Baymule’s Journal

[Alaskan]

And I pray you are feeling better - this cold snap will hopefully be our last for the year, I know you are as ready for warm weather as we are, tending to animals in the cold and wet is not any fun!! Stay dry and warm and get-well friend.

By the Way... We got our pigs yesterday - we have been slammed over the past two weeks trying to get all our things somewhat ready, still a ton to do, they only have a small area and their house at this time, but we will get them the large pasture in a week or two - until then they are just hanging out. We got two cut male red wattles.

Pictures?

 

[Baymule]

@Hideaway Pines thank you for your kind words.
You will like the red wattle hogs. They are smart survivor hogs. I’ve watched one straddle a sapling tree and walk it down so they all could eat the leaves off the top. Smart. They will eat your chickens too-in a heartbeat. If one of your chickens gets in the hog pen, do NOT try to rescue it. Just consider it a goner because it will be consumed in a minute or less.
They finish well, the meat is a rich dark color and is very good. Congratulations on getting your pigs!

 

[farmerjan]

How are you feeling today???

 

[Baymule]

How are you feeling today???

Better but weak and not a whole lot of enthusiasm for much of anything. LOL. Bored. Surprise attack diarrhea too, just to make it a little bit more fun. I just ran myself totally down, but it had to be done.

 

[Ridgetop]

Pigs are omnivores. They will hunt down and eat meat if hungry and it is an easy catch. Ground nesting birds often lose their eggs and hatchlings as well as snakes, lizards, and anything they can catch! Our hogs killed and ate one of a pair of Chinese Crested geese that made the mistake of getting in their pen.

 

[Blue Sky]

While we’re here. I use an iPhone. I can’t seem to activate any site emoji except “like” somehow the cut and paste blocks the others. Know that I’m acknowledging posts but not necessarily “happy”. Activating other emoji sources seems to occur to me at 2am. I’m a serial idiot. Doggo waking me up, husband shouting about Russians
(you’d think they were down the block), a disrupted household. Tomorrow’s coffee needs cake.

 

[Hideaway Pines]

Here are some pictures, note they are only in a small temporary set up right now, I found two red wattle/Brookshire mix cut males for $80 each, had to jump at them even though our area was not quite finished. They are three months old, which while I would love little ones for cuteness these two are big enough, I do not worry about them being picked off by our bobcats or coyotes. They frequent our property every night. They get locked up in their Hog Heaven House each night just as a precaution until they are a bit bigger. The temp yard is 16x8, not huge but good for a week or so while we finish the grow out area, then we will finish fencing the 2 acres of pasture/wooded area they will have to forage in. So, lots of more work a head, but at least we got our pigs. I am so excited. I love watching them, and they are very good with our dogs. I have not let them in with them, won't do that, but Jojo (our LGD) thinks they are very cool to observe. We named them Bubba and Bruno. So much personality in them. We may end up keeping some other pigs for neighbors too, once we get our set up complete. We will also give them a large wallow that will catch rainwater off the roof. they will have a sweet set up once complete. And with them being a bit older we may get to butcher sooner than we first planed, keeping out feeding time down some which would be great too. We already have a butcher date sate, and they said as long as we are on the schedule then we can move it up or back as we need to. Note the large beams, they are cut on our sawmill from the trees we had to remove to put this up. We love using our own wood for projects.

 

[Hideaway Pines]

I also wanted to add that @Baymule's set up for her pigs was one we used as a guide, we left a 4ft wall in the open-air covered area where I can feed them and water them out of the weather and without having to go into the pen. they will eventually have a nipple watering system set up connected to a water line, so endless clean water with no maintenance. The breeze way off to the one side will be enclosed and be our storage area for feed and tools once we are done too. This set up should work great for tending to them. We are thinking of breeding come next year if all goes well, we will see.

 

[Ridgetop]

Love your beams cut from your own timbers. I wish we could find someone with a small sawmill. We have a couple very old trees that will have to come down soon - they are dying. Woold like to put the wood to better use than just firewood!

 

[Ridgetop]

Hope you are feeling better. Being sick and not able to do stuff is really depressing.