the 55 gallon plastic barrel attached to 2x10's is what we have.. works like a charm and not one turnover with either our sow or her 4 remaining "babies" who are almost 250 pounds and ready to go for processing...dwbonfire said:Thanks! we had a little glitch in plans so we still havent got our pigs. we are expecting them any time now, as soon as the guy cuts them we will have them. he is taking his sweet time thats for sure. ah well. in march im getting the pigs that i plan to continue raising anyhow..nmred said:What a great looking pig pen! I am hoping to get a pig this spring and was thinking about doing something like this. How did you attach the pallets together? They look so neat. I also am wondering if you have it staked in somehow or if it is free-standing. If it is free-standing, will it tip over if they press against it? Although, I guess that's what the electric wire is for, huh.
Please give us an update. How is it working so far? What kind of feeders and waterers did you end up getting/making?
my neighbor made a feeder for us, which i think will be short livedim going to humor him by using it until they destroy it and then i will do it my way. (i dont mean to sound mean but hes the "glitch" im talking about lol) he cut one of those 55 gallon plastic barrels in half the long way and attached them to 2x8 pieces on the side. he thinks that will stop them from turning it over. i know they will surely still turn it over, plus toss it all around the pen and against the wire which will ground it out. what i planned to do, as suggested to me in one of my threads on here was to take a big rubbermaid feed pan and connect it to a chain, stake it outside the pen and that way i can pull the pan over to the wall and drop the feed over without having to go inside the pen.
as for a waterer we got one of those hog waterers you can order from a catolog or online. again we havent got the pigs so we havent put all this thrugh the test yet but the waterer should work fine. i think the only thing is the size of the pen, im wishing we could have gone bigger. thats all we had for pallets at the time but i think i will expand at some point. we dont have the sides staked down, its free standing which i didnt think would be sturdy enough but if we try to shake the sides theres not much movement at all. like you said hopefully the electric will keep them from pushing on it. we used 3" screws to connect the pallets.
once we get the pigs i will keep this updated
