On Building Pig Lots

(The following is from a correspondance with another homesteadblogger.)

Hello,

Thanks for commenting on our blog. You asked about pig lots. I am suprised how much success we have had keeping the pigs in, because everyone told us it would be impossible!

We used as many standing trees as possible and dug holes for other posts (cut trees). Then we nailed cattle fence to the posts. We tried to bury the fence about 6 inches or at least made it curve inward toward the lots.

Our first lot we buried old roofing tin at the bottom of the fence so they would not be able to root out, and we put up cross rails for strength. The later big lots, I did not go to that much trouble. They have not really needed the cross rails, but we did try to put a solid bottom beam down on the ground to keep them from rooting up the fence. Otherwise they would just mangle the fence and go right under.

The only problems we have had is when they dig down so deep that they can squeeze under the rail or when they have stuck their snouts through the fence so much that they break some of the wires over time. In both cases we have had plenty of time to correct the problem before they would get to the point of being able to get out. We could just nail up a lower rail or put up another piece of wire fence over the hole they were making.

We did decide to dig some wallow holes and fill them up with water every few days in the summer, so there was quite a bit of work involved.

I just added you to our friend list so you will be able to see all of out past posts. We started completely ignorant as to what to do, but we seem to have found what works. At least it has worked for us.

If you go to the category section on our blog, you can go to "Learning About Pigs" and see all of our posts concerning our pig raising adventure. I think I have written more about pigs than anything else, I guess because it has been our first big project for our homestead (after chickens).

The posts with pictures of the children are viewable to "friends only", so you may have missed some of the earlier posts about pigs. Lately I have put them up for everyone to view just until it leaves the most recent 100 posts, and then I go back and make them "friends only".

I noticed on your blog that you are also thinking about bees. We started a honey bee hive also. I have only posted a couple of times about it, but you might want to check them out to.

If you do look around at the old posts, I hope you will be blessed by them. I sure have had fun recording what the Lord has been doing for our family!

God Bless,

Eric