Real Pig Farming

So what's he been doing? He spent too much time yakking and not enough time eating. Have at her. Good morning folks. We're up at site one today and as you can see pigs are all spread out after overstocks went out. We didn't record that this time just because you've seen it so many times but all the pigs are sorted out, evened out, and they're all in four pens running together so they got a lot more room now to run around. They got two feeders to eat out of, four water cups to drink out of, and they got plenty of room to mingle around and do their own thing. As you can see, pigs love it when we open up these pens. They love all the extra room, get to run around, just love the life. You know you got good luck, you got healthy pigs when they're all running around doing this. This is a good sign. They're all just chilling and laying down in the morning. That's when you know you might have a problem. These pigs are feeling good. So what we're going to do today is we're going to go through all the pens in this barn and we are going to just pull back anything that doesn't look right, anything that's, you know, small, anything that might look like it's sick, anything that might have an ailment on it. We're going to pull it out of the general population and put it in a fallback pig pen. There's two reasons really why we do that. One, as the pigs get older, they like to attack the weak link in their pen and that's just how pigs are. They're very territorial and if you leave a weaker pig in a pen full of, you know, pigs that aren't weak and they grow up and they get to be 300 pounds, they will attack the weakest link. So you want to get them out of there for its safety and for its health. And also the other reason is if you have a sick pig that's in the general population and you just leave that pig, it could get the rest of the pen sick. So it's good for both parties just to get those kind of pigs out of the general population and kind of put them all together in a fallback pig pen. Also sometime this week we're going to have to get rid of these mats and get them out of the pens because if we don't they'll chew on them like a chew toy and they'll be ruined and we won't be able to use them for other groups. I want to give you a quick update on the chew toys from Easy Fix. These are the small ones we put in when they're wiener pigs and honestly they held up pretty good. Tips are a little mangled but overall durability of them was pretty good. But I wasn't up at this site all the time like dad was so dad can give you a more in-depth kind of overall review of this, you know, in a bit. We're also going to throw in bigger toys today and give them those to see how they like them. All right Papa New Guinea, you ready to pull some pigs? Sure. Sure? I'm excited. That's not very enthusiastic. I'm ready. I'm ready. We're using panels today, why? Well pigs are bigger. Don't want to murder our backs. My arms are tiny. Is my camera? I look really good in it. Okay good. Oh you better get another gate because that don't work very well. We're taking them up to the north room, huh? Yeah here I'm just going to show the panel. Oh this is the other double, huh? This is the one that's going to probably break any time. Yeah they don't last as long as they used to. Nothing's made the same way it used to be. The hinge is not quite as good. That's the first thing that goes. Oh look at that, that's perfect. I know right? You want that one? You think that one goes? Yeah he can go out, he's not very big. This pig's just a little smaller than all the rest. Nothing seems to be bothering him, it's just a little smaller. Right here. This one's a little rough haired and he's smaller. Got one right here. Wild little bastards. Clearly you guys can see this pig just ain't, he's just got some challenges. Watch out for him. He's just, there's just pigs in a group that don't grow. Well and we probably, we should say, if you don't know, so this group of pigs that we've got here, they came in challenged because the sow unit they came from broke with furs and so they've had a tough, they've had a tough go of getting started. But they're good now, but that pig probably struggled with secondaries and it's taken its toll. So he probably won't make a full mark, a full market value pig. So when we started filling, the pigs were pretty healthy when we started and they were pretty healthy when we finished. And the pigs, whoops, the pigs in the were the ones that were the hard ones. They got it the worst. Yeah, compared to the rest of them, he's a pretty small pig. So what's he been doing? He spent too much time yakking and not enough time eating. There's fallback, then there's fallback part two. Okay, perfection right there. Last little bit of fallbacks here. Both barns have all the fallbacks sorted out now. We can feel good about that. Getting these out of here, this is just the reality of raising this many pigs. Most of the pigs are going to be winners, but not all of them are. And some of these guys are just, you know, they got some birth defects or they got an ailment or they got sick. So it's different for each pig, but these are not the winners of the masses. And that's just, that's real farming. Dad and I always say that I think the food industry and just agriculture in general has done a bad job of showing people what actual farming looks like and having this idea of a red barn and a pasture and with a white picket fence and having our pitchforks stuck in the ground. And here we are, we're farmers, but this is the stuff no one wants to show you. This is the stuff that is real, 100% transparent. And that's what we try to be here at Thistle Dew Farm is we try to show you guys what we actually do, what our day-to-day lives actually look like. And this is just one of the jobs that we have to do. Quite honestly, not all these pigs will probably make it, but some of them will make it. Most of them probably will make it, but I guarantee most of them won't make full market value pigs. That's just the reality of it. A lot of them will be made into sausage or hot dogs or something like that. Not your nice little pork butts, your pork loin, your pork chops, your bacon, any of that stuff. Most of them will make it to market, but they're not going to go as a 280 pound hog. You're not going to get your pork butt from this pig. You're going to get sausage from hot dogs. Yeah. And the main reason for that though is because it's not that there's going to be anything wrong with the meat. One, your major pack of plants, all their equipment is set up to handle a pig of a certain size, and these won't make that size. They'll be too small. It's the same thing we ran into with COVID when pigs got too big. We couldn't slaughter them because if any part of the pig touches anything, they have to throw it out for health reasons. Well, it's the same way on the small side. So any of these pigs that don't end up big enough, they've got to go to a secondary market, which that's somebody that their margin's a little greater on the product they sell so they can afford to process a pig that varies in size. And it's one of the hard parts about raising pigs is you want them all to do good, and you don't want a pig to suffer, and you want them all to be cookie cutter pigs. But there's so many things that play into it. There's genetics. When we were sorting these out, there were small pigs in multiple pens that I was convinced are probably all from the same litter because for whatever reason, the genetic trait that expressed itself, those pigs are just small. And then there's pigs that are challenged. There's pigs that get injured because there's nothing harder on a pig than another pig. If a pig gets injured, they are ruthless. And I think that's something that's portrayed that all these pigs are just, they're fun and they want to play, and they do, but they also have instinct. And the instinct is that if there's somebody to pick on, they're going to pick on them. And they're as hard on each other as any animal I've ever seen. So, I mean, it's all stuff that people just don't talk about. But that's the reality of raising pigs is you're not going to get all those pigs to go to market. You're going to have pigs die. You're going to have pigs get injured. You're going to have pigs get ruptured. And you just have to do the best you can. And you take care of them the best you can every day. And this business is not for everybody. And that's something I don't think that gets talked about enough. The people that do it, you have to be diligent. You have to be here every day. It's not the easiest job in the world, but I love doing it. And it gives us freedom to do what we want to do when we're not doing this. And I enjoy taking care of pigs. So, they're good listeners. They don't steal my snacks out the refrigerator. Sawyer does that sometimes. And it tastes good. It's good. But yeah, these are all new. Everything looks a whole lot better now that we've got them sorted, except for these runt pens. But we'll go through. And if there's anybody that we can treat, we'll treat them. And the best thing for them is to be with pigs their own size. And they'll come around. They'll look. We'll show you here. We'll show you here in a week or two. And they'll all look a lot better being with pigs their own size. All right, Dad. So, what's your overall thoughts on the EasyPix pig toys? We're actually standing in the pen, one of the pens that we put these little ones in. And I think the key with the little ones is you definitely want to be careful how long you leave them in there. And we left them in too long. I mean, we took them out before the pigs were anywhere near this big. But they reach an age where as soon as they can start grinding a little bit, they're going to eat them up. You just have to pay attention. And if you see one that the tip starts getting chewed up, it's time to get them out of there. So, we're going to throw in some of the bigger ones. And there's actually three sizes. This is the medium sized one. And I actually have a couple of these that I threw in our fallback pens. And we'll look and show you those. But this is like the grow finish one or the finisher one. So, you can see quite a bit bigger. So, we'll throw it in here and see how they like it. So far, the way I've seen them is they're a lot like anything in a pen that a pig can get a hold of. When they find it initially, they just go ham on it. No pun intended. And they really like it. But then they get bored. Like, they roll it in a corner and then if they walk by and see it, they'll chew on a little bit. But it's not like they are actively playing with them. Once the newness wears off, they kind of just leave them alone. Have at her. You want to throw this one in too? Yeah. So, this is one of the smaller ones. You can see that's the difference. Now, that one we won't leave in. We'll take it out sooner. But we'll leave that one in longer and see. I think they like them. But it's just, yeah. It's like what you said. Yeah. After the newness wears off, they kind of just don't care really anymore. They're on to the next. It just becomes normal so they don't worry about it. Let's go in the other room. I'll show you where we've got one that I threw in, oh, two weeks ago. So, this is what I notice almost every morning when I come in here. The one that I threw in. And this is one of our fallback pens. So, this is the smallest pigs out of the group. But when I come in here, it's stuck in a corner. So, these bigger pieces with these fingers, they can get stuck in the gates. I mean, they're not really stuck, but they get them in there where they don't spin. I throw it out there every morning and they roll in a corner. The next day. The next day. And maybe that's the, you know, I mean, maybe that's what you're supposed to do. But if I had a barn full of them, I wouldn't be doing that. I mean, it's just too much time. So, but you see like when you throw it out there, they love it. The more they're chewing on that, the less they're chewing on my boots. So, I guess that's a good deal.