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Our chicken trailer looks almost exactly like the ones in your picture! Even down to the metal sheets. We've fortunately had no more losses but are continuing to watch them. They really really like being in the back of the trailer over the front! We were told misting them could cause problems...

My summer class started Friday... and I have an exam next week! Fortunately, it's only basic stuff. Anyway, on to the farm details. The piglets are slowly weaning themselves. Three of our pigs decided they would rather get dehydrated than drink out of their new watering bowl (a large, heavy...

We will be getting rid of her when her piglets are fully weaned.. we let them naturally wean at ~8 weeks old. Which will be quite soon!

Good news and bad news... The good news is we got a call from the butcher about our 3 boars and not a single one has taint! Yay! I'm not a big fan of sausage, since I prefer having nice juicy roasts, so that's good news for me. The bad news... Wilma's been limping again and stiff. We were...

Oh yeah I need to get a job as it is now that I only have a few classes instead of full weeks of classes... need money to pay for the 'online homework' website! :barnieIsn't it bad enough I have to pay for a 140 dollar text book (which I probably won't buy at this point), but also have to pay an...

A lactating sow gets unlimited feed: our 500 pound mulefoot gets 3 (3 quart) scoops twice a day. Our 700+ pound gets 6 scoops twice a day, because that's what they eat. If they ate it all they'd get more. The piglets don't need feed until they're a few weeks old. At 5-6 weeks, when the milk...

Today, we brought the 3 boars of Gingers to the market... they will be done on Tuesday. If there is boar taint they will all be sausage - if there isn't, they will be treated like any other pig. Ginger seemed oddly depressed today. She laid down at the gate between her and where her sons were...

We've been lucky to not have worms in our pigs before.. Gross! Or any animal actually... yet. We feed them activated charcoal every now and again.

It's been a couple days since I've updated due to being busy lazy, but I do have some stuff to share. We had a wild mallard female who visited us for a few days and tried to hang out with our ducks, but she wasn't cool enough for them so they always ran away from her. She is absolutely...

There wasn't much to say yesterday so I said nothing. Today, we've been checking all the meat checks for pasty butt. Three so far, and one of them got pecked so much after getting cleaned that she bled, but she's doing fine now. Cannibals, honestly! Pebbles is being more friendly with Bell's...

The sun has gone down yet again! Today, we finally managed to separate all 3 boars into one pen. The biggest one is the meanest one but they've settled down for now. Pebbles is fighting a bit with the other piglets, and ended up picking a fight with the wrong one! Two bloody ears later and she...

No update on the stray piglets. No new sightings in town, so they're probably out in the woods away from people. Today started nice, ended rough. All the chicks are doing good, no deaths. Which is rather unusual, knowing cornish cross.. we usually lose 1 or 3 chicks early on, with such a large...

Cornish are tasty but as they grow, ration their feed or they will likely suffer heart attacks and/or broken legs.. they never stop eating. And pooping. I've never raised turkeys but I do like turkey meat more than chicken meat!

Hello! My name is Arrowti and I live in central Maine. To date, we raise pigs, chickens, and ducks - pigs for breeding and meat, ducks for eggs, and chickens for meat and eggs. We will be adding turkeys next month, though, and eventually want to either get a cow or a pair of goats. Anyway, I...

A non-heritage breed is one that has been bred specifically for desired traits from many breeds. Although they may be faster growing and tolerate confinement, they often have more health issues than heritage. Not always. A comparison I like is cornish cross chickens are extremely fast growing...

Good news. After a lot of rubbing and squeezing the red udder/gland, and checking for milk, it suddenly started to come out and Pebbles instantly latched on! It's still red and hot, but some of it is returning to the normal pigment and the milk is coming now so I will continue checking on it...

Castration done. Unfortunately, this morning I went out and saw that Wilma's only producing teat (the only one Pebble uses) is all red and hot. All her other teats have dried up, and there is no milk coming from it - Pebbles tries every teat she can find and tries her hardest to get the milk to...

Well, I have been reading all the cute threads about goats kidding and I am quite envious. Today, I finally got the gender ratio on Bell's piglets. SEVEN males, 3 females. The 3 piglets that died were also male. So out of 13 piglets, 10 males, 3 females! We'll be castrating the males this...

I believe they can. Ours are only a year and a half old (will be 2 years this fall). We just started raising pigs with them. Mulefoots grow much slower than other breeds, so they probably can get to huge sizes after a awhile. The weights are probably all over the place because people might just...

Mulefoots are usually between 400-600 pounds. I'd say Wilma is on the very low end - she's a bit dainty - and Fred is around 500 pounds. By comparison, Bell is over 700 pounds and they're the same age!