pig plots

[lissapell]

We are looking into adding pigs to our plans. We want to pasture them. how quickly will a pig root up an acre? The idea is to let the pigs do the work before we start a garden. Then as the pigs rotate through the acreage we start a new garden. They will eventually make it back to what it left of the first garden plot.

[Forlane]

Is your plan to leave the existing plants after harvest in the garden until the pigs arrive and gobble or root them up? If so I might suggest not doing this, as the harvest ends and the plant starts to die it becomes more and more susceptible to disease or other pests whether it be insects, fungus, etc.

Unless you plan to get the pigs into the "old" garden area relatively soon after it is no longer in production I would be careful creating a perfect breeding ground for pests.

[highlands]

It depends tremendously on how you manage the pigs. We use managed rotational grazing. They graze predominantly and root little. See:

Rootless in Vermont | Sugar Mountain Farm

site:sugarmtnfarm.com managed rotational grazing - Google Search

If you actually want them to root then you need to keep them more intensely on an area. We do this for our winter paddocks which become summer gardens, turning our poor thin mountain soil into rich garden soil.

Of Tiller Pigs & Weeder Chickens | Sugar Mountain Farm

Another parth of the methology that you may find useful is to setup a nine square grazing pattern like a tic tac toe board:

site:sugarmtnfarm.com tic tac toe - Google Search

Combine chickens with the pigs as they are excellent at breaking up and smoothing manure patties and clots of soil as well as organic pest control.

[lissapell]

Originally Posted by Forlane

Is your plan to leave the existing plants after harvest in the garden until the pigs arrive and gobble or root them up? If so I might suggest not doing this, as the harvest ends and the plant starts to die it becomes more and more susceptible to disease or other pests whether it be insects, fungus, etc.

Unless you plan to get the pigs into the "old" garden area relatively soon after it is no longer in production I would be careful creating a perfect breeding ground for pests.

Very good point THANK YOU! I would hope to move them in as soon as it is harvested.

[lissapell]

Originally Posted by highlands

Combine chickens with the pigs as they are excellent at breaking up and smoothing manure patties and clots of soil as well as organic pest control.

I have read this about cows but was unsure how pigs would respond.

[cooper101]

Pigs are very good at eating, trampling, rooting up, or otherwise killing every green thing in their area if left long enough to do it. You will need to till afterward because they compact the soil pretty well after the vegetation is gone. I think the biggest benefit of pre-garden pigs is getting rid of the vegetation so the tilling is much easier and your tiller doesn't get gummed up. 1 pig would take a while to do a whole acre. 12 pigs from feeder to butcher didn't denude 1.5 acres I had them in for 4 months. They were fed, but were free to root all day and there's still some green.

[highlands]

If you properly manage the rotation then compaction does not happen. Compaction is caused by the animals being in an area for too long. High clay soils compact more quickly.

If you get compaction, plant deep rooted radishes like Dikon and other plants that will break up the soil.

We don't till. We have acres of gardens that are tilled by the pigs. Works.

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Sugar Mountain Farm | All Natural Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids in the mountains of Vermont

[lissapell]

Walter,
I have been engrossed with your process but was wondering how much milk/milk products your pigs get a day? Are you still running 200 pigs on 10 acres with the majority of feed being from pasture? I wish you were closer to me. I would love to start our stock with some of your pigs. Although I have also read Yorkshires do not work well in heat and humidity. I'm on the gulf Coast of MS so heat and humidity is about all we deal with.
I understand that boar taint is very uncommon so the need to cut is not really there,especially is butchering at 6 months. Do you know if particular breeds are more susceptible to boar taint than others? There seems to be a surplus of Duroc and Berkshire in this area as well as many crosses. Would one of these breeds be preferable over the other in terms of aggression and meat production or would it solely depend on each pig individually?
Thanks so much for all your help. Your set up is exactly what we have been discussing.

[CesumPec]

lissapel - your thread titled had me worried. I was afraid your pigs where planning a take over of your farm.

I have little to no personal experience so listen to an expert like highlands. But Carla Emery in her wonderful book the Encyclopedia of Country Living recommends a 4 or 5 year rotation plan, (going from my memory and this might not be quite right and I'm days away from going home to verify) Y1 - pasture, Y2 - pasture, Y3 - pigs, Y4 - garden. In the 5 year rotation a crop of nitrogen sucking grains is added between pigs and garden. This has also been recommended to me by Florida extension agents because we have such a bad nematode problem than you don't want to put peppers and tomatoes on the same ground more than one year in four.

But other sources, including highlands, which are more focused on animal health (combating worms), as opposed to garden prep, recommend much more frequent rotations measured in days as opposed to years.

highlands - as a soon to be pig farmer, thank you thank you for all your words of wisdom and experience. Great website.

[highlands]

I think the difference between Carla Emery and my experiences is it sounds like she's simply turning out the animals free range as it is termed rather than using managed rotational grazing. The goals of managed rotational grazing include parasite control, plant control, maximizing plant growth for grazing, minimizing soil compaction, etc. If the animals are simply freely out on the pasture then it takes longer for the pasture to recover and thus her five year rotation.

Some think of managed rotational grazing as being too hard, and I've certainly watched people who make it difficult to do. But it does not need to be hard. Don't rotate forward by the calendar, instead just notice when the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Then don't rotate back to an area for at least 21 days, preferably 30 days - that's the parasite control issue. Between the two there's a lot of flexibility. Some rotations might be a year to return, others a day to move on.

It is important to realize that there are many ways that work and that different climates, terrains, soils, weather, season, breed and pastures can make one thing or another work better for you. Explore the methods.

Originally Posted by lissapell

Walter, I have been engrossed with your process but was wondering how much milk/milk products your pigs get a day? Are you still running 200 pigs on 10 acres with the majority of feed being from pasture?

I suspect you may be mixing several different pieces of data. Realize that my blog posts were written over a period of many years and over time our herds and pastures have both changed. Long ago we had about 10 acres in pasture. Now we have about 70 acres in pasture. We do forestry on the rest of our land other than the marshes.

Currently:
~400 pigs
~70 acres of land used for the livestock

I figure a maximum of about 10 pigs per acre is sustainable - that's finisher sized pigs.

Consumption:
~1,800 gallons of dairy per day most of which is whey (~3.6g/phw/d want more)
~400 lbs of hay per pig per winter (~0.8 lbs/pighw/day)
~800 lbs of hay per sow per winter farrowing of which she eats some, beds other
0 lbs purchased grain / commercial hog feed.

We also grow pumpkins, sunflowers, sunchokes, rape, beets, turnips, apples and such which tend to be part of their fall and winter forages. Sometimes we get in some veggies and other things and occasionally get a little bit of bread from a local bakery which makes an excellent training treat for loading since they get so little high calorie food. For more details see: Pigs | Sugar Mountain Farm which I try to keep up-to-date.

Realize that is split across herds with pigs ranging from newborn piglets to over 1,000 lb breeders. Bigger pigs consume more than littler pigs. In fact, bigger pigs are more efficient at pasturing than piglets due to their larger jaws, teeth and longer digestive tracts. Numbers are not absolutes, just rough as things vary with the pig depending on size, season and other factors and numbers have changed over the years.

Averaged out over a lot of pigs free feeding they seem to eat about 3.6 gallons of dairy per pig hundred weight per day and about 0.8 lbs of hay per hundred weight per day. The rest of the hay is bedding and ends up in the compost pile and then gardens or orchards. We buy some hay as high quality and some that is mulch for bedding as they're different prices. The 0.8 lbs/day/HWp is actual consumption over extended periods. Pigs also drink about 0.72 gallons of water a day per hundred weight.

That's a lot of precision but don't get your pencil too sharp on it since it will vary with other pigs, setups and such. From talking with a lot of other farmers over the year I am starting to believe that pigs who have been bred for many generations on pasture end up better able to handle pasture. We certainly select for that, for wintering ability, etc so it makes sense. This means that taking pigs out of a CAFO and dumping them on pasture may not work. e.g., not all pigs are equal and some pigs are more equal than others to misquote Animal Farm.

Originally Posted by lissapell

Although I have also read Yorkshires do not work well in heat and humidity. I'm on the gulf Coast of MS so heat and humidity is about all we deal with.

I'm not familiar with your climate so I can't comment well from experience. I think you're hotter and sunnier than us. I have read is that the issue is sunburn. Our pigs have a lot of hair which protects them. They take mud baths too. I don't see sunburn on them but our sun is likely nowhere near as strong as down south. With any pigs having shade and a wallow are very important.

Originally Posted by lissapell

I understand that boar taint is very uncommon so the need to cut is not really there,especially is butchering at 6 months. Do you know if particular breeds are more susceptible to boar taint than others?

The Red Duroc seems to give the most reports that I have heard for taint. I have heard of someone having taint in Berkshire. As you say, it is rare. The scientific research backs this up. One researcher on this topic told me that the lighter colored pigs tend to not have any taint while the dark red ones are where he sees the most taint.

However, he also said that feed (high corn/soy => taint), management (confinement, pens => taint) and dietary fiber (low fiber => taint) are all issues too. This fits with our experience and with what I've heard from other people.

Realize that there are several different causes of taint and then there are mistakes that get blamed on taint such as poor bleed out, improper chilling, excited kill, etc. See:

site:sugarmtnfarm.com taint - Google Search

Originally Posted by lissapell

There seems to be a surplus of Duroc and Berkshire in this area as well as many crosses.

Duroc have been repeatedly implicated in problems with aggression and taint so personally I would steer clear of them. Some people who like Red Durocs rave about the aggression and say they are tainted as if that were a good thing. I prefer to breed for good temperament and away from aggression.

Berkshire I have only heard of one claim of taint, no temperament problems and the meat is supposed to be very good. I just got a Berkshire boar this spring and have taste tested him:

Have Your Pig and Eat It Too | Sugar Mountain Farm

Based on those bites he did not have taint and he has a good temperament. It will be quite a while before I see the results of test breeding him.

[lissapell]

If feeding milk straight from the milk pail, would you still find it necessary to give so much? The milk is for the lystien, correct? and good gut digestion?
We dont have much winter here. It might get in the 30's for 2 hours over night a handful of time.
Do you offer hay in the summer for nesting? If not what type of material is used by the sow?
Do you have any idea on how much garden produce per hundred wt you are using?
I completely understand different places, different pigs, different requirements.
You don't happen to ship your pigs for breeding stock do you?

I appreciate you taking the time to answer all my questions.
My 3yr old asked me if she could milk blackie

[highlands]

Oh, it isn't necessary to give so much. That is how much our pigs consume free feeding. You can certainly give them less.

The milk provides primarily lysine and depending on the milk added calories. e.g., whey has little added, whole milk lots. Other proteins and such are there depending on the dairy product.

One good trick is to put the milk in a barrel or pail and stir in some yogurt to let it become more digestible. See:

site:sugarmtnfarm.com yogurt - Google Search

We don't tend to offer hay in the warm months because the sows are out on pasture and often nesting far from the central areas. They tend to like the perimeters in the brush. Getting hay out to them would be too much like work. They gather stones, sticks and grasses themselves. Just like the story of the three pigs:

Nesting Sows | Sugar Mountain Farm

House of Straw | Sugar Mountain Farm

No idea on the produce. It is what ever I can grow. We plant about 70 acres of kale, rape, turnips, beets, etc but that is mixed in with the pasture, not like 70 acres of mono-crop. We plant many acres of pumpkins and other things - these are the winter paddocks. There is never enough to get through the winter though.

We don't ship pigs. I've had requests, both on dogs and pigs, looked into it but decided no because I do not trust shippers to care for the animals. There are too many instances where animals were left on the tarmac or otherwise abused and died due to shippers negligence. They are just too busy moving objects to worry about living things.

Tell your 3 year old that yes, indeed, we do milk our pigs. Sometimes we have a piglet that needs a bit of extra care and must be hand fed. We milk the sows to get colostrum in particular. They milk very nicely and I've squirted milk from them long distances.