# I need some advice on raising pigs



## Oldman (Jan 13, 2010)

... I will list what I have in mind in a bit but first, I am disabled. I fell from a scaffold 6 years ago the 5th of this month, and while I am getting better, inch by slow inch, I finally give up on finding a job working for someone else. I can work, but at my own pace. Nothing like I was before. 
... Therefore, I don't have a choice but to build my own job because I am not going to set around here drawing the P*** pour check they give me after all I paid in over the years. 
... Even if they gave me a check I feel that I should get, all that would do is help me turn this land into a farm again a lot faster, because I am not setting down the rest of my life anyway. 
... I bought it to make a farm from again. It just got put on the back burner for a few more years than I had hoped for, and I thank the good Lord we even still live here. And there isd still a chance, ever so small now, but none the less, a chance we could still loose it. 
... When we got this place, 3.8 acres the house is own, a 20 +/- acre field that hasn't been planted for 15 years, and 38 +/- acres of woods, with the +/- meaning it is 58 acres total, is not counting the lot the house is own, and by my measurements when we got it, it measured out to be about 20 acres of field, give or take an acre or two. 
... So that's where the 38 and 20 comes from but I know it's 58 acres all together not counting the land the house is on. 
... The field has been bush hogged each year so a good tractor which I hope to get here shortly, with a bottom plow, disc, and jitter bugs, should make it easy enough for me to plant the whole field. 
... That leaves me with the 38 acres for the pigs. 

.... Now this is what I plan as of right now to do, if we can scrape the nickles and dimes together this year. I want all of you to be truthful with me, and anything I say that doesn't seem like a good idea, please tell me. I am almost going into this blind as as they say, this time I will be betting the farm on it. 

... As far as labor goes, I have a 19 year old daughter, Stacey, that helps me do whatever I need help doing and I mean she does it all. Helps me cut and haul fire wood, tended the chickens and loved it, helps me 'Can" what we get from the garden, and yet she still looks like a petete young lady, which she is. And a cook. She learned everything I showed her and some tricks of her own. 
She got behind one grade but will finish high school this spring and
Thank God, she  wants to stay here and help he daddy make the farm become a farm again.
... Her boyfriend, Mike, he comes over during the day when Stacey isn't even here just to help me with whatever I am doing. I am teaching him how to weld and he's getting pretty good too. He's a 20 year young buck trying to make a name for himself as a stand up, clean cut hard working guy, but there aren't any jobs around here. 
... He has three brothers from 17 to 24 that is just like him. And a sister that is, well, she's a good cook. She wants to help can. 

Look, my computer is trying to download an update and it is going to restart when it does so if I don't post this I will loose it. I am going to post what I have so far and start again as soon as it finishes whatever it needs to do. 

Dennis


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## jhm47 (Jan 13, 2010)

Dennis:  Wishing you the very best, but it would help us all if you would tell us where you're located, and what types of soil you have on your fields.


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## Oldman (Jan 15, 2010)

jhm47 said:
			
		

> Dennis:  Wishing you the very best, but it would help us all if you would tell us where you're located, and what types of soil you have on your fields.


Hi jhm. Thanks for the well wishes. We live in Danville, Va. It is about the center of the Va. / N.C. line and I could kill a deer in N.C. from my back porch if it were legal to shoot across a highway, LOL. 

As far as the soil goes, I have to rebuild it. The man that owned it before me had it bull dozed to clear all the sapplings off and the dozer driver pushed all the good top soil down the hill, but it's piled up the entire length of the field in a mound about 5 feet high.
It looks like all the sapplings have rotted pretty well and I thing I can take a box blade and drag it all back up the hill but that will be some work. 
But I have several young bucks. (young men) plus a few friends, (older men) that can't find a job anywhere. Every one of them feels luckey when they get three days work a week. 
They all helped me in the garden last year, a little at a time,  just to spend their time working. Plus they all knew where to come when they were hungry. Dennis has always got something to eat if it's just a pot of beans, fried taters and corn bread.

If I can put enough piglets down here to get a good pay day from sausage and hams, plus many other things we are talking about doing, I'll have probably 8 or 10 men here to help me out part time if for nothing else just to get some hams and sausage, eggs, and veggies. And to be a friend. 
It will take me every bit of 15 minutes to teach any one of them to drive the tractor. 
When you can find 10 men that you personnaly know, that wants to work, yet can't find more than two or three days work a week, you are living in bad times my friend. Bad times now and it's getting worse.  
We will rebuild the soil to where it makes the best crops it ever thought it could if a field could think.
I cut some firewood at a friends mini farm today from logs he had dragged up through the woods, and while there I looked his chipper over really good. Took pictures from every angle I could get to. We even took a couple of cover plates off to get pictures.

His chipper cost him $4,795.00,   5-7 years ago.  He wasn't sure, but it looked like brand new except a couple things. 
It takes a tractor with at least 25 HP from the PTO shaft and the tractor I am wanting to buy, from the same friend has 40 HP so that should be great. 
The only thing I can't make/build, or order for a dime on the dollars if I search the parts out, is the flywheel/cutter head and the blades,  and a small gear box and all I need to do there is find out what the gears ratio is and the amount of torque it takes, and it's a good chance I can find a replacement for that too, at maybe a quarter on the dollar. Maybe even less.
So as soon as I get the fireplace blower, which is coming up in the morning, and the saw mill out the basement, (which is close to cutting wood if I ever get the time to finish it) I will begin work on a chipper. 

It won't get built in time to help this summer but we can drag a lot of wood up here to chop into mulch this winter when there isn't anything else to do.
I am planing on planting about 5,000 foot of straw berries that can use some mulch this fall and done right, the women should be making a lot of jars of fresh jam next summer. 
I am pretty sure I can tak the runner they say to cut away so they don't grow too think and run them into a cup of soil until they root good and use the rootings to expand the amount of plants I buy by 3 or 4 times from what I have read. 
They say just cut them back. Why would they say that?? So they can sell you some more. My mother bought 6 plants and had, I don't even know how many in two years. Probably 200 plants in two years. 


In short, I need to get busy again. I am getting tired of getting busy, LOL. 

Take care bro, and thanks for the questions. Maybe I made a little sense.

It's 20 til 5 and I am going to bed. Boy I have crazy hours. 

Dennis.


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## Lalaith (Jun 27, 2010)

Dennis,
You are right on.  I am impressed with your determination and your willingness to work.  I am in Canada and this recession may not have hit us as hard as you folks but it hit us just the same.  I am sad and a little angry that ten strong, able-bodied men are wanting to work and can't find any of it.  It is great that you are giving them this opportunity and that you can all share in the harvest together.

I recently took on a helper when my hubby got sick and I was injured.  He has been a real help and he grows all kinds of goodies in his fields.  More important, he is in touch with people from all over the world who want to come and learn more about farming.  They bring enthusiasm and a strong work ethic and I have learned quite a bit about how they farm in other countries as well.

Good luck with all your projects and keep us updated.  I'd really like to hear how it goes for you.  

Cheers.


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