New Pig Pasture

Abe put up a new pig pasture this week. We like to rotate the pigs fairly often, so as not to eat down any one pasture too much. And seeing as this year has been so dry, we decided to move them off their last pasture after a month.

This one is much larger and should keep them happy for a while longer.

They are now pros at the whole pasture thing. When we got our two sows (then gilts), they weren't sure what to make of pasture, having spent their lives in concrete pens. Now, Abe opens that gate and starts walking into the pasture and they snap to his heels, munching all the time we walk them round the new paddock. They are happy as pigs!

For more photos, click here.

Pig Update

Well, we sold all the piglets we wanted to, and now we are left with Wanda and Gloria (the two sows), Macho and Amigo (the two boars), and two piglets that we’ll be fattening up. They’re all growing like weeds, but the three adults are especially huge. Luckily they are all very tame, otherwise they would be scary (as is, we keep the baby away from them until they’ve been fed!).

Sad to say that we will be getting rid of Macho soon. It looks like the girls are definitely bred, so we no longer need to keep him. We will be using Amigo as our main boar and he will be old enough by the next time they need to be bred. In the meantime Macho is just eating food. It’s a shame in a way, as he is such an intelligent and calm pig. Hopefully we’ll find him a good home - good boars are in short supply around here.

Abe and a couple of lads from the village have spent the past couple of days making a new pasture for them all. Abe cut a bunch of limbs off the Juniper trees, so that the pigs can get under their shade without being cut by low branches. The boys then trimmed them up, so that we can use them as posts in some upcoming projects. We now have a BUNCH of beautiful posts (which the rabbits are cleaning off for us, as they like to chew the bark off) and the pasture looks awesome. Now that the rains have come and the grass is growing, the pasture should provide a little more of their food.

For more photos, click here.

Boars

Well, I guess we are now officially in the pig business...

It is getting time to wean Wanda's first litter, and thus time to breed her again. So we started looking for a boar. We found a couple of people who will rent their boars out in exchange for a piglet born of each sow bred. However neither of the boars were that great. Seeing as we have two sows that we will be breeding twice a year, we figured we should buy a boar and keep him permanently. We started looking around.

There was very little locally, but we eventually found one for sale. He looks like a Spotted Poland China and Tamworth mix and his name is now Macho. He is not very big - 10 months old and only 80 kilos - but he is beautiful, calm, and very hardy. He has been free-ranging over the mountains here and obviously knows what he is doing, as he is very healthy. We put him in a pen on his own until he and the girls get used to each other, but he already escaped and went to find them in their pasture. Luckily, they all seem to get on well and he is very gentle with the babies. But the girls did not appreciate him trying to mount them, so we separated him again (with a few amendments to his pen). Once the babies are weaned and the girls go into heat, they will all be able to run together, although we haven't decided yet if we will keep him for very long.

In the city, Abe also found a beautiful little boar, but he is only two months old and thus not able to do the job yet. He is a Landrace and Blue Butt mix. He is very intelligent and long in body. He will make the kind of babies that will sell well locally (while our older boar will make better pasture pigs). He is Leo's pig and Leo named him Amigo. He feeds and plays with him each day (several times a day!) and the little guy is getting real tame and tolerant.

[Please note that Macho is the only one of our pigs that looks clean. That is only because he is not yet hooked up to the water system, as we only brought him home yesterday (Abe is hooking him up as I write). As soon as the pigs have water, they make themselves a mud pool and roll around in it!]

We have also been looking into buying a milk cow, to give us and the pigs milk and cheese. We've found a couple of options so far, but haven't settled on anything. Will keep you posted.

Next major project on the property is a proper barn (with its own water catchment and tank of course).

For photos of our boys, click here.

Pig Pasture

This week we made a new pig pasture. We used three strands of electric wire (doesn't need to be very tall as pigs are not good jumpers) and tied off to trees instead of corner posts. It covers a large area, with lots of clumps of shade tress included. Seeing as the pigs root around, we followed the contour of the land, so that they can create swales for us (as they push the earth downhill, it levels off a patch that then collects water better).

Leo enjoyed the work. He walked around with us at times, got us each tools we needed or water, and then went and sat under trees and played with some toys when he got bored. He was good as gold.

It was super hot weather, and we were both pretty exhausted after finishing, but it had its own rewards. When we let the pigs out, they started exploring all over. Our previous, younger pigs were very cautious and it took them a long time to really explore, but these girls had no such inhibitions. Having spent all their lives prior to coming here on a concrete floor, the allure of real dirt and trees was too much. They followed us around all over the pasture. They seem to respect the fence pretty well, having both been shocked a couple of times (the shock is not painful, just uncomfortable enough to make you want to avoid doing it again).

It really is great to see pigs on pasture. Can't wait until the rains come and it all greens up.

For more photos, click here.