pigs

[roadkill]

Hello peeps need some info on keeping pigs ,

I might get the chance to keep a couple of pigs on a friends field along with there two pigs but i will have to do my share of the husbandry and pay towards the food which is all fair in my eyes ...

How much time a day would i have to commit to looking after the pigs, and how many times a day would i need to go?

roughly how long do you keep the pigs for until they go to slaughter

and how much is the food bill each month.

The place is about 10 miles from my house but right next to where i work nights .

Just dont want to be taking on loads more work

My diary is quite tight with having the kids to think of to

[janeyo]

My friend has just raised 2 pigs for the freezer, they were on the land she keeps her horses on, in a fenced off bit. She built a hut thing and a wallow, and said the fencing must be electric as they are great escape artists! She got them at 3 months and had them slaughtered at 9 months (think they were an old breed). I do not know about the cost of the feed but kow it cost £40 in total for both to be slaughtered and jointed how she wanted and that included sausages etc.
I think she feeds them once a day after she has mucked out the horses. She also gave them all sorts of scraps from the kitchen (peelings, overripe fruite etc) and they flattened the land from thick nettles to bare earth in about a fortnight!
We went to their baby's Christening yesterdy and she had cured her own leg of one of the pigs - it wold have easily served 70 people just one leg!

Hope someone else can help you more. It's a great idea and we would love to do it too!

[moola]

just got ours back from the slaughterhouse. much of what you ask depends on what breed you wish to keep. FOR PORK MEAT: If you go for a rare breed which are much more flavoursome (because of the higher fat content) then you get them in at 8 wks and keep for 4 months. Get a commercial breed - you can get a piglet at 3/4 weeks and raise until 3 months. Leaner meat. FOR BACON: Pigs are slaughtered at about 9 months onwards.

You need to feed them twice a day 3kg of food per pig, per meal. You need to watch them eat and move around - usually 15/20 mins per time. Check that they look well, feet are sound and that they are not running to fat (you can feel their backbone). You'll need to top up water during this time, and just check on living quarters and if hot, create a wallow.

You will need to inject them for erysipilas (sp?) esp over summer rearing and worm them (panacur can be added into feed). £35 total.

Even in summer they need an arc - to get out of the sun, or the rain at night. Have you got some sort of housing - this can be an expensive start up cost....new they are about £300.

Cost wise - average feed bag is £8.50 round here - that is good stuff without any super-gro type enhancers. Bag is 20 or 25kg.

Slaughter & cut around £50.

Add in your trailer hire if necessary (just for slaughter, weaners you can put in dog crates in the back of a car)...you can get horse box (usually cheaper - £30 per day).

If you are just feeding your family then 1 pig will be plenty for a year btw.

The most time consuming part is the end. Get the trailer in place the night before, let pigs get used to it, section off pigs and encourage them in (nb - a pig will NEVER do what you try and make it do!). Keep in overnight. TRy and get the earliest slot for slaughter the next morning. Drop off (provide a cut list for the butcher).
When you get the meat back you will be amazed at how much there is and how much needs to be sorted out, bagged, labelled and frozen etc. If you are thinking of making sausages or burgers as well - then I'd keep a day aside tbh.

Hope this helps

[roadkill]

the place has an old brick building what has been fenched of where they had pigs before .

Looks like i will have to read up on there welfair about injecting them for erysipilas (sp?) and worming them ..

also do i need to contact defra ?

[Hilary B]

We kept pigs for years in a back-yard way. Unless vaccination is a requirement, you shouldn't need it for pigs kept in a non-intensive way, and only until they are big enough to go for slaughter.
If they are being kept on land that has had pigs before (unless it was ages ago), worming is necessary (but pretty easy, just add it to the feed, and the dosage will be on the packaging).
It's long enough since we kept them that there may be rules I don't know. Your pig-keeping friend probably knows that stuff.
There is a simple rule-of-thumb about feeding quantity. If they finish it REALLY fast, give them some more. If they aren't looking keen when you arrive with the food, reduce the amount.
As they get bigger they will eat more.
Even among rare breeds rate of growth will vary, a Berkshire may reach slaughter-weight at less than 5 months of age, a Tamworth may well need to be over 6 months.
You can do part as pork, part as bacon if you want, or if you have 2, one at pork weight, keep the other an extra month or so for bacon.
Any scrap veg/lottie-trimmings can go to the pigs. You used to be able to give them waste from the fishmonger (the bits he trimmed off for customers who couldn't do their own) but I think that has been stopped now. Strictly speaking they shouldn't have anything that came from the kitchen, but if it is only veg peelings (kept away from other scrap) and perhaps bread, there is no real reason they can't have it (anything meat-ish is risky, and so, apparently, are eggs). I always believed in following what the law was ABOUT in such matters, rather than the red tape (mostly put in place because otherwise someone would NOT use sense, so the rules have to be fussier than is really necessary)!
If you can find a book called "the book of the pig" by Susan Hulme, I would recommend it. You will probably also need to find out about changes in regulations since then (unless it has been updated for that stuff, which is very possible).