Pigs - Standards for Fattneners

Note: Fatteners is the term used for piglets that you are rearing for the freezer.

We have up untill now had 2 pigs at a time (they like company). There are many ways of rearing pigs what we are putting here is how we do & some other standards. Read as much as you can & find a way that keeps you & your pigs healthy & happy.

House - Ours is a movable house that we have built size is 32sqft - Floor area per pig 16sq ft, with the door to their outside space always open, in fact we have no door on our pig house. Which means they can come and go outside as they please.(factories allow 1sqmeter per pig or 10sqft).

Note: Pigs don't like draughts - we try to keep the door of the house facing south & if the ground is uneven and there are gaps around the bottom of the house pack with straw to keep the chill out.

Bedding - Give your pigs plenty of straw for their beds. Your pigs will clean house & throw out any straw they think has passed it's used by date, so just top up with fresh straw. (we use barley straw because it's less itchy)

Heating/Lighting - As this is an outdoor system they don't require either (piglets at 8wks old are off heat.) Plenty of straw will keep them warm.

Outside space - we allow roughly 30ft x 20ft for their run, when this is dug over we move them to fresh ground. Altogether we moved them 4 times so for two pigs we use 2,400 sq ft for 2 pigs.

Soil Association standards for pigs Baconers (over 85kg) is 16 animals per Hectacre or 1 pig on 6,727.5sq ft.

When to move - This pretty much depends on you, do you want your ground thoroughly dug over or lightly turned.

Water - Pigs should have access to water at all times.

Feeding - You can buy feed from your local co-op ( they will probably have to order it in for you). You will be looking for a grower feed. However on Greenacre we make up the feed ourselves and supplement it with plenty of greens and eggs from the chickens. If you go this route be very careful pigs can't cope with an unbalanced diet.

Note: It is now ILLEGAL in Ireland to feed you pigs kitchen scraps - yep you heard me ILLEGAL. These laws were of course brought in as a result of a few larger industrial pig owners feeding catering waste of a dubious nature to pigs & takes no account of the smallholder who has the kitchen bucket with good nutricious peels etc.

Pigs and Muck - Pigs do like to wallow in muck but Clean dirt they do not like being left on ground that has turned to soup. In the wild most pig herds have specific areas for toilet, wallowing, feeding & sleeping. You will find your animals will develop the same (small piglets will learn but over time as they don't have older members to teach them).

Note: If you are cleaning their toilet area leave a corner of the muck there (this helps them keep that area as a toilet)

Fencing - we use movable posts and 2 to 3 strands of tape/polywire with a mains fencer (if you are using one for the chickens you can run a strand from their run).

They have escaped a couple of times on us, but on inspection we have discovered that their rooting has buried the bottom strand of wire (making the pulse weak) and they pretty much walked through it. To get them back in I have just laid a trail of apples/bread and they ate their way back in.

Handling - While we advise against making pets of them (you won't be able to kill your pet!!!) It is a good idea to have you pigs well used to your prescence & easy to handle. (try not to name them!)

Slaughter Age/Weight - We have kept our pigs for 7 months making them 9months & approx110kg at slaughter. We are trying for 4 months this time out, which would be 6months & approx 90kg at slaughter.

Travelling - Pigs are not good travellers, they can get car sick, so allow plenty of time for the trip to the abattoir & take it easy on the roads (in fact we take a longer route on better roads to get them there) Note: If you can get the trailer that will be carrying them into their run & feed them in the trailer in the evening & lock them in for a couple of nights beforehand,. it would make them easier to load the night before you are leaving and dosen't cause as much distress.

Note: Tail Docking, while the pigs that we have just bought are tail docked it's not something that we agree with. Tail Docking became a necessity because of overcrowding in intensive farming which lead to a higher rate of aggression (tail biting) in pigs. In outdoor pigs this is not a necessary practice.

You either like or don't like pigs, we have found them to be funny, bright wee animals that are a pleasure to have.

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