The Ultimate Guide to Raising Pigs on a Homestead

The ability to have bacon anytime you want. Bacon that is easy to breed. Composting, the ability to clear land. My name is Beau Brotherton and that's what we're going over today is the five mistakes to avoid when raising pigs either on pasture or what we do in the forest. And definitely stay to the end because I'm going to give you a bonus mistake that we messed up so bad. But before look at these piggies. Missy just gave birth probably about three days ago to five strong healthy pigs. So we raise Idaho pasture pigs here on our farm and there was a reason why we ended up choosing to do Idaho pasture pigs. The biggest one was that we have five kids and we wanted a nice sweet docile breed so that our kids could be able to work with them. I'll show you in a bit. Bill, our boar, he is just the sweetest thing. Any pigs will still be able to eat you alive. Hence the expression as greedy as a pig. But the Idaho pasture pig was bred so that they were nice, sweet, gentle and they grow a little bit longer than the bigger pigs but it's still a perfect quality homestead pig. All right the first mistake you want to avoid is not having proper water procedures mainly for southern climates because we're down here in central Texas and we're hitting 100 degrees already and it's just early June and definitely definitely we have to make sure that our pigs have enough water. Really what you want whenever you're in a southern climate is you want to make sure that your pigs have a wallow. They don't sweat through their skin and they need a way to cool themselves down. Okay so I'm going to share with you the two systems that we use for water. We just do the standard bins. It's not what we like. It's not the favorite but here in the heat we just want to give them a lot of water and the second is of course the standard pig waterer and a 55 gallon drum with a nipple right there so that they can get free choice water at all times. All right the second mistake you want to avoid is not having adequate shelter and housing from the element. I'm going to share with you the three type of housings that we have but really the number one thing that we've learned. I was out there in the sun unfortunately that's where we had to build Missy's pen whenever she had the piglet. We're going to move her soon but now that I'm in the shade you can see I am under a canopy right now and it has got to be 10 plus degrees different here in the forest. There is big boy Bill. He is just happy as can be. That's the best thing is if you can put them in the forest that is the best way to get out of the element. All right so this is the very first shelter that we built whenever we first started raising pigs. Basically all it is is you just take whatever you have on the farm and you stack it all together and you just scrap stuff together and you make a little hut. So this is what the older piglets are sleeping under and they don't mind it that much. We basically just took some shipping crates stacked them together put some screws found any kind of scrap metal or any corrugated roofing that we have. I even have an IBC tote over there to like give a little bit more stability and this thing has held up for about you know 18 months. It's been a good lifespan for this and they sleep in it every single night. We throw bedding under there and they move it all around and make it comfortable however they want. I just ended up putting some extra stuff through there to kind of give them a break from the wind during the winter if there's ever a big storm. It is ugly but it does the trick. It doesn't have to be pretty. Now I am going to show you here in a second number two and number three and I do love number three basically because it costs a little bit more money but it the best thing that we could do and not having reaction farming what we call it. Reaction farming is a storm's coming you've got piglets you need to build a hut this is something number three and number two a little bit that are easy to do. So we're back over here where Bill is I'm going to show you the second house. This is basically just cattle panels cut in half so this is a 16 foot cattle panel cut in half and we just put some t-posts in there there's a t-post right there and basically it's just a little hoop so it's two of these that are bent over it's just two different panels you can see under here you see that extra panel that second panel right there and it just gives them a little bit of shade and protection from the elements here under the forest. All right now we're back in the sun because the sun's setting this is the third one by far our favorite this porta hut and we just found a local store in near Dallas and this is the best thing this thing is easy to move it is fantastic it is built like a tank it's got an opening right there so that you can get some extra airflow but I wish wish wish that we had something like this in the winter whenever Missy was having babies in the winter time because this thing is just awesome. Okay y'all mistake number three that you want to avoid is not having sufficient fencing and containment. I'm going to share with you how we do our pig paddocks really for number five you're going to be taught I'm going to be showing you our electric fencing that's good but I'm going to they're going to merge here in number three so this is kind of a fast paddock that we did and it's minimum we're going to extend it that way it'll give her more shade and a little bit more space we just had to do this fast because we were behind so this panel you can just get this at tractor supply basically everything we buy is pretty much a tractor supply this is just a panel so a hog panel is different from a cattle panel it has tighter bottom wires here gaps so that the little piggies can't get through and so what you do is you put three posts per panel so you go one two three on that side it's one two three on that's the back side so you want to go ahead and make those all nice and tight then you really want to make sure that each of these panels have a wire in as well missy is pretty trained here to the place so she's used to this but if you get a new pig that is not used to your place you definitely want to make sure that they are contained because i have seen a pig push through a little gap here because they did not tighten this this actually needs to be tightened a little bit more so this is a mistake that i'm doing right now but i'm not too worried about missy she stays wherever she is so this is how you make a pin then what you would do in order to train them to electric fencing is you would put one or two strands of the same color hot wire that you're going to use whenever you put them over in your paddock shifting we use white electric wire and you would just have a wire that comes on the inside because what you know is this hog panel is a physical barrier they cannot get through but then when you see the electric wire this is a mental barrier a mental barrier a physical barrier so bill he's the best train he is always super calm he doesn't ever challenge this because he doesn't want to get shocked and what we've learned is a actual plugged into the wall ac powered electric fence charger is way more powerful than a solar one so especially for pigs we don't rely on solar power we plug it straight into the wall and it gets hot man if you zap yourself it hurts all right mistake number four that you need to avoid is neglecting their hygiene and health now pigs are tough they are super super tough animals but it doesn't mean that you need to just think that they're going to take care of themselves all of these mistakes are all going to work together you definitely need to make sure that you're mucking the paddock if they're in a pin like two sets of our pigs bill is out here rotating the pigs it's not like a cow cows are just going to poop everywhere it doesn't matter pigs are going to poop and pee in one specific spot wherever you move them they're going to locate where they want their bathroom to be and they are going to stay right there so you it's easy to muck it up just clean it up it's a piece of cake make sure you do that so that they are nice and clean and healthy you also want to make sure that they're getting a balanced feed kitchen scraps we give them basically any kind of kitchen scraps except we don't give them like avocado pits or any kind of other fruit pits we separate all those things from the pig bucket that as well as we don't give them coffee grounds and then for pigs when in doubt especially Idaho pasture pigs