Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Picking Up Piggies...

This is a day that I have been waiting for, and today it is finally happening. Today I'm going to pick up a bred Hereford sow and 5 pigs from her first liter that are Berkshire crosses. I would call them feeder pigs (and I could have called them that earlier), but I believe the better word for them right now is shoats. I am excited to see what these pigs are like and how the finish, but I am most excited about the bred Hereford sow. She is bred to a Hereford boar so we will be getting some thoroughbred (I've been reading a lot of "Harris on the Pig" lately) pigs from her first liter. Who knows ... maybe some of the gilts could be the foundation of a pig herd on our farm.

But, picking up the pigs is the easy part. The real work was getting a new spot ready for the pigs and getting it all fenced in. Our garden was going to go where last falls pigs were raised (we will see if that actually works out) so we needed to find a new spot until our perimeter fence is put in place. I had to tear down the old pen, which was much easier because the ground is rather soft (pulling posts out was easy), and then set up the new fence. I'm all about working smarter, so I am using one side of the cattle lot as the new pig pen and then I only had to set up three sides.

Everything is ready now and before soccer practice this afternoon I will have some new pigs on the farm. Hopefully all will go well and I will have pictures tomorrow!

4 comments:

The Beginning Farmer's Wife said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Art Blomquist said...

Petty Exciting I hope it goes well. Were thinking about adding a few pigs to the enterprise this year.

Jena said...

Very cool! I have to say I'm reading "Dirt Hog" now thanks to your suggestion. I'm only part way through the housing chapter and I'm having a bit of trouble picturing the different structures he is referring to. I'll have to google each one and see if I can find some picture. I've been talking with another farmer that raises Tamworths so we'll see where this road leads.

Can't wait to see the new pigs in their home! That looks like a pretty nice, secure setup. Good luck and congratulations!

Rich said...

"...Our garden was going to go where last falls pigs were raised (we will see if that actually works out)..."

I'm curious by what you mean by 'if that actually works out'? Was the impact from the pigs different from what you originally expected or have you decided on something like different gardening plans?

Are you planning on changing anything about the way you raise this group of pigs compared to the last group?

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...