It was a fluke, sort of, that I got a breeding group of pigs. I had obtained two “feeder pigs” to see if I could raise them for the freezer. I spoiled them, named them, and they had the run of the farm because they could get under the gates quite easily. I didn’t really mind. They were cute and would follow me everywhere. The closer we got to their butcher date, the more they earned their new names: “the terrorists”. I started calling them that because their love of food outweighed everything else. They would get in the chicken run, go up the ramp into the hen house, and eat all the chicken feed. They would find and eat the cats’ or dogs’ food. They would take grain from the milk cows if they could find a way to. They found their way under multiple fences and even into the garage if I accidentally left a door open. The garage is where I keep feed containers for all the animals. I also keep buckets of “clabber”. Clabber is fermented milk (excess cow’s milk) that I would feed to the pigs and chickens. More than once I had to empty the garage and power wash it to clean up their messes. They even greeted me at the front gate after I had run errands in town, and as soon as I opened the gate to drive in, they were off and running down to the road. They easily came back once I called them, but can you imagine chasing pigs down a country road?
Before they became “terrorists”, and in speaking with the family I got the feeder pigs from, I agreed to purchase the family’s breeding stock. They told me they were moving to the American Redoubt and would only be taking their cattle with them. I thought that I could give raising pigs a try. I knew that I needed a whole bunch of electric fencing and I got to work on that before I got the breeding group. Everything I had read, and videos I had watched, about Idaho Pasture Pigs was impressive. They don’t root up your pasture, they can graze with the cattle, they don’t need much feed – just 4 pounds a day, friendly and non-aggressive, smaller in size, etc. And their meat was purported to be dark and rich rather than the pale pork in the grocery store. I have an “organic” farm, in that I don’t use hormones, pesticides, antibiotics, or GMO feed. I thought it might be a good idea to raise this wholesome pork for the freezer, and sell the excess.
What I did not know, or did not intellectually absorb, even after reading “the book” on Idaho Pasture Pigs, is that I needed three or more dedicated areas for the breeding stock. I had just two. You need a dedicated (and hot-wired) area for each group: the boar and barrow, each sow and her piglets, and feeder pigs.
Definitions: a “boar” is an adult male intact pig; a “barrow” is a castrated adult male pig; a “sow” is an adult female pig who has had piglets; a “gilt” on the other hand is a female pig who has not yet had piglets; and to birth piglets is called to “farrow”.
Some people, I have learned, throw all their pigs together in a pasture like one big happy family. However, sows are very protective of their own litters and will kill, or attempt to kill, another pig for trespassing. Boars just want to mate with every possible female in heat so unexpected litters can and do happen. Sows can have multiple litters each year. The barrow is just for keeping the boar from being lonely when separated from the ladies, or, sows.
I realized that each sow, both supposedly pregnant when I obtained them, needed their own separate farrowing area. The boar and barrow needed their own separate area. The feeder pigs were female, so they had to be kept away from the boar. Counting… that is four separate areas that I needed to designate and each area needed to be hot-wired, needed shelter, and waterers and feeders. I used a combination of single strand wire close to the bottom of the fence line and electric net fencing. I purchased and set up solar energizers so I wouldn’t have to run electricity from the house. I had the shelters. I thought I had it figured out! Mostly, I did.
The first sow farrowed beautifully on her own. Her average litter size was 8. She birthed 8 piglets, but 1 was stillborn. It is expected that you may lose 1 or 2 piglets at birth, or because the sow may accidentally lay down on one and smash it. The 7 piglets were very healthy and robust. I was proud of the sow. She was an excellent mother and had no problems keeping her litter well tended to. My job was to make sure she had fresh food, water, and hay since I had led her out of the pasture, and put her in a barn stall for the birth where I could keep an eye on her away from the other pigs. Sows will nest, just like other animals. She remade her nest of fresh hay a thousand times before she had her babies.
A few days after farrowing, I moved her to a more permanent location where there was some room to roam with her piglets and a good shelter. She easily followed a feed bucket to her new home, and I loaded the piglets up in a wheelbarrow and brought them to her. She did very well in her new location. She taught her pigs to forage, eat, drink, and where to go potty. Pigs like to select a location for the sole purpose of defecating. They are actually a lot cleaner than people give them credit for. At least, pasture pigs are. Their claim to fame is that they can live on pasture like ruminants (cows, sheep, goats, etc.).
The second sow was obviously not pregnant because I witnessed her allowing the boar to breed her. As confirmation, her due date came and went. She would stay in the pasture with the boar and barrow until it was her time for special treatment of a birthing suite in the barn.
I honestly thought things were going swimmingly well considering I had no idea what I was doing. And they were, until they weren’t.
Mistakes I made:
- Treating the feeder pigs like pets and letting them free range across the farm
- Solar fence energizers… I wish you luck if you invest in them. They are prone to dying on you.
- Not having in place the correct number of needed areas for class of pigs (boar, sows, piglets, feeders), well fenced and hot-wired in advance.
I fixed most of my mistakes fairly quickly, but it was a mad dash. We had weeks of overcast weather and the solar fence energizers were not holding a charge. The pigs figured out the fences were not hot pretty quickly. I had pigs busting out all over the place. My dogs, who consider themselves farm guardians went wild chasing pigs back to where they belonged. That caused more busted fencing, terrified swine, and dogs frothing at the mouth. Not good. There was one instance where I woke up to tiny piglets racing around the front yard and one of my German Shepherds could not resist those little, cute, squealing, things. What dog doesn’t love a good chase? Well, mama sow found no humor whatsoever in the situation. She busted through a couple of fences and came after that dog like a gorilla on steroids. She actually scared the bloody snot out of that big dog. I did find that quite humorous. He really needed to be taken down a notch or two by another animal. No pigs were ever hurt during the insanity that occurred. No dogs were hurt either, although I wanted to hurt them. I was thankful for that as I herded dogs, and piglets to where they belonged, repaired the fences, and swapped out solar energizers as fast as I could. (You need spares!)
I did not enjoy that particular day. In fact, it was all beginning to wear on me.
The 3 things that made the pig experience negative for me was: costs, bad fencing, and a saturated market.
1). The pigs want way more food than they’re supposed to have. Hence, the expression “Don’t be a pig.” I am committed to raising my animals without the aid of GMO grain. That means, either I grow their food, or I buy non-GMO grain. Most corn and soy in this country, likely candidates for calories and protein, are GMO. I chose to buy the non-GMO manufactured feed (primarily wheat-based). Grain costs have gone way up. When you are paying $16-17 for a 50lb bag (and that’s on the cheap side) and your pigs go through a 50lb bag every day, that equates to at least $500/month in just feed for the few pigs that I had. You can’t sell “organically raised pasture pigs” for a high enough price to recover that cost. I have heard of people pricing “pastured” pork at the highest prices tolerable and still be in the hole when it’s all said and done. I’m not up for that.
2). Unreliable fencing. Having the electric fencing go down on and off, on and off, was a nightmare. If I ever do this again, which is highly doubtful, I will hard wire the electric fencing rather than use solar. We rarely have power outages here, but it’s something to think about. I would also invest in pig panels rather than using welded wire field fencing, which is what I have. Field fencing is a zero deterrent to a 200+lb pig running at full tilt. My feeder pigs would push themselves under fences when they learned which fences were hot-wired and which ones weren’t.
3). I couldn’t sell all the piglets. I sold two, but that left me with 5 unsold piglets. There’s only so much pork one can put in the freezer! A common getting-to-know-you kind of question in the homesteading groups is, “So, how many freezers do you have?”
If any of you are successful pig farmers, please excuse my mess. I am a former city girl just learning the ropes. I have tried to self-educate, like most modern-day homesteaders. Sometimes we do really well and sometimes we don’t. I would call the pig experiment a bust for me. Now, having said that, I am still up for raising a couple of feeder pigs now and again. I have learned all the lessons the hard way. I sold the entire breeding group including most of the new piglets, and did so before the other sow could farrow. I was sad the day they left, and incredibly relieved. There are only 4 pigs left on the farm: 2 feeders headed to the butcher soon, and 2 piglets promised to another homesteader so they will be gone soon too. I should also say that by “sold”, I did an exchange for another type of animal with another homesteading family. No money was exchanged, just animals (a story for another time). Why in the world did I do that? Because the homesteading pig market is fairly well saturated and I could not sell the pigs. Neither did I have an idea that it was saturated, until I tried to sell. I had a couple of choices – they all go to the butcher or I do the trade. It was almost a total loss.
Last words: I, in no way, want to disparage the breed of pigs – Idaho Pasture Pigs. They truly are a lovely pig and my issues on the farm had nothing to do with the breed of pig. They truly are friendly, smaller than commercial breeds, and they truly do forage on pasture. They don’t root up a field. The boar was not aggressive at all – quite a friendly guy actually. They love to be talked to, petted, and will follow you around.
This failure was all on me, my dogs, and the way I run this farm. I am grateful for the experience. I learned a ton in a short timeframe. I am happy to report that no pigs were injured during this experiment and they were very well treated here. I hope my little story of failures helps any new pig adventurers to pick up something here that they needed so they can successfully raise pigs.