Sunday, February 21, 2016

Tiny Homestead Pigs

I sure do lose track of time, don't I?

Things are going well here so far. Since I last posted oh-so-long-ago, I've gained some little black pigs which are supposed to be part potbelly pig and part American Guinea Hog. They sure are small. We started out with 4 and they did fine in an enclosure where we had them temporarily.

After awhile, though, it was apparent that was way too small for them so we beefed up the "security" on the regular hog pen and put them in there. That was an adventure for sure since we had to bait them into a pet carrier one at a time, then move them to the other pen. After the first one, the others were pretty leery which meant me standing at one end of the small enclosure, just on the outside of it, and goosing a pig with a piece of PVC pipe when it got a front foot or two into the carrier, making it jump forward into the carrier while my son shut the little door on it really fast.

We set up a little house for them with lots of hay in it, for cold or rainy times, fed them really well, then crossed our fingers that they wouldn't figure out an escape route.

After a day or two, one of the little pigs died. We have no clue why. It was active and had a good appetite the day before. The others are doing very well, though. There is one especially tiny one that manages to get out of the big pen, and sometimes finds his way into the front yard. He's easy to put back in the goat pen, which is where he passes through on his way to the yard, but it's difficult to get him back in with the other pigs. Our older potbelly pig, Ellie May, isn't crazy about him but she seems to be tolerating him for now.

We are raising these for meat and breeding. There is one female and 2 males now. One of the males is pretty large so we'll probably keep him for awhile to breed with the small female and Ellie May. The runty little pig will probably have to be butchered. We just don't need that many pet pigs!

Here's a video of the little pigs over on my YouTube channel. Enjoy!




No comments:

Post a Comment