Winter Farrowing :: Huts and Hay

Winter farrowing has been on the forefront of my mind lately (in case you haven't noticed), and as I look at the 8-day forecast and see highs around 30ºF the many ideas I have keep tumbling around in my mind. So far I've talked about traditional hoop buildings ... greenhouse type hoop buildings ... and of course using a deep bedding system in either option. If you read my post last Friday you were introduced to Becker Lane Organic Farm and the report he did on his greenhouse farrowing building (with in-floor heat). But, as I made my way over to his website and Facebook page I saw the picture above (here is a link to the description of that picture from the Becker Lane Organic Farm Facebook Page). A quick e-mail to Mr. Becker led me to the knowledge that they now farrow outside year-round in insulated huts either made by, or similar to, Booth Pig Equipment huts.

Which all led me to thinking ... maybe a building of any type isn't my solution ... maybe I just need some big straw bales, a wind break, and some insulated huts. In fact Mr. Becker's farm does not even use heat lamps in his huts so he is only using the work of the insulation, bedding, and the sow's body heat. I don't know why I haven't thought about this more since I have known that Mr. Walter Jeffries of Sugar Mountain Farm has been writing about outdoor winter farrowing since at least 2006. You can read about his experience here ... and here! The great thing about Mr. Jeffries posts is that at the bottom of the posts he gives you the outdoor temperature, so you can tell that it is working in cold conditions.

There are multiple things running through my mind as I think more about outdoor winter farrowing. I worry about mud because as you can see in the picture above those sows only have a little area in front of the hut and in the freeze and thaws of our winters in Southern Iowa that space could become very muddy. I can also see that protection from wind and precipitation would be very important to weaning a good number of pigs from each litter. But, in my mind one of the most important things would be good mothering sows. I think it would be important to have sows that were very careful and caring with their pigs in order to protect them from crushing.

Pretty much all that I have decided after a few weeks of obsession over winter farrowing is that I just need to get out there and explore different options that farmers are using in my state. So, after the holidays I hope to do a little "tour" of some different winter farrowing set-ups. If you happen to be in my area and are willing to let me stop by I'd love to hear from you. Or if you wouldn't mind doing a "virtual tour" and sharing it with others on the blog I'd love to hear from you!

For now though ... does anyone have any thoughts on or experiences with outdoor winter farrowing?

Mud and Farrowing Fun ...

It has been unseasonably warm lately. The kind of warm that has me thinking about spring and green grass, but I'm trying to keep myself grounded and remember that it is still the middle of February. Obviously the frost hasn't left the ground yet, but the top couple of inches are thawing and making everything nice and muddy ... which I'm not going to complain about! The warm weather though came at just the perfect time though because yesterday my second Tamworth sow farrowed in the lean-to off the back of the shed. You can check out my Twitter feed to see the new picture.

This sow was the last of the group of four I purchased a few weeks ago and so far so good with her. Well I guess I should say ... so far so okay. She, like the others, would not farrow in the huts and I'm a little disappointed that the instinct of building a nest in them did not come out like I've experienced with some of my other sows (the Hereford and the crosses). She did only lose one so far (it was dead when I found it) and after a few hours I was able to get her calmed down and in the hut with her pigs. I checked her throughout the night and then again this morning and the only problem was that one little pig had found its way out. I nailed a board up on the door hoping to keep them in, but I did that last night as well and the sow wouldn't go in ... I'm hoping that her spending the night in the hut will take care of that problem.

It's during these farrowing times and other times like this that I realize just how much I have to learn! Don't get me wrong, I do feel like I've come a long way, but there are plenty of times when I feel like things aren't going well and I don't know what I'm doing! You just have to keep your chin up and keep pressing on though ...

Some Good Pigs...

If you have been following the blog the last few days you have seen the new pigs that were born on the farm and you have probably figured out that I'm pretty pleased with the mothers. Other than the fact that the gilts decided to both camp out in the same hut and have their babies things could not have gone better. Between the two of them there were eighteen born and now they are six days into their life and we have not lost a single one ... even with the cold temperatures and stress of moving pigs and chasing around the gilts to get them each in their own hut!

I had made three huts available to the gilts and each hut had over a bale of bedding in them. I noticed right away that they were sharing the same hut, but as I checked out the other ones I could also tell they had been checking them out and moving hay around in them. I just figured that eventually they would spread out when the they were getting ready to farrow. That was my mistake ... I don't know if you just chalk it up to the fact that they were gilts, or if they would have done that no matter what.

One thing that I think has made a difference this time compared to our first litter on the farm (9 pigs born, 7 weaned) is the bedding. With the last litter born I used wood shavings and chips in the hut. This did make a nice bedding pack, but there wasn't as much "squish" (for lack of a better word) as there is with the hay. I think the hay allows some extra protection for the babies.

But, the biggest factor in my mind has to be the breeding. I purchased these gilts from a farmer who has been building a herd and keeping back gilts for twenty years. He farrows all his litters in huts without heat lamps and that's the way these gilts were born and raised. His selection and breeding program probably played the biggest factor in the success of these two litters.

New Pigs!

Yesterday was just plain crazy. I headed to church early in the morning to get a start on a pile of work because I know that the next couple of days will be focused on putting up red steel. I stayed in town until after lunch so I could get a couple big extension ladders for the shed work, and then we finally made it out to work on the shed around 3:30 PM. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but it was what happened. Before we got in too deep though I decided I should go check on the pigs just in case...

Of course they had farrowed while I was gone in the morning! And by they I mean both gilts had farrowed ... in the same A-Frame hut. What ensued next was a little bit of craziness as I decided (after consultation with some experienced pig folk) that the little hut might not be the best place for two first time moms and the 18 babies between them. So, we had to separate the gilts and the pigs somehow (with an emphasis on somehow).

Let me condense a hour-and-a-half into just a few sentences. Basically the two gilts had no desire to leave the hut, even though I was taking pigs out and putting them in another hut. Finally after poking and prodding enough I got one and then both out, but one pig was especially angry with the whole situation and she tired to let me know every chance she got. After much gilt wrangling and quick fence construction I now have one gilt in each hut. One gilt has 10 pigs with her and the other has 8. Even after all of the confusion they seem to have settled down a bit and all the pigs were nursing when I checked late last night.

Now we are just going to see how these first time moms do.

No Niman in Niman Ranch...

I had recently heard that the founder of Niman Ranch, Bill Niman, had left the company after some financial troubles (had to sell some ownership to keep afloat) and difference on practices with a new group on board. Until yesterday I didn't know much about the story (either how Niman Ranch begain or Mr. Niman leaving), but thanks to the Practical Farmers of Iowa Listserv I was able to read this article from the San Francisco Chronicle.

What was most interesting to me was the story behind the beginnings of Niman Ranch. Basically Mr. Niman was a guy not from the farm (I can kinda relate) that ended up deciding that he could raise high quality food. He initially bought 11 acres and started out with a few animals before grabbing a partner and jumping up to 200 acres and cattle. The beef was really the beginning of Niman Ranch, but all I have ever heard about here in Iowa is the pork side of things. You really should check out the story if you want to know the complete background.

Anyways, it sounds like Mr. Niman was an idealistic kind of guy who didn't believe in hormones, only partially in antibiotics, and hated the ideas of feedlots. His goal was to raise high quality beef that was great tasting and humanely raised. To that end he set up his own special finishing system (I don't really know much about this) and Niman Ranch beef had to go through that farm to receive the Niman label. The pork system wasn't like that...

The Niman Ranch model is an interesting story. I have known a few Niman pork producers and even had some Niman Ranch pork (or what would have been Niman Ranch pork) and I think it has been a very good outlet to farmers that are willing to jump on board with their rules. In fact I have heard quite a few farmers change their farm over from a conventional crate farrowing system to a pen farrowing deal and outdoor raising and really love the change.

Here is the most interesting thing that I got out of this article. There are really a lot of different ways to skin a cat ... or be sustainable (depending on your definition of the word). Some would call the Niman model not very sustainable because it still included shipping Iowa pork all the way to California, while others would say that it was very sustainable because it allowed some smaller scale pork producers in Iowa to stay in business and raise pigs in a pretty good way.

The farmers that work for Niman Ranch don't have to worry about the marketing, but they can still raise pigs without building the latest and greatest steel hog facilities. I like what I have seen from some of the Niman producers ... some of them have farms like my grandfather had...