogs to breed. That is my long term goal anyway.
Would be interested in hearing from others who have different breeds of purebred pigs with information as to why you chose the breed, what you like about them, and what their disadvantages might me. I would love to find a hog that doesn't root quite as much as the RW's although I won't let that be the determining factor in whether I end up raising them or not. I am very pleased with the look of the RW's and although they grew a bit slower than the other pigs, they got to a nice size in a short amount of time.
I am particularly interested in hearing from folks who have RW's, Mule-footed hogs, Great Black Hogs and the GS breed.
Not a good quality photo as it was taken at dusk and with my phone. It does give you an idea, however, on the size and conformation of one of the RW's we are taking to the butcher. This is actually the smallest hog we are taking as the other RW is bigger and the RW cross and "mutt" pigs are bigger than both the RW's.
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We bought some "mutt" pigs from my brother in Georgia back at the end of May/first of June and then stopped in the Bedford, Virginia area and picked up some Red Wattles and Red Wattle crosses from Steve (rezefullacres). We were also picking up for friends, and we let them have two of the pigs we got from my brother and two of the pigs we got from Steve. That left us with two "mutt" pigs, two pure bred Red Wattles and two pigs that are 50% Red Wattle. (The mommas of these pigs are now owned by Stacy.)
It has been quite an adventure. All in all, things have gone very well. The biggest problem we had is that we were not set up correctly for the pigs and they learned to escape. We soon learned that the electric netting we had put up was not going to work for us (we should have used the netting inside of cattle panels at first and we did not). We then put up cattle panels and ran two strands of electric wire inside of the cattle panels. This worked very well except when the pigs got bigger and the females came in heat and knocked the gate down to get out.
We had one in the very beginning (a RW cross) that was smaller than the others and was somehow injured. She seemed to have an injury to her front leg but it took us a while to figure out exactly what was wrong with her. In the mean time, she pretty much gave up trying to compete for food and water with the other pigs and "gave up" on life. So, we separated her and nursed her back to health as a "single" pig. Of course, she became quite spoiled, received a name, and won her way into our hearts. My husband wanted to keep her, so Miss Piggy was spared from the date with the butcher. Miss Piggy healed up nicely and then my husband wanted to buy her a boyfriend. He saw a picture of a little "mutt" pig on CL and was intent on saving that little boar pig from a less than desirable end. So, we drove two hours round trip to pick up Zinger, the mutt boar. Zinger had been spoiled as well and is a big pet.
We never put Miss Piggy back in with the other pigs because we knew she would never be able to compete with them for food. We had a terrible time with her and Zinger getting out constantly. We did not have electric wire within their cattle panels and they would get out quite frequently.
We are suppose to get up to three inches of rain and are under flash flood warnings and we knew we would not be able to get the truck and trailer down the hill to load the pigs without getting stuck (lesson learned from loading ButterCupp in the rain a while back). The pigs are at the very bottom of a very large Virginia hill. We decided we better load them up last night and let them stay on the trailer for the next 48 hours until we take them in to the butcher. We had a young man help us and he and Mike had the first two loaded when I got outside to help. The last three were a pain in the behind. We do not have a chute and they had to step up onto the trailer. It was not a big step, but a step nonetheless. A 300 pound (estimate) hog does not step up very gracefully or easily! We had made a temp chute with cattle panels but the two RW's were smarter than that! They pushed up under the door of the trailer where the cattle panel met the side of the trailer. We would corral them and try again. Again they would scream and go under the trailer and run around the cow's pasture rooting and having a ball. Finally, we got them corralled in a smaller space and after much work, finally got them on the trailer. We know you can't "herd" a pig but the pigs were not falling for the old "I've got food routine" and we were not able to bribe them with food.
So, I guess the worst is over. We have them loaded, they are calm and happy in the back of the big cattle trailer where we will feed and water them until we get them to the butcher.
I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO looking forward to pork chops, hams, sausage, roasts, bacon, lard, etc!!!!!! The whole pig adventure has been very educational, although frustrating at times. We were fortunate not to have any health problems and the pigs grew very well on a diet of mostly milk.
We learned a lot about fencing and because we don't have the room to actually rotate the pigs to new pasture, we learned how quickly and how deep they can root! Wow! The next phase of our pig adventure will be breeding Miss Piggy and Zinger. If this goes well and we can get some better fences and housing and
make our mistakes and learn from the breeding and birthing experience with Miss Piggy and Zinger, we may begin raising pigs to sell as well as to butcher for ourselves and our customers.
I am still waiting to see if I can tell a difference between the RW and the "mutt" pork. We are going to have two hogs butchered for us and are going to get one of each so we can compare.
Maybe in time, once we have got all the "kinks worked out" and know what we are doing, we will get some purebred hogs to breed. That is my long term goal anyway.
Would be interested in hearing from others who have different breeds of purebred pigs with information as to why you chose the breed, what you like about them, and what their disadvantages might me. I would love to find a hog that doesn't root quite as much as the RW's although I won't let that be the determining factor in whether I end up raising them or not. I am very pleased with the look of the RW's and although they grew a bit slower than the other pigs, they got to a nice size in a short amount of time.
I am particularly interested in hearing from folks who have RW's, Mule-footed hogs, Great Black Hogs and the GS breed.
Not a good quality photo as it was taken at dusk and with my phone. It does give you an idea, however, on the size and conformation of one of the RW's we are taking to the butcher. This is actually the smallest hog we are taking as the other RW is bigger and the RW cross and "mutt" pigs are bigger than both the RW's.
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These are of course the same people who keep pigs in small, filthy, dirt floor confinments wallowing in their own poo and urine... 
