Question on rasing a few pigs

I am wanting to buy a few young pigs and fatten them up and butcher. I have an area that is 24X20 that is concreat. It is on a corner with a barn on 2 sides so there would be plenty of shade. I was thinking of putting them there and not on the yard so they wont root holes and their poo would by an easy clean up. Is this a big enough area for 2-3 pigs? I have plenty of room on grass if you feel that would be better. Help/advice wanted. Thanks

I raise 4 at a time in a pen 8X16. Plenty of straw and clean it regularly. They do just fine.

You could feed out 24 hogs in your pen.

Depends on what you are wanting to do, all livestock, bar none, do better on pasture as far as health and cheapness of feed and contentment of the animals. If you want the hogs to reach finish weight in the shortest possible time and feed cost is not an issue then dry lot feeding is the way to go.

.......... all livestock, bar none, do better on pasture as far as health and cheapness of feed and contentment of the animals......

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Wow!! Really?? I try to let stuff go on this forum, but I have to cry BS on this one. Are you saying pigs in slimey sloppy pasture mud, especially this screwed up winter, are better off and happier than a pig sleeping in a bed of straw in a nice dry cement floored barn??

Maybe in the southern climates where the ground stays firm all year, your statement is correct, but up here where we have weather.... I don't agree. I used to raise pigs on dirt lots/pastures and it's funny how they seem to want to stay on the concrete when it gets soupy, they'll even hole up in barns on concrete floors for weeks at a time to stay out of the mud. When a pig is burning off 50% of what it eats just trying to stay warm and navigate the mud, your [i:b7d7370c0e]bar none[/i:b7d7370c0e] statement looses some punch.

By the way Justin, your pad is big enough for a few pigs. Be a good manager and keep it clean, give them a dry, draft free place to sleep and they'll thrive.

Tim

Sorry for the double post......

We used to use portable wooden slat floored buildings to raise hogs on. They where two 10 foot by 20 foot floors placed side by side. One half was open pen and the other was a shed. So when they where pulled together you had a 20 x 20 pen. We used gravity waterers and Ten hole Martin feeders. We would finish out 40 hogs per floor with no problems.

So you could have 10-15 with not problems on your concrete. If it does not break the wind too well then you will just let them have a foot or more of bedding in the winter. They will root up a pile and then make a hole in the middle. They will keep good and warm.

You need to study up a little before you call B/S. I specifically stated that the hogs would gain more on full feed on drylot but the other part of the statement, that any kind of livestock do better on pasture has been proven correct since the dawn of recorded history. There is no since putting any livestock out on sloppy muudy lots but pasture is a different thing altogether. Livestock raised out in the open grow hair to stay warm and your statement that the pigs will be ''burning off 50% of what it eats trying to stay warm'' is not quite accurate. Every animal has a maintenance level of feed required to live and maintain body temperature and the feed fed above that level provides the growth, or eggs or milk or whatever. There have been literally hundreds of midwestern and northeastern university experiments dating back over 100 years where pigs, lambs, steers, goats, you name it, have been fed in various lots, sheltered, unsheltered, windbreaks only etc. to figure out the most economical ways to fatten the animals, it always comes down to ration fed, the addition of shelter rarely makes any difference unless it is extreme cold where the animals will not drink water. Where do you think 99.9% of the hogs were raised in this country up until the 1950's?

That's plenty of space for your pigs.

will they have a shelter? Wasn't quite sure from your post.

I don't raise pigs myself, but a good friend of mine does a few every year.

We just poured concrete in his pen last year and it worked out very well. It's around 20x20.

He's got a 3 sided shelter in one corner. Keeps that filled with clean straw.

Before putting the concrete in, the pigs were always a mess. The smell was horrible.

Couldn't have been very healthy for them.

Once they start digging everything up, it's really hard to clean the pen out adequately. Everything mixes into nasty muck. Especially with rain. It'd always be like a pen full of cake batter.

Concrete is infinitely easier to keep clean.

So if it's a decision between a pen on concrete or a pen on grass - concrete wins hands down.

If it's a decision between a small pen vs a large pasture, I'd have to go with the pasture if you're trying to make them happy.

In the pen, as long as you keep them well fed and well watered, they'll be happy enough, and they'll fatten right up.

In fact, you could argue that you have more control over their food intake in a small pen - even though it may cost you more.

...... You need to study up a little before you call B/S.....?

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I'll call Ohio State and tell them to burn my Animal Science Degree. LOL

I use to do up to 4 on a 8foot by 12foot pen with a wood floor. Four was pushing it but 3 would do good.

Our rule of thumb in the barn is 9 square feet per pig, so I'd say you're doing fine.

Thanks for your help guys. Yeah they will have a roofed shelter at one end. I will have a 8inch PVC pipe about 4 foot long standing vertically in one corner with a few nipples threaded in for water. I have a pig feeder with 2 flap lids.

Good idea.

(quoted from post at 09:55:05 02/04/12) Thanks for your help guys. Yeah they will have a roofed shelter at one end. I will have a 8inch PVC pipe about 4 foot long standing vertically in one corner with a few nipples threaded in for water. I have a pig feeder with 2 flap lids.

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ake sure your concrete is ruff and not a smooth surface as we've had problems at shows that install new floors that are smooth and are easy to break a leg that way.

I will have to agree with Tim,You say pasture not a soupy lot.Any hog in a dirt lot-pasture is a muddy soupy place(mess) in the winter after two days time.Back when we raising 500 to 1000 at a time,the ones on concrete used 2/3 to 3/4 the feed and time to reach salable over the pasture fed.More labor was the only drawback.

Number one, he asked about raising 3 or 4 pigs, not 1000, secondly, any pasture of a proper size for the number of animals put on it is not a muddy, soupy lot, winter or summer, third, running livestock on pasture does not mean they are not provided shelter, lastly, you did not completely read what I originally wrote or you did not comprehend what you read.

OK LAA, I've read and re-read your post and I'll stand my ground with Massey333. Sounds like we have real ife experience that you are comparing with [i:fb9c57312b]studies[/i:fb9c57312b].

The shelter you are talking about, is it big enough that the pigs are fed inside of it?? If your feeder or trough is outside, there is going to be mud around it within a few days and the entrance and exit to your shelter will also be torn up within a few days. I guess you move shelters and feeders every few days to keep them out of the mud.

How are you feeding on pasture with less feed than in a dry lot?? Are your animals living on grass and acorns because the supplied feed is limited?? The pig will eat the easiest most abundant food it can get to fulfill it's needs. It may forage for food for fun, but it's going to fill it's belly at the feeder if it can.

How are you measuring animal contentment?? A happy, content animal will be the one gaining the most weight on the least amount of feed usually in the shortest number of days. Add stress (unhappiness) to a pig in any feeding enviroment and the efficiancy goes down. I'm not saying a pig laying in a pasture in the sun on a nice Spring day isn't content, but if he's wading through mud at the feeder or coming and going through a doorway in the rain, in the Winter, before the ground freezes..... he's probably not too content.

Health wise, I'll give you the benifit of the doubt on pastures. If your management isn't up to the task of taking care of pigs in a barn or dry lot, they'll be better off in a pasture.

I'm not opposed to pastures or total confinement barns, I had issue with your [b:fb9c57312b]"...all livestock, bar none, do better on pasture as far as health and cheapness of feed and contentment of the animals...."[/b:fb9c57312b] part of the statement.

I guess my measure of contentment is a pig that has all it wants to eat, whenever it wants it, and a dry draft free place to sleep. In return for it's happiness, it'll give you the best rate of gain in the shortest amount of time.

As far as backing up your statement with comparing to the way it was done before the 50's is nonsense. They used to pick corn by hand back in the day too, that doesn't make it right or efficient. My grandpa would have a stroke if he walked into a modern day field of 200 bushel corn with a corn peg.

We feed in a well ventilated, old fashioned straw bedded barn. We don't over crowd and clean manure out at least once a week. I know most of ours run to the the fence when my wife walks in, because she scratches their heads and gives them apple slices and lettuce leaves once in awhile... they seem happy and stress free.

I am in the livestock business and have been all my life, over the years I have made a profit with cattle, sheep and hogs as well as laying hens, every farm animal is healthier and has less feet and leg problems and less need for supplemental vitamins if they are run on pasture. The ''cheapness of feed'' I was referring to was due to the pasture itself, I did not say it would be faster gains, just the opposite, he actually mentioned that he had pasture available in the original post. Again, he was not talking about 500 head, he was talking about 2-3 head. I clearly stated that if he wanted the most efficient gains then dry lot was the way to go. As far as my comment about pasture systems in the 50's that was not entirely accurate because the real story is that probably no less than 50% of the sows in the US were farrowed on pasture and pigs fed out on pasture or in the open up until the late 70's, early 80's, it is still a viable method and proven to be the most economical for a small to mid size producer. As far as University studies and experiments go, why do you think the land grant university system was established in the first place? it was precisely to help farmers stay in business and produce more food for a growing population by improving the methods and conditions under which livestock are raised. You have an Animal Science degree yet you disdain Agricultural research, much of which has resulted in improving the quality of life for literally hundreds of millions of people world wide. By the way, pasture should not be a half mudded lot or the poorest piece of ground on the farm, it should be a well tended acreage that is properly managed, fertilized, limed and every effort made to keep a green and growing crop of some kind on it year round or, at least as many days per year as the local climate allows. I do live in the deep south and we have the advantage of mild winters but that also means year round, non stop microbial action taking place in the soil with the attendent constant leaching of nutrients, in other words, proper management of pasture in my area takes way more management effort than dry lot or barn feeding.