fattening pigs outside?

[Lowland1]

We used to make straw bale pens with ex army metal tracks on the floor and roofed with insulated wooden panels. The pigs loved it and did really well. However it was a lot more work than in our sheds and it looked like a gypsy encampment.

 

[Nearly]

@TripleSix

 

[Suffolk Serf]

We used to make straw bale pens with ex army metal tracks on the floor and roofed with insulated wooden panels. The pigs loved it and did really well. However it was a lot more work than in our sheds and it looked like a gypsy encampment.

Yes, straw bale pens work okay until the "escape committee" forms and tunnelling starts.

 

[ollie989898]

Yes, straw bale pens work okay until the "escape committee" forms and tunnelling starts.

All part of the fun, I'm sure.

 

[Chieftain]

How long would it take to finish a batch? Are we talking 5 months or what?

Will vary a fair bit depending on genetics and the system but something in the region of 5 months from birth sounds realistic when comparing to indoor systems.

Could it be done out on cover crops and fit in with other cropping do you think? Just trying to see if there is a way of mitigating the damage to the ground and how it would fit into an arable farm.

Not sure how you'd fit it in with arable, I guess what you're suggesting is you over winter a batch of pigs after a cereal with some cover crop mixed in. First problem of cause is that you only have enough time for one lot a year, so you've got a lot of money tied up in kit that's depreciating from a financial point of view. Regarding ground damage, cover or no cover, 100's of pigs with no rings in will make a field look like the Somme when they're at killing weight. Pigs outdoors have got to be on free draining land really i.e sand to give them anything decent to live on in a wet month and ideally on a medium term grass lay that will give some decent strength to the soil structure that will stand a bit of rough treatment.

I appreciate you'd probably want to put them in a shed over winter but the system I saw was pretty simple, basically a converted old straw barn with one big group on straw. Put straw in and keep them fed and watered was about it. Dung out at the end was a simple enough task.

If you're talking just housing for the last couple of months, things will be a lot simpler because you've generally lost the runts by that point and any deaths will just be heart attacks in the middle of the night. So you'd be right in that sense that it's just feed them, water them and bed them. But if you're having them straight from weaning then you'll have plenty of jabbing to do to keep some of them right, and at the end of the day on most B&B contracts I've known of you get penalised for deaths so it's of everyone's interest to do it. It's definitely a decent supplement income for an arable farmer as it gives them something to do and some income over winter, as long as they can be managed appropriately in summer also.

 

[Lowland1]

All part of the fun, I'm sure.

Of course it is what better than to be greeted by a herd of pigs happy to see you after you've been on a very rare day out or when you get that knock on the door with the greeting ' Are those your pigs on the road?'

 

[Nearly]

Of course it is what better than to be greeted by a herd of pigs happy to see you after you've been on a very rare day out or when you get that knock on the door with the greeting ' Are those your pigs on the road?'

The ones driving the car with the blue light on? No.

 

[Greenbeast]

Hmm yeah, fairly good fun in summer, with fresh electric fences backed by stock fences, less good with flat batteries and months of wet clay ground...
Pretty much finished off my relationship and i'm now on a dairy farm....

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

i suppose 0.8 kg feed /kg lwt is £24/pig if feed is £300t....so quite a lot

£24 for not mucking out though...

 

[ollie989898]

Will vary a fair bit depending on genetics and the system but something in the region of 5 months from birth sounds realistic when comparing to indoor systems.

Not sure how you'd fit it in with arable, I guess what you're suggesting is you over winter a batch of pigs after a cereal with some cover crop mixed in. First problem of cause is that you only have enough time for one lot a year, so you've got a lot of money tied up in kit that's depreciating from a financial point of view. Regarding ground damage, cover or no cover, 100's of pigs with no rings in will make a field look like the Somme when they're at killing weight. Pigs outdoors have got to be on free draining land really i.e sand to give them anything decent to live on in a wet month and ideally on a medium term grass lay that will give some decent strength to the soil structure that will stand a bit of rough treatment.

If you're talking just housing for the last couple of months, things will be a lot simpler because you've generally lost the runts by that point and any deaths will just be heart attacks in the middle of the night. So you'd be right in that sense that it's just feed them, water them and bed them. But if you're having them straight from weaning then you'll have plenty of jabbing to do to keep some of them right, and at the end of the day on most B&B contracts I've known of you get penalised for deaths so it's of everyone's interest to do it. It's definitely a decent supplement income for an arable farmer as it gives them something to do and some income over winter, as long as they can be managed appropriately in summer also.

I was sort of envisaging a 'crop' of pigs being rotated around an arable farm and moved after each crop but I'm not sure how it would work as you would always need a slot of 5 months worth of empty land. What is actually involved in finishing pigs is largely a mystery to me but I sort of expected a reduction in the amount of fixed cost/infrastructure involved if they were kept outside and just lived in bale shelters but I don't know how practical it would all be.

 

[Suffolk Serf]

I was sort of envisaging a 'crop' of pigs being rotated around an arable farm and moved after each crop but I'm not sure how it would work as you would always need a slot of 5 months worth of empty land. What is actually involved in finishing pigs is largely a mystery to me but I sort of expected a reduction in the amount of fixed cost/infrastructure involved if they were kept outside and just lived in bale shelters but I don't know how practical it would all be.

Try it and let me know how you get on.
I've got some kit that I could let you have.

 

[ollie989898]

Try it and let me know how you get on.
I've got some kit that I could let you have.

No thank you. The days of being outside in the cold are long gone for me. I was only involved in the discussion of this thread because I was interested in how people are doing it because some obviously are.

The economics of pig farming seem to have been a problem for some years. I recall a wise old bird telling me never to become involved in pig farming at any juncture and that was 30 years ago at least. I have only ever been involved in pigs via contracting though I found them interesting at the time.

 

[Greenbeast]

Decreased fixed infrastructure but increased labour cost. More time spent on fences, ensuring water supplies are maintained/repaired, further distance for stock checking and feeding, plenty of thought and planning into how you're going to get the pigs to different areas of the farm without escapes. They don't herd quite like sheep and cows

 

[unlacedgecko]

Decreased fixed infrastructure but increased labour cost. More time spent on fences, ensuring water supplies are maintained/repaired, further distance for stock checking and feeding, plenty of thought and planning into how you're going to get the pigs to different areas of the farm without escapes. They don't herd quite like sheep and cows

You can move them with a good dog

 

[spin cycle]

Decreased fixed infrastructure but increased labour cost. More time spent on fences, ensuring water supplies are maintained/repaired, further distance for stock checking and feeding, plenty of thought and planning into how you're going to get the pigs to different areas of the farm without escapes. They don't herd quite like sheep and cows

I was wondering how on earth you catch them up

 

[Suffolk Serf]

I was wondering how on earth you catch them up

We have about 100 pigs per half acre paddock (overall stocking rate 50/acre). The paddocks are square, with the hut that they were weaned into (others are added as they grow) in the corner. Hurdles are set up to confine them in that general area, then we (four of us) quietly walk them into that pen using the perimeter fence. usually get them all in, no problem.

 

[ritchiekirkland]

I had some wrestle with a weaner that had got into the hogg hoppers the other morning after appearing at the back door the night before .
I think I won in the end , got him back in his pen but we both have scratches and bites , I only got the upper hand by grabbing his b&llocks in the end

 

[Wink]

We have about 100 pigs per half acre paddock (overall stocking rate 50/acre). The paddocks are square, with the hut that they were weaned into (others are added as they grow) in the corner. Hurdles are set up to confine them in that general area, then we (four of us) quietly walk them into that pen using the perimeter fence. usually get them all in, no problem.

Exactly how we did it but with slightly smaller numbers and as a one manner. Probably much easier to move than sheep actually. Occasionally used a "pig flap" - set hurdles up with a swinging flap like a cat flap (water and food access inside), then the night before you want to catch them set it to only open the one way .

 

[Greenbeast]

We were quite small scale, i built our pens with races between, so i could reverse a trailer to the top of the field and then open a specific pen on the race and the right gates. I would feed the pigs in the race for a few days prior to loading and then on the day they go easy, i just had to filter the ones i wanted for the abattoir (usually 1-4 only per week).
Had plans for more pens and more races, just imagine the setup at the mart but in a field with stock fences, so you could shift sows to the boar, or split groups as they sexually matured, or send to abattoir, etc...

 

[Agrivator]

Keeping them separate works best for us but the boars ride each other relentlessly and don't do aswell as they ought to,but the gilts do far better by not being ridden relentlessly by their male siblings. The difficulty is that it's the boars that I want to get away first. I eye up and mark the main culprits in the boars to get them away, as soon as they are fit enough.

Why do boars have to be left entire. From what you say, won't constant riding increase boar taint and also cause welfare issues These would both be reduced by castration.

In the same vein, hens kept in good indoor housing have a happier life than hens on industrial free range - especially in inclement weather,