tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35188043.post7309997236736871889..comments2023-11-07T06:51:41.301-06:00Comments on The Beginning Farmer: The Pigs :: The GoodEthan Bookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01333115493519268802noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35188043.post-4824437393238585612012-02-02T17:30:39.704-06:002012-02-02T17:30:39.704-06:00Just found your blog, and enjoyed this post! The s...Just found your blog, and enjoyed this post! The same is true for humility on our ranch.doublehphotohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01633740191240984845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35188043.post-80603203609013516382011-11-06T11:56:03.628-06:002011-11-06T11:56:03.628-06:00We load pigs to take to the butcher weekly and hav...We load pigs to take to the butcher weekly and have developed some tricks that make it go easily and smoothly. We're gathering a few pigs, one week's load, from out of the 100 or so out in any pasture.<br /><br />1. Train your pigs to come when you call. Food is the way to a pig's heart. Every time you feed, use a call. Teach them to follow you - a white bucket with some bread in it works wonders. Just don't get mobbed.<br /><br />2. Make some sorting boards. Ours are about 6'x3' sheets of stiff plastic, maybe 1/4" material. They are the sides of 60 gallon drums we cut off and flattened out. Works wonders for sorting and moving pigs.<br /><br />3. Learn about flight zones and how to move pigs. Temple Grandin has a lot of videos, books and articles about this. Good stuff.<br /><br />4. Have sorting pens with gates. Feed the pigs into the primary sorting area, sort out the ones you don't want. Sort further to the next area the ones you do want. Then move them on.<br /><br />5. Have a well setup staging and loading area for getting the pigs into the vehicle. We use a Ford Econoline E-350 extended body van which we put an animal transport space in the back two thirds that docks with our final sorting staging area's ramp. It is a breeze to move the pigs from there up the chute to the van. Then they ride in comfort to the butcher.<br /><br />6. Setup your farm as a cycle of life with the animals progressing around the rotation of pastures to the loading area. This is something we have been gradually perfecting, each year improving a little. We're working on building our butcher shop at the end of this cycle.<br /><br />7. Dogs. Livestock herding and guarding dogs. They are amazing. It takes time to train them but they do the work of five people.<br /><br />8. Patience. Take your time. Get things setup. Rinse and repeat. Work out the patterns. It comes with time. We do this 52 times a year and over time have worked out lots of little details that work with our terrain, climate, etc. (For example, herding in the winter is different than in the summer because the snow acts like fencing.)Walter Jeffrieshttp://sugarmtnfarm.com/blognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35188043.post-70504620257320346462011-10-22T16:44:04.336-05:002011-10-22T16:44:04.336-05:00I can't find the link, but somewhere I have se...I can't find the link, but somewhere I have seen plans for a simple set of portable sheep working pens that had a forcing pen (swinging gate and semicircle fence) with a short chute. Something like that might also work for pigs.<br /><br />Since you have both sheep and pigs, in the long run it might make sense (and also save a little work) if you had a centralized or portable set of pens to sort both pigs, sheep, and possibly calves (although I'm not sure how big Dexter calves are).Richhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11412944120622315804noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35188043.post-15030746376301238292011-10-19T15:23:07.004-05:002011-10-19T15:23:07.004-05:00From one Beginning Farmer too another
Just a coup...From one Beginning Farmer too another<br /><br />Just a couple of thoughts on what I have learned so far, I don't have as many pigs as you so I built a 12 x 14 ft hog house that all the pigs sleep in. All the feeding and watering is done next to the house when it comes time to ship and thee pigs are feeding I can close off a 32 x 32 ft pen when the pigs go in the house I have another gate to keep them in the house, on the back of the house that is outside the main pen I put in<br />a "guillotine door" that opens into a kill pen (I do my own butchering for personal use) that doubles for a loading chute once in they can't turn around or go back only forward This combination has made things a lot easier for me<br /><br />JimBig Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10362375430672534393noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35188043.post-16812995908467556082011-10-19T12:40:31.859-05:002011-10-19T12:40:31.859-05:00Thank you for this great article. I'm looking ...Thank you for this great article. I'm looking into getting pigs for the first time soon and this gives me a boost of confidence :)Shawnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04287884577441507850noreply@blogger.com