How Do I Raise & Contain That? – Pig Edition

Around the farm, we regularly have at least one animal which tests a setup. Be it fencing, their housing, the inability to share, or gets stuck in a way you didn’t anticipate. While visiting other pasture pig farms to see their set-ups, many farmers always complained about how hard it was to house pigs. Pointed out horror stories of great escapes and moved away from raising pigs because of how destructive they were. Yes, pigs are destructive. They’re such an intelligent animal that overcrowding, lack of stimulation, or “make-shift” set-ups will soon become their new challenge. In all honesty, we have found goats to have the most issues out of our livestock. On our farm, we have had or currently have MANY different species, and I’ll point out the good, the bad, and how we have come to fix common issues that maybe you’ve faced or are still facing.

Fencing

They’re incredibly smart; need I say more? With pigs, they need to stay well-fed, well housed, entertained, and have ample space to explore and root. If you throw up a make-shift fence with a leaning house – they’re going to leave. We have tried tin covered huts, solid wood buildings, and access to the barn. All while being provided ample space outdoors. A solid wood building is going to need repair. ESPECIALLY if you have a boar roaming with your ladies. Boars are notorious for sauntering over to your freshly built project and sampling the side of that building with their forceful chompers. Females and piglets are just as curious and can definitely do some wear and tear here. Some pigs’ breeds are better than others; however, when winter calls, pigs can become crabby. We’ve tried solid fencing (Wood, metal) as well as electric lines. We have discovered what works best to house pigs from all our trials and errors across the board. Hog panels are the number one option. They are designed for this reason, and if the pig feels like chewing or scratching on them, there won’t be any drastic damages. They’re easy to affix anywhere and, with T-posts, can create movable pens. Wood fences are great if you have them braced, and they’re thick. If they’re thinner boards – your 600 lb pig will scratch it’s behind on it once and come crashing through.

With our pigs, we use an electric line. 1 to 2 strands of electric that we can easily step over when we’re doing chores. Did our pigs instantly respect the electric line? No. No, they did not. When training our pigs we started young. Trying to train an older pig takes far longer, and the prey response engaged with a scared 300 lb pig creates a lot more damage than a 30 lb torpedo. Having a solid pen that you can house your new weaned piglets in works best. Attaching insulator clips along the fence at neck height allows the line to contact them when they investigate the survey tape dangling from it. They get a zap, then frantically run around and hide away from the new evil that they have just discovered. It only takes a couple of touches with piglets, and they learn what that red and white string holds. We leave the electric line up in their pen for 2 weeks before moving them to a pasture with just electric lines. In doing so, they’re trained, and it becomes more of a mental thing as they’re older. They’ll see the line and avoid it – even if it’s turned off half the time.

If you get an older pig and want to train it to electric, keep those fences sturdy. Unlike piglets, they will enter prey mode as well as “I’m going to fight.” With this, there are lots of lunging and climbing attempts. Be prepared to unplug the electric and do this in small doses to avoid injuries to your new pig. Since pigs are a herd animal, it’s unwise to have a pig alone – ESPECIALLY when training to an electric line. They have no reassurance and panic a lot more. We have various sized pigs, and they all respect and understand what an electric line is. Our 50 lb mini pigs steer clear of it; however, be prepared to trim under the line so it doesn’t short out in the months of heavy grass growth or snowfall. (Mini pigs can’t help that they only stand a foot off the ground!) Our largest pigs are 1000 lbs, and even those don’t double guess an electric line.

Housing

There’s a variety of housing that works for pigs. There’s also some big no-no’s we have learned with certain pigs. Pigs LOVE to scratch themselves on the sides of everything. Even if your pigs have been freshly coconut oiled and have zero issues with mites, lice, or mange – they will itch on great corners. To minimize damage to your housing, install some industrial push broom ends onto fence posts. They will walk over and get a good scratch going on there, instead of your housing. Don’t use sharp edges or tin! This mistake will end with either a pig injured from playfully throwing one around or from scratching wrong. The tin is sharp, and even though their skin is thick – this is some unneeded disinfecting time from injuries. Depending on the pig, we use wood huts. We know that they will need repairs, but we prefer this method over the barn or other available options. We build our huts in the shape of a triangle. They have no bottoms and are just tall enough for the pigs to get in and out of, with an open front concept. Throwing in deep bedding of straw/hay allows the pigs to create a warm nest and stay dry throughout the colder months. No bottom on the house means you won’t have to worry if you have a messy pig that doesn’t want to do its business in the cold.

We first started by offering a huge barn stall to our pigs. While the thought was nice – the practicality wasn’t. It was hard to feed them when there was a line of worked up pigs screaming for supper. Walking through them to fill their feeder meant the odd bossy pig swiping at the bucket and potentially getting you. The other issue was too much space results in them sleeping in one corner and doing their business in the other. Since pigs are incredibly clean, it’s a lot nicer to shrink their area, so it forces them to go outside. We have found, so long as you have JUST enough space for every pig to sleep like little sardines together, they won’t soil inside. The other pigs won’t allow it. Pigs sleep in a pile by nature, so creating a shelter just big enough for them will solve the soiling problems. The smaller shelter will also increase how warm it is for them. Our triangle huts have steam rolling off them even in the coldest months, where temperatures drop below -35 degrees Celcius.

In the summer, your pigs will need a wallow. Pigs need the means to cool themselves down since they don’t sweat. To do this, they need a cool spot to wallow in mud and cool off. You can easily lose your pig if it has no way to cool down in the hot summer months. It takes some serious work to get a wallow started, but pigs are only too eager to help build one!

Farrowing

We have farrowed our pigs in a variety of ways. During our first litters, we always provided a spot in the barn fence lining other pigs. This allowed her to create her nest and have her own space in the farrowing process. This was great because the risk of other pigs laying on babies was eliminated, but the sow sometimes suffered slight loneliness. Depending on the sow, some do better with the comfort of their pen mates. Separating her, sometimes she gets crabby and stressed about having ONLY her piglets. We always offered a safe place with a heat lamp and ensured every piglet knew where that was. This method works but be prepared for the integration when you need to put your sow back in with its herd. There will be fighting, and she will need to figure out where she stands with the herd.

Pasture farrowing we have liked the most. We have found this is less stress on the sows as they’re still in with the herd and the piglets learn the herd dynamic much quicker. The risk is litters born at different times. There’s a risk that older piglets could lay on younger piglets. There is a risk of other pigs accidentally stepping or laying on newborns, and some older piglets could definitely drink the newborn piglets’ colostrum milk that they desperately needed. There are definitely many risks here, but with certain breeds we have – none of this happened. This is VERY breed dependent, and there still are some breeds that we separate, but those are mostly the smaller breeds. The last 2 litters we had went better than expected. Both moms farrowed a day apart. Piglets bounce from one mom to the next. Other pigs in the herd tend to them and carefully tiptoe around them. Out of both litters, only one piglet was lost to being laid on, and that pen had over 6 full-sized pigs (one being a boar) in with them. Some sows don’t want to share their space with other pigs as soon as they’re a mom. They get overly aggressive and will fight every pig for even looking at their piglet. So be prepared for this if you’re trying group farrowing. However, we did enjoy not needing a heat lamp since even in the dead of winter, both moms slept belly to belly and kept the babies toasty warm!

Feeding

Pigs like to eat—a lot. No, we have never had a pig take off into the distance. Why? We feed our pigs and make their home desirable. Pigs escaping and jumping ship can be as simple as poor diet and mistreatment. Depending on the breed of pig, their diet can be more pasture-based or grain-based. More commercialized breeds haven’t been developed to strive on pasture; they’ve been created for confined systems and free flow grains. If we free flowed grains to our Large Black pigs – they’d look like hippos. Our Ossabaws are by far the best at rationing when offered grain. They’ll only eat what they want and then run off to forage on grass and bugs elsewhere. The large black will eat and sleep to the point where I’m sure they’re legs would disappear. Mini pigs have huge issues with weight gain and cannot free flow on grains. Certain breeds can graze and get most of their nutrition and diet off of pasture. Such as the Kunekune. It’s a true pasture pig and needs minimal supplementation with grains. The large blacks we have are offered pasture in the warmer months, making up a good 30% of their diet.

If you’re considering a pig and want to know the best mix to feed it, definitely ask us as we have different diet programs for each breed we raise! Cheaping out on grains with certain pigs will cost you in the end. Vet bills from a pig with poor nutrition will end up costing you more than those cleaned grains that cost slightly more. End of the day, you’re eating that animal, and wouldn’t you like to know what they’re eating too? Offering hay in the winter months as free choice means they’re always getting the fiber they need as well as filler when they’re snack-ish between meals.

Pigs need access to fresh water. Every day their waterer/dish should be cleaned and refilled with fresh drinking water. Algae and molds are lethal/dangerous to pigs. Their growth is also much better if they always have access to fresh water. If pigs aren’t drinking ample amounts of water, this can make illnesses hard to combat without proper hydration in the first place. When offered fresh, cold water to day-old warm water that they’ve dipped their dirty noses into – they will always choose fresh.

Vaccinations

Should you vaccinate or not? If our pigs are being used for breeding, we vaccinate them. If they’re growers for meat purposes, we give them the basic requirements to keep them healthy and happy. Dewormer is a must when you have pasture pigs since they’re not in controlled environments. Pastured pigs can get their iron requirements by rooting around in the dirt, but it doesn’t hurt to give them that shot shortly after birth, so they have optimal growth. All of our mature pigs get routine vaccinations purely because we want to offer them the best protection there is available. We have had heartaches by simply being naive, thinking our pigs in their seclusion on our farm – would never get sick.

Pigs are SENSITIVE! Think of your pigs like toddlers. Now picture your pens full of pigs like daycare. If one pig doesn’t feel good, chances are the rest are catching it. Pigs sleep like sardines and have no “bubbles” for personal space. Their snouts are constantly on the ground rooting around, and since they’re pasture pigs, there’s always a risk! Erysipelas lives in the soil. It is easily transmittable, and it can be as simple as a bird bringing it to your property. Once you start seeing spots on your pig, there could have already been irreversible damage occurring. This is easily avoided with a vaccine. This is why we use Erbac. It vaccinates against an array of common infections.

We purchased a breeding boar in the past, which ended up having dippity pig syndrome. We had been pre-warned of what it could be when we brought him home but went ahead with the purchase. He would scream in the corner in pain, and we felt awful watching a piglet this way. All we could do is offer him ample amounts of water and give him pain killers until the bout went away. It has never flared up again, but it was still not fun to watch. He spent ample time in the sun as a piglet, and from this combined with bad luck, dippity flared up.

Pigs can get STI’s. Yes, your hairy friend needs to practice safe sex. Otherwise, if you’re using that same boar amongst various ladies, then it’ll spread fast. Then spread to their piglets and so on. We vaccinate mostly against Chlamydia. This is the most common STI in swine, and we make sure our breeders are safe from this.

We also deworm regularly. We give it in the form of a shot to pigs that we are capable of injecting. Some pigs are too difficult and big to wrestle down. If you don’t have a chute system because you raise pastured pork or aren’t experienced for this and want to avoid a vet for shots – use orally. It works, and the only difference is instead of two shots 21 days apart, it’s two shots 2 weeks apart. For some of our larger pigs, we mix IVERMECTIN in a yogurt solution and offer it to one pig at a time to mask the taste. It works great, and our pigs are healthier because of it. Avoiding dewormers means your pig can get Sarcoptic mange and start contracting secondary infections due to a compromised immune system. This, in turn, makes it harder for your pig to fight off an illness. Once a pig starts to decline, it can be difficult to get a full recovery.

Adding New Pigs To Your Herd

Quarantine! Let me repeat, quarantine. This doesn’t mean a pen beside your other pigs. A pig will rub noses, and if that new pig has an illness or your pigs have something, they’re getting it. Careful of your clothing and footwear. You will easily string around any infections simply by walking through each pen and into the other pens. So make sure you’re not walking through pens, and if you have to, are disinfecting or changing your clothing/footwear in between. We quarantine our new arrivals away from our herd for at least a month. Once a month has lapsed with no issues, then we place them on a fence line for introductions to their new herd members for at least 2 weeks to a month, depending on how they’re all acting.

We find getting pigs in groups works better than single pigs. This way, there’s less stress for them in this new environment with new faces. They adjust way quicker, and during the 2 months of quarantine/introductions, it’s easier on them. It also provides one another with comfort when the herd doesn’t accept them for weeks. When they’re separated from the herd, this allows you to give any vaccines to them if they’re being used as permanent breeders. It also allows for more bonding time, so they know who you are.

Interactions and Stimulation

Since pigs are so smart, they need stimulation and need to know who you are! In the beginning, it can be a little overwhelming if you have a 60 lb freshly weaned pig “texture sampling” your leg. They’re not aggressive, they’re simply interested in this new piece of fabric and wanting to feel it. That bite – will hurt. Even when they do not intend to chomp on your knee, they still need to be corrected. A firm no and push on the nose usually suffice at a young age. Teaching them to respect you at a young age means that they’re less inclined to push you around when they’re older and FAR larger. Pigs learn violence. If you hit or mistreat them, they will remember what happened and who did it. We have pigs here that we have gotten from some pretty sad situations, and have some triggers. Those same pigs also have learned how to trust us, knowing they’re not going to face any form of abuse here.

Provide toys! A horse treats ball works great to keep a pig mentally stimulated. I offer logs for them to roll around, push broom bum scratchers, attention daily, and all the yard clean up available. A big pile of leaves and a log can keep a pig highly entertained for hours. If your pig has a sad, dry coat, feed it some coconut oil and vitamin E. Offering this for several weeks will add some shine to that coat and have them looking like a show pig in no time!

Feel free to ask any questions! I’m sure that there is a lot more I could have added to this blog. So don’t be shy!