Spring Round Up

Raising pigs on pasture may look easy from your car as you travel up our lane but truth is, a lot of juggling is involved. A comment on my last blog asked about fences when she saw the little ones in the yard. Yes, we do fence in our animals but generally when pigs are small if they get bit by the fence they run THROUGH it. So,

Small pigs are weaned from their mama's (after seen running around the yard as in my last post) and put in the barn stall for a couple weeks to get used to being handled by humans. Then they get a small out door pen made with livestock wire panels with an electric wire across one end to teach them to respect the hot wire. That takes another week or so.

After that, they are put in the larger dirt lot off the barn. Now when they hit the fence they BACK UP. Thus the electric fence training is complete. So complete that if you move the wire and try to get a pig to cross an area that used to have a wire over it,  well it's a very hard task to accomplish. Usually only promises of food and sex can make that happen. Fact of life.

Pigs from barn yard loading up for big field time

When about 3 months old they get moved to the big pasture. Due to winter those in pic above are older.To do that Keith backs the trailer over the lowered electric wire and into the pen. Milk soaked feed is placed in the livestock trailer.  At first a few pigs will go on then a couple jump off. Then four get on and three jump off, Finally they all go on and Keith quick like closes the door and drives them to the other end of our property out to the BIG field.

New neighbors arriving while Max watches on right

Next to the BIG field is the ALMOST AS BIG field when Mad Max lives. Now Max does not rotate. He stays where he is and sows and gilts rotate in and out of his pen for the sole purpose of fun and games. Our other Boar Wally has his pen on the back 40. Same thing happens there.

Max loves fun and games, he is a very prolific breeder. So whenever the livestock trailer backs up anywhere near him he comes to...uh..attention. He thinks the trailer is once again full of girlfriends just for him. It's a little sad to see Keith back up the trailer to the lot next to Max and deposit a group of feeder (not breeder) hogs.

But although Max's needs are not always met every time the trailer gets close to him, He never holds a grudge.

He's happy to wait around for the next time when the livestock trailer DOES drop a girly girl off in his pen. And in the meantime he always has two or three girls in his current harem to keep him occupied.

It's a pigs life.