How much space do pigs need?

[misfitmorgan]

Our huts aren't very big (not sure of measurements, sorry) but they just sleep in them. Or hunker down if it's super awful out...

Yep his sleep in them or hide from the winter sometimes but thats it. His huts are built bigger because he sections off the huts with the sow when it is farrowing time and puts a panel inside the hut to make a creep area for the piglets with a heat lamp. According to what he said it works great! His huts are also square built out of all wood with a tin roof thats slanted so the snow falls off. He used to use smaller huts but he had a gilt get killed in one so went to bigger ones that he end up liking better. The gilt was asleep in the hut and a large sow or the boar squeezed in there on a night it was -47 and the next day he found the gilt a bit smooshed and dead.

 

[SheepGirl]

We bought six 20-30 lb pigs from auction two months ago. They started in an 8x8 (about 10.7 sq ft) pen but it was then expanded to 8x16 (about 21.3 sq ft each). They are probably 75-100 lbs now, though I don't know for sure. These are my first pigs so I'm still not able to guess their weight very well. I have a scale, I just need to get around to weighing them. They live exclusively in the barn as my mom does not like pigs, doesn't like to look at them, hear them, smell them--so they are in the barn where they are "out of sight out of mind" for her. Soon I will be moving my pigs to my new house with 7.2 acres so they will have a little bit more space and then one of them will be butchered this winter. The other five I will be breeding. My fiance and I plan to build a long building with individual pens with outdoor areas for each one. That way we can have each sow separate when pregnant/farrowing and also have the boar separate. We will have larger pens for the litters when they're weaned while we're feeding them before they're sold.

I recommend reading this. Check out Sections 7 & 8 for raising feeder pigs to a finishing weight. http://www.ag.auburn.edu/~chibale/swineproduction.html

 

[Latestarter]

Ummmm, ahhhhhh, 8 foot by 8 foot isn't 10.7 square feet... it's 64 square feet and 8' x 16' is 128 square feet...

 

[NH homesteader]

I think that was per pig measurements...

 

[Latestarter]

Ahhhhhh..... <face to palm> 6 pigs to 64 square feet so... got it... I read what she typed literally;

They started in an 8x8 (about 10.7 sq ft) pen

without adding or assuming "each"... So is it too obvious that I'm a very literal person and therefore have little creative bent?

 

[NH homesteader]

Bahaha I looked at it twice before I figured it out too.

Yes @misfitmorgan good point. We have three pigs that are all the same size (little for now) and none will be bred until spring. So our little pig huts will be remodeled before farrowing. We've only raised pigs for meat til now so I was in feeder pig mode.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Bahaha I looked at it twice before I figured it out too.

Yes @misfitmorgan good point. We have three pigs that are all the same size (little for now) and none will be bred until spring. So our little pig huts will be remodeled before farrowing. We've only raised pigs for meat til now so I was in feeder pig mode.

Raising meat pigs is certainly easier in terms of housing requirements but breeders are not much harder just have to make sure the gilt/sow has enough room when she has 6-12 piglets that are 4-8 weeks old(depending on when you wean) and a way to section off the piglets when you wanna wean them.

 

[NH homesteader]

Is there any reason you can't leave piglets in with the sow until she weans them herself? Obviously not the ones we're selling but couldn't we do that with the ones we're raising for meat? We will only be breeding once a year.

 

[misfitmorgan]

You can but sometimes "modern" breeds will get mean with their piglets and you have to keep in mind it is possible for boars to breed at 4 months, though being successful is rare at that age. If they are used to being in a pasture setting with many piglets it should be fine but make sure you dont have a breeding age boar in with them because they will kill the young males sometimes and definitely try to breed the females as soon as they come into heat. It all boils down to the temperament of your pigs, we are working towards pasture raising in large groups. So far the gilts are fine with "foreign" piglets as in one gilt had her first litter and the other gilt has not tried to hurt the piglets at all and in fact is more protective then their mother.

We will be AI'ing my pet gilt shortly for 4-h piglets, should have actually done it a month ago

 

[NH homesteader]

We are super lucky and we have someone who will loan us a boar for breeding and then he'll go away. Also we will be cutting our male piglets so theoretically we could just let them stay with mom. Ours are mostly heritage (GOS /Chester Whit and Duroc). Their grandmother and mother are the friendliest pigs ever and allow other sows' piglets to mingle with theirs. We actually primarily chose them as our breeders due to personality of their lines.