So You Want to Raise Pigs

Righteous Bacon Blog ^ | March 21, 2013 | by Diana

[VRWCarea51]

Best way to look at raising pigs is dealing with 2-4 year olds. Pigs are personable IF you spend time with them. Get used to being around them and they around you. Pigs have like a 300 degree of sight and spook easily.

They are one of the easiest animal to raise IMHO. Just remember they dig if you raise them on dirt...unless you ring their snout. But they get minerals that way. We built our pens by using 5 foot woven wire and buried it 18 inches. Still had to occassionally fill in their holes.

[barmag25]

That is usually the biggest concern.

I treat them like Ferals at all times. I still don’t believe pigs ever become domesticated. I don’t turn my back on them and have designed the pen where I can lock them in te enclosure when I’m in the pen.

Just don’t trust them. Of course I’m always thinking of new recipes that involve them so I don’t blame them. Lol

[BerryDingle]

Ahh, this reminds me of years ago, I went to the state fair, I owned 3 younger sows at the time at home and was interested in getting them bred for more. I ran across a large boar hog on display and I asked the owner what the possibility was of getting my 3 sows bred by it. We worked out some details and it turned out we lived 300 miles from each other so we worked out a rendezvous point 150 from each other. I asked how I could tell how if my sows were pregnant and the farmer said if they are wallowing in the mud, they are pregnant and if they are walking around in the sun, they are not. We agreed to try every third Saturday until it was successful. I owned an older station wagon that was fine for transporting them in.

I took my 3 sows for the first meeting and all seemed fine.

The 3rd saturday, I noticed all three were walking around in the sun, so I took them for another meeting.

The next 3rd Saturday, I overslept a couple hours and I asked my wife if she could look out the window and tell me if they were wallowing in the mud or walking around? She said neither, two are in the back of the station wagon, and the third is in the driver's seat sounding the horn.

[Ellendra]

I just finished making bacon from scratch for the first time. It came out ok, but it could be better. Anybody have any tips?

[VRWCarea51]

The only hog I was Leary of was a boar we raised from birth. Once he hit 2-3 years old, he weighed close to 650 Lbs and was about 38 inches at his shoulders. He was a big baby but when we got a sow close to him he got a bit surly. His tusks got large and. If he hooked you he could have ripped us up.

We ended up selling him because he was to big and heavy to breed our sows

If you are raising feeder hogs they are only 6-8 months old by the time you butcher them you shouldn’t have any problems that way. Breeder Sows can get mean to...

But just purchasing a couple of feeders and raising them shouldn’t cause any problems. We let people bring their kids into our lots when the pigs are small and hand feed them apple slices and veggies. Rules are no fast moves, yelling or chasing. Let the animals come to them.

[VRWCarea51]

We raised chickens and rabbits for meat as a kid. I haven’t had rabbit since then...35 years
And I grow tired of chicken real fast.

My wife was raised on Beef n potatos. She likes grain fed beef but neither of us care for grazed beef. She’d serve chicken every meal if I’d let her get away with it.

Now Bacon, Ham, tenderloin and chops we eat a lot of.

[Manic_Episode]

[Boogieman]

Nice. I could post a picture of Mason Verger from “Hannibal”, but I might lose my lunch.

[ebshumidors]

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com is your friend.

[j. earl carter]

When we have done pigs, I would usually fry the bacon with some maple syrup in the pan. The fresh, uncured bacon definitely needs some seasoning to make it taste like the store bought stuff.

[Stanwood_Dave]

First off, I was the poster boy for why you should not allow a city boy (I'm originally from Long Island, New York.) to raise pigs.

The first set (two pigs, approx. early 1980's) were feed a local feed purchased from a local feed store supplier (now out of business.) The feed was very much like the bread crumbs used on say pork chops and alike. What the city boy didn't know was water was to be mixed with the feed(s), to a consistency of say oatmeal.

At the time, I was hauling water for the family & pigs. Approx. 35 gallons at a time, twice to three times a week. No well on the property at the time, and was financially out of reach. Guess what, when you feed the pigs a very dry food, they drink a lot of water! Note to self, Head-slap Gibb's style.

So when the city boy had a taste of home grown pork, well it was time for round two. (still hauling water via-5-gal. buckets, with lids, at the time.)

From this personal experience of hauling water, I learned via by accident that a Black-bucket is better for hauling water, than the White and or clear one's.

Why is a Black-Bucket better? It took some time for me (the city boy) to catch on, but I would always have to rinse the buckets out say every two to three weeks, to get rid of the algae build-up. After a while, dumb city boy me, caught on that the Black-Bucket never had and algae build-up. This is like after one or more years of hauling water. Hauled water for approx. six years total. I think I have street cred's. (cred's = credible.)

I had only the one Black-bucket, via when I went to purchase 7 (seven) white bucket's, the guy only had 6 White Bucket's, and offered the Black-bucket for half cost. I think at the time the White-Buckets were $1.50 each.

I can remember thinking, I need the White-Buckets to keep the water clean. Turns out, not true, if the Bucket(s) holding water has access to the sun, it will grow algae. Yes the dumb city boy, stored the Buckets in direct sun-light.

As often as I had to refill the water buckets, minimum twice a week, they (the white ones) would grow algae on the inside walls of the buckets. DUH, not the black one. Gibb's Head-slap, to self, the dumb city boy NOW!!!!

I may be slow, but I finally went with all Black-Buckets.

[Hot Tabasco]

Daddy would shoot them right between the eyes with a Remington model 513. He used shorts because he didn’t want to mess up the hogs head cheese ingredients.

I'll never look at a slice of bacon next to the eggs on my plate the same way again.......

[Safetgiver]

I may be slow, but I finally went with all Black-Buckets....Tha’s raaaassssist! (I guess. Everything else is.)

[fulltlt]

I have raised all kinds of animals on my farm but have not tried raising any pigs yet. The problem I have is in finding a place to process them that’s close by.

[Iscool]

Even if you have only two pigs, have two feeding troughs...One pig will always dominate the other and you’ll end up with one big pig and one small pig otherwise...The stronger one will ‘hog’ all the food...

And it’s funny to watch...The stronger pig will go to a trough and the weaker pig will go to the other...The stronger pig will get irritated that the other one gets to eat as well so he/she will leave his trough to chase the other pig from the 2nd trough...

The 2nd pig then heads for the 1st trough to eat...The dominant pig then looks over his should to see the 2nd pig eating again and goes to chase him out of that trough as well...

Constant cycle but they both end up getting the equal amount of food...

[Iscool]

His tusks got large and. If he hooked you he could have ripped us up.

You didn't clip his teeth when he was young...Always have to clip the teeth...

[Iscool]

She likes grain fed beef but neither of us care for grazed beef.

Everyone seems to rave about grass fed beef but you don't get the fat (marbling) from grass...The fat comes from corn and other grains...I'd rather have grain fed any day...

[Ditter]

Texas has been taken over by feral hogs that started out on someones hog farm. We have uncountable numbers of the beasts on our place. they are nocturnal so we rarely see anything other than the damage they do.

An old country saying in east Texas was when ever you asked where anyone was, the answer came back “she went to sh** and the hogs ‘et her”.

I heard that many times but I never knew anyone who “got ‘et” by the hogs.

[NorthstarMom]

Thanks for the great advice!

[Stanwood_Dave]

As the TV show Dragnet staring Jack Webb: Detective Sergeant Joe Friday would say, Just the Facts, Ma'am, just the facts.