Pigs Got Out!!

You bet they did, and they are loving being pastured piggies!

I had a 4 day weekend, which gave me the time I needed to get a bunch of chores and projects done so we could finally get our little Berks out onto lush lush pasture! I had to trench out a lead wire from their pen to the pasture. In the process, I accidentally cut through the dogs' Invisible Fence wire :( ugh. Something else to fix!

Once I had that wire in place, I layed out a combination of electric netting and two strand poly wire to create a square area inside the pasture. The alfalfa/orchardgrass in that section is mostly up to my knees, so I mowed a perimeter strip for the electro-netting and so the pigs could get an easy visual of where the hot wire is. Since this is their first pasture paddock, I wanted to make it easy for them to understand and prevent accidental escapes, etc. One thing I have learned over the years is it is worth it to do it right and stop problems before they happen. Which, I guess, comes after learning the things that can and will go wrong. From watching them go....wrong. After many frustrating hours of trying to chase errant animals back IN through an electric fence, etc., which I can tell you is about as easy and fun as unwinding a hairball, I don't want to go there again. Guess that's what they mean by older and wiser! A week or two ago, I got a flat rack from a nearby farmer. This is basically a large flat wagon on a big set of axles (running gear). This will be my platform for my portable water tank for the pasture moves, and it will serve as shade and shelter for the pigs as we move from spot to spot within the pasture. Then I built another hoop hut as additional shelter for them.

Once I had the layout of the perimeter of their first paddock set up, I built a temporary chute, or alleyway between their pen and the new pasture so they could go out there without wandering all over the yard. We did the same thing with our other batches of pigs when we moved them to the garden. These Berks moved out very nicely. I've always read that pigs will not want to cross a line where an electric wire was because they don't have great eyesight. But these guys did great coming over with just a bit of coaxing from Karen and I. Pretty soon, they were all racing around in the pasture!

Well, all except one, who suddenly appeared having copious foam coming from his nose and mouth! We didn't see him eat anything weird, but he certainly had all the symptoms of a pig that just licked a poisonous toad or something similar! I offered him some water,but he didn't want it. It cleared up in about 30 minutes, but that was weird. He's totally fine now, and we have no idea what it was he ate.


Have you ever seen a pig eat grass? I mean, really eat a LOT of grass?? It was quite amazing to me to watch these pigs simply go crazy munching away on the tall grass. I know now that pigs can and will eat grass, but I had never seen them fully graze like that! For such little pigs, it seemed like they must be stuffing their stomachs full!
Now, pigs are not ruminants, they have a single stomach like us. They can digest grass, but not as well as cows or sheep can. An adult pig can get as much as half her diet from pasture alone. But smaller pigs don't have as fully developed digestive tracts, and so cannot utilize grass as much as bigger pigs can. Plus, growing pigs need a good amount of protein, which is low in forage, and they need lysine, an amino acid they cannot manufacture, so we continue to offer them their regular feed while on pasture. the pasture,however, is particularly full of beta-carotenes and sugars especially this time of year. I'm sure the sugars in the grass is what's got them eating it like candy. this is the sweetest time of year, literally, if you are a grass eater. the brix, or sugar levels are highest on the lush forages while the days are warm and the nights are cool, and it is receiving plenty of moisture. Once the daytime temps go over 80 degrees, grass stops growing very much, and it lignifies. Which in plain English means it gets kinda starchy and bitter tasting.
My pasture are getting ahead of me, and I need to get some cows out there to eat it down, or it will go to seed and quit growing altogether.

Moving the pigs out is not all we got done. If you want to know what we do on our days off, or for those of our friends who think our life is just like vacation all the time, here is an incomplete list:
Fixed car door, pumped up low tire, took the truck and trailer to Farm & Fleet and picked up some gates and fence panels, put up 125 post insulators (still need about 225 more to go), planted three birch trees, weeded, watered and planted the vegetable garden, picked up the yard, mowed the lawn, scraped the rust off of a galvanized stock tank and repainted it, removed the bottom from the grain hopper to clean the rust off that, ordered a hog feeder, fixed the Invisible Fence, cleaned the house, smoked a ham, had family over for a nice day on Saturday. My brother helped me cut down a tree, and as I was hauling brush away, my mom joined us and even she pitched in and started hauling brush! That felt good, it was sweet to be working side by side like that again. Even Dad was there for supervision! We also had a little family time and got to play some badminton and had two nice campfires.

Next on the list is to build a corral for receiving cattle....!