Calling any and all pig farmers/breeders

Are they males or females? I don't personally raise them but am surrounded by farmers that do. They introduce them through a fence first, so they can smell them but not hurt them. Much like dogs, they have to be introduced carefully so there isn't a fight. They will establish a pecking order so to speak. If you can keep them separate for a while until they get use to each other, it will save you some vet bills. The can be really food aggressive too, watch at feeding time to see who the trouble maker is.

There are boards about raising feeder pigs and how to introduce them - I read stuff here, because I buy heritage pork bellies to make bacon www.ThePigSite.com

Good luck!

We don't really do pigs here much (well, except for the Pellet Stove folks). All I can think of to advise is take 'em all back, do a whole lot of homework, then start over if you think you got it figgered out. Rick

Mix up some poop from each pig with a bit of mud, and then paint some of the resulting mess on each pig. That should make them all stink the same.

This is similar to placing a handful of litter from a chicken coop on to the feathers of new adult birds being introduced into an existing flock's coop (normally done in the dark). Chickens tend to pick on newcomers no matter what size they are, this cuts down on it.

lammi66 said:

Thanks for all the responses and the links!! Smoky I tried your recommendation and it worked like a charm!! Life is a dance, you learn as you go!! I have never raised any livestock before and I can tell you I will always have some pigs in the back 40!! What an awesome experience for my neices and nephews!! I have had so much company, I am thinking of putting a big gumball machine with hog feed next to the pen and for $.50 you can feed 'em!! Hopefully the pork will be excellent, I know it will be better than store bought!!

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Glad the oinkers are getting along.

I'd reserve judgment on the always having pigs. You are just getting your feet wet and a lot more to go through. Predators for one thing. You are lucky though they aren't pellet pigs, them critters are just plain different.

Glad you have the problam solved. We are raising 3 pigs this year. After not having any animals on the farm in 20 years , I am amazed at the amount of ground a pig can (rut/ root? )up. In the 1st 2 days they were in their pasture they "tilled" an area roughly 20'x 100'. It looked just like it was rototilled.

SmokeyTheBear said:

Glad the oinkers are getting along.

I'd reserve judgment on the always having pigs. You are just getting your feet wet and a lot more to go through. Predators for one thing. You are lucky though they aren't pellet pigs, them critters are just plain different.

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He has smellet pigs.

lammi66 said:

Thanks for all the responses and the links!! Smoky I tried your recommendation and it worked like a charm!! Life is a dance, you learn as you go!! I have never raised any livestock before and I can tell you I will always have some pigs in the back 40!! What an awesome experience for my neices and nephews!! I have had so much company, I am thinking of putting a big gumball machine with hog feed next to the pen and for $.50 you can feed 'em!! Hopefully the pork will be excellent, I know it will be better than store bought!!

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11 years of raising feeder pigs as a kid......

Never had too much trouble on the social end of things so glad you got that one hammered out.

The pork will be astronomically better if you can exercise the animals day. They don't need to be run to exhaustion but 15 to 20 minutes of walking them around an outdoor area makes all the difference.

Check out the pig show at a county/state fair if you're wondering just how you walk a pig.

Feeder pics are a wonderfully low-maintenance project that has tasty rewards when complete. It is easy to buy piglets in the spring, raise them for the summer, and butcher in the fall @ 240-270 lbs or so. Overwintering, breeding and dealing with litters of piglets is an entirely different matter.

Ehouse said:

He has smellet pigs.

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All he did was speed up the process of getting therm to all smell the same. They would have done the same thing on their own rolling around in their own muck in the hog wallow. Funny thing about a lot of animals is that they don't accept others of their kind if they don't carry the same group smell.

Another thing when dealing with merging animals together is to make certain both batches are healthy. A lot of chicken raisers get caught up in the chicken math game and will buy birds and toss them in together only to discover that the new bird has health problems and now their whole flock is in danger.

MasterMech said:

11 years of raising feeder pigs as a kid......

The pork will be astronomically better if you can exercise the animals day. They don't need to be run to exhaustion but 15 to 20 minutes of walking them around an outdoor area makes all the difference.

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A friend and I were having this debate. His are in a small pen and fed copious amounts of grain(rolly polly pigs). Mine are pastured and fed grain as a suppliment. Wich oneakes the tastier pork? Is the pastured pig going to be tougher, they are most definitely leaner.

Am I the only one here that is reading this thread and cannot help thinking constantly about bacon, ham, pork chops and ribs?

firefighterjake said:

Am I the only one here that is reading this thread and cannot help thinking constantly about bacon, ham, pork chops and ribs?

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Nope! ... I think my pigs have to have a complex. Everytime I look at them I'm thinking BACON.

Ncountry said:

A friend and I were having this debate. His are in a small pen and fed copious amounts of grain(rolly polly pigs). Mine are pastured and fed grain as a suppliment. Wich oneakes the tastier pork? Is the pastured pig going to be tougher, they are most definitely leaner.

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Mine were always grain fed (self feeders until we got close to show time and then I started rationing to hit my target weights for fair week.) and kept in a pen during the day. When I went over there to clean out and otherwise tend them, I turned them loose in a small paddock outside. They had a blast rooting around the grass while I cleaned out the bathroom side of their pen. Then we began the exercise routine before putting them up for the night.

I have a picture or two somewhere. My pigs looked like body builders compared to the average hog. Yum yum.

You need nutrition and genetics first, the exercise made an already great hog excellent!

Last fall we bought from a local farmer who pasture-raised a dozen hogs. It was an acre of oaks but were supplemented with grains. For the last month he fed them apples every day in an attempt to "sweeten them up".

Did it work? I don't have that fine a pallet to detect the difference of the apples, but the color of the meat was definitely not chalk white. I saw pics of the piggies before butchering and they were JACKED, rippling muscle. I asked for all the fatback and was disappointed because there was none, either that or the butcher ripped me off (which is known to happen around here, not enough competition).

Best pork chops ever. I ate the best pork chops that have ever been. It ruined me.