Piggies

[Timmy59]

We went for 3 as that's what the family needs are and ended up with 4. They're in rather rough shape but time heals. The red Duroc has 2 swollen back legs and the belted Hampshire has 1 swollen bunged up leg. I was wanting gilts as cutting nuts just ain't in any bodies fun zone. The hamp is a gilt the other 3 are currently boars but want to become barrows before size and strength are gained. I guess I'll have to gather up the nice razor knife secret Santa here gave me. If your reading this that knife will be cutting nuts tomorrow. Before dropping them in the pen I hit them each with a 250LB mark of ivermect. Yup, 250 lb dose for about 20 lb pigs. Ivomec has a wide safety margin. The pigs cost $25 a pop, $100 for the 4 and now to fix'em and grow'em out. With luck the last of Feb well look for 200+ lbs each. I'll keep those interested in this posted on this.

 

[Oklahomabassin]

Ivomec is that expensive now?

 

[radarmonkey]

I can still smell the first time I stepped into a pen to cut some. Freshman Ag class 1987.

 

[Timmy59]

Ivomec is that expensive now?

edited to read right.

 

[Grendelshooter]

We’re considering adding a few pigs to the homestead. Looking at some Kune kune here locally.
We’ve got black belly sheep and they are just ridiculously easy animals to care for. Just leave them alone and they’re fine for the most part.
We don’t know much about pigs, but we knew nothing about sheep before we got them so why not?

 

[Timmy59]

We’re considering adding a few pigs to the homestead. Looking at some Kune kune here locally.
We’ve got black belly sheep and they are just ridiculously easy animals to care for. Just leave them alone and they’re fine for the most part.
We don’t know much about pigs, but we knew nothing about sheep before we got them so why not?

Bro, Had the kune kunes and it was a mistake on my part. Unless you can and want to put out $$ and Labor I would not. We buy and raise yearly pig/s Because pigs are cheap off of CL. Pigs will bring NO profit. However pigs and the right chickens will fill the freezer for lil $$. I have a cost breakdown on chickens in a thread here. The goal of a simple not rolling in $$ homesteader is to raise food with as little labor and $$ invested. If you keep livestock that must be maintained on sacked / bulk feed the cost of the final product may rival or exceed the cost at the grocery store. Although better grub. Pigs are too labor intensive for my liking, my wife will NOT allow for a critter to be cheated on care. So the piggies we picked up would NOT look like they do had we produced them. Of course with a professional set up and equipment labor would be reduced and efficiency gained. But a professional set up cost $$ and then your in the red.

 

[Timmy59]

All 4 alive this morning, I didn't OD them, lol. They are in rough shape, I SHOULD have paid more attention to what the fellow was putting in the trailer. Oh well live and learn or get burned. They'll shape up with time.

 

[Grendelshooter]

Bro, Had the kune kunes and it was a mistake on my part. Unless you can and want to put out $$ and Labor I would not. We buy and raise yearly pig/s Because pigs are cheap off of CL. Pigs will bring NO profit. However pigs and the right chickens will fill the freezer for lil $$. I have a cost breakdown on chickens in a thread here. The goal of a simple not rolling in $$ homesteader is to raise food with as little labor and $$ invested. If you keep livestock that must be maintained on sacked / bulk feed the cost of the final product may rival or exceed the cost at the grocery store. Although better grub. Pigs are too labor intensive for my liking, my wife will NOT allow for a critter to be cheated on care. So the piggies we picked up would NOT look like they do had we produced them. Of course with a professional set up and equipment labor would be reduced and efficiency gained. But a professional set up cost $$ and then your in the red.

I don’t really care much about profit, just looking to raise our own food.
What was the problem with the kune kunes? I’ve got lots of grass and they’re a grazing animal.
From what I’ve seen/speaking with others they aren’t any more labor intensive than our sheep and chickens.

 

[Timmy59]

The kunes are a lard type animal, ton of lard. Slow growing and will need supplemental food at times. They are good animals and unique in the fact they are grazers and will roam your pasture foraging for food. That's not year round though, unless maybe your on top of planting food sources. Food plot type stuff. With only so many hours in a day a homesteader HAS to focus on the energy used. Whether your looking for profit or not you want your produce to be better than and cheaper than store bought. Coming into ANY new endeavor it is easy for us to overwhelm ourselves with the new enthusiasm. I gave away over 50 lbs of frozen chicken cuz I'm guilty. I too have said I will not have goats, but with a dairy need we have been kicking around the idea of Nigerians for some time. We may just end up with some. My post was only to stir your brain cells and increase your focus. Your on the right track with what your thinking just be careful you don't over burden yourselves. Every endeavor requires time and time is short and precious. Hope that helps.

 

[Grendelshooter]

The kunes are a lard type animal, ton of lard. Slow growing and will need supplemental food at times. They are good animals and unique in the fact they are grazers and will roam your pasture foraging for food. That's not year round though, unless maybe your on top of planting food sources. Food plot type stuff. With only so many hours in a day a homesteader HAS to focus on the energy used. Whether your looking for profit or not you want your produce to be better than and cheaper than store bought. Coming into ANY new endeavor it is easy for us to overwhelm ourselves with the new enthusiasm. I gave away over 50 lbs of frozen chicken cuz I'm guilty. I too have said I will not have goats, but with a dairy need we have been kicking around the idea of Nigerians for some time. We may just end up with some. My post was only to stir your brain cells and increase your focus. Your on the right track with what your thinking just be careful you don't over burden yourselves. Every endeavor requires time and time is short and precious. Hope that helps.

Oh I know what you mean. It would be easy to do, especially with the way things are going around the country the desire is to get everything ASAP…but we’re taking things slow.
We ended up having to buy hay for this winter. We have a 40 acre plot off toward Mountain View that has a lot of grass so we’re experimenting with making silage out of it and if we can make that work we won’t have to buy anything for next winter.
We may even expand our flock and move them permanently onto the 40 acres with a bunch of guard animals.
Next spring is going to be mostly developing a fruit orchard but I think we’re going to try a couple of acres of corn for feed to supplement the grazers.

We’re on a waiting list for some dairy sheep, hope to add a couple to our flock this spring, God willing. We really thought the sheep would be harder than they turned out to be so we started smaller than we would have liked. Now that we’ve got a routine with the chickens and sheep that’s manageable we’re looking into pigs. Probably start with a couple of gilts, and get used to having them before we start breeding them. At the rate they reproduce It may be worthwhile to entirely replace the sheep with grazing pigs, but we shall see.
Lots of stuff up in the air but time will tell-I just wish we had more of it (time).