Pig slaughter and processing

[ScottyBoy]

Oh jeebus! I opened this thread, saw your smoked/cured product and a drip of saliva literally escaped from my mouth. Nice work!

[xxchef]

"Good sized" = ?

We've raised 2-3 hogs in a 30x30' pen with a 4x8 shelter for years and it's adequate but not overly so. We're going to increase it to about 50' x 60' this winter with some more shelter options and do 4 hogs starting in the spring.

They'll appreciate the extra room to run around, romp and play but I'm a little worried that with so much space they will be harder to convince to get in the trailer when it's time to go.

Anybody have a good chute/gate ideas for large (600+ lb) hogs?

[sheepish]

Mine have about 30 acres of mixed woodand and pasture. 4 pigs usually in that. Really, they are easy to load. I feed twice a day and they run to a bucket of feed. Pigs are the easiest animals to load because you feed them year round. Sheep are harder. Cattle are much harder.

[sheepish]

How many acres does a pig require?

You'd easy keep 2 in half an acre. Probably much less. Although expect a churned, muddy patch when they're gone. Pigs you generally need to feed once or twice a day. They will graze if there's grass, but you'll always have to suplementary feed.

[sjemac]

I actually used the pigs to clear up some of the underbrush on our place so I fenced them into about a 1/4 acre at a time to accomplish this. I simply moved them when they had ripped up the area to to my satisfaction. You can raise one in a 50 sq ft pen if you wish but this is not the best quality of life for the pig. By putting pigs on fresh earth (earth that hasn't had pigs on it for a couple of years) you can avoid having to give dewormers and antibiotics to the pigs.

X 2 on the need for two pigs. They grow faster and are happier with a buddy. We kept one for ourselves and sold off the other to cover the cost of feed for the second pig.