5 Questions You Need to Answer Before Adding Pigs to Your Homestead

[@henrymorgan3982]

It all comes down to costs. Food, shelter, water, slaughter. Make America Healthy Again! Buy pigs! Great video!

[@timhockersmith3934]

Great video, Troy! Well done.

[@joonyer77]

Excellent video with very useful information. Thank you.

[@ThundertrodPermaculture-mo8xe]

I have been going through this process myself I have my poultry sistem figured out now I am working on pork. I have a few keys to add 1 try lots of different breed of pigs the meat from breed to breed in the same category does not very much however there behaviors can be vastly different. I have raised Berkshire, Duroc, Yorkshire. in the past currently I have 3 that are Yorkshire/hampshire/chester white cross and I have 2 mulefoot. but I want to try a pure Hampshire and a Tamworth before I fully commit to a breed or 2 I did single pen in the past but I am switching to a wagon wheel for my currents pigs. there main shelter is a old stock trailer that is not safe to be on the road any more so when it come time to go to market these pigs are already conditioned to jump in and out of trailers. I am also using pigs to control knotweed I put the pasture right on a large stand of it. for food I use Zucchini it very prolific yields all summer and if let gower out large it can be stacked like cord wood in a cool dry place that does not freeze and will last the winter, it has 24% protein moderate Lysine, when I switch pasture I draga the empty pasture and plant turnips they can store just fine over winter in the ground the pigs harvest them themselves and have high lysine. and I grow forage peas that I cut and dry has hay that is very high in Lysine in the winter I give them some ear corn to provide energy and getting the kernels off the cob keeps them entertained

[@joshpresley5972]

Pants or no pants!😂😂

[@bigtime37ja]

Excellent video irt growing out pigs. As we prepare to move away from corporate America, we were thinking three to start with. Thank you for the in depth explanation.

[@jewelcitizen2567]

Excellent breakdown and content…👌🏻

[@academicmailbox7798]

Thanks for your episode on using your Poplar lumber on the lumber mill, and explanation of the same. I managed to obtain almost ten thousand feet of Poplar from some agricultural shelter belts that were too close to a road this year. I chainsaw processed some logs a few months ago, to see how the timber would fare after a number of months. And everything you mentioned about 'two by eight' lumber, seems to replicate my own experience. I did find having a barn interior environment helps (the first couple of logs I simply left outside in the air, and the remainder I have staged on a concrete slab open area, and I make sawn lumber from them as I get around to it). It wasn't chicken coops or barns so much I wanted to build, as to get a lot of things strewn across floors inside of my buildings, off the floor and stacked into shelves and racking). No, I'm not expecting collossal structure strength from the Poplar timber, and I'll intersperse some other strong spruce, pine, or other hardwoods I have got a little of too, into the construction). It's an eternal productivity issue though, not having decent storage fit out's of our masonry buildings in the farming situation. And what I liked about Poplar (some call it pallet wood etc), is using framing tools and carpentry saws, air dried Poplar is stable enough when dry, and easy to work with using circular saws, planes, brad nailer's etc. It's lightweight so it's easy to use for fit out, if you have the quantities, and it's a resource. I'll purchase plywood etc to add some strength and rigidity, but to create fitted out storage space, I can see a lot of advantage to Poplar.

[@academicmailbox7798]

What kind of shocked me here, I've taken 'straw pole' surveys of many fellow engineers, designers, wood workers, farmers and agricultural science guys who are in my orbit. Not one of those guys even rated Poplar as a useful resource, high up or low down. And a lot of that I think, is this thing of how timber is not protected or treated right in some colder, oceanic climates. Where stuff like masonry construction and metal frame is the mainstream. I have metal frame buildings, and I know I do from the amount of sanding and re-painting I've done to them over years. Anyhow, steel angle or box section and welding was another route I could take. Folks told me all of the tools and skills one would undertake to learn, to work with timber (when you live in a metal, or masonry built only culture). But heck, cement mixing, scaffold, etc on block and natural stone construction. Ties up a lot of time and labour. The other way, with the steel one is into a load of work cutting, grinding, polishing, welding, bolting, drilling. Some cultures though shy away from the use of timber (especially in landscapes where there is hardly no standing timber left). Yes, there are things with timber that are foreign to us. Including the felling and logging aspect (that was another whole thing, where I've found farmers suspicious about). Because again, we just viewed timber as fire wood. Never as building material. For all of the reasons mentioned, fast growth, easy on tools, easy to dry and dimensionally stable. Good enough for agricultural project use, I've found all of it bears out with the Poplar. Most definitely, but as my project continues I'll know a lot more. At this stage as I have a small quantity of my potential 10 thousand feet sawn and dry so far. I'm anxious to start going into the carpentry tool.phase. To start to think about that (I developed a lot of masonry bolt and anchor fixing details, so the shelf raking is using masonry structure inside for stability). And that way, I found this project became very feasible to do, even with limited amounts of labour, or time to give to it. I've a small bit of steel fabrication to do to make my shoes for ground support details, but so far it's great. Excellent material.

[@academicmailbox7798]

My question is though, taking on board the point that needs to be emphasized, to keep Poplar lumber dry. My question is, are an awful lot of people just not seeing Poplar lumber as a useful resource, and easy to work with? Especially, given all said above, how much one can get done working with Poplar with limited amount of tools and time. Are people just blind to how useful a resource Poplar timber can be? I have to say, when I fell the timber outside where it grows. Or I mill the timber to create the lumber resource. Or even getting down to using Poplar with carpentry scale power tools. One is reminded at each step it's a living material. Different to masonry, concrete, or steel and tin metal. Which all do have their characteristic odour and smell. Poplar wood to be around has something different, a scent not like pine or resin. Like other timber building materials. With the Poplar it's the scent of it, that reminds me, it came from farmland. It's not a thing I could buy in shops where I'm from. In fact, I don't know if 'any' hardwood could be bought in any local building supplier that I know. You can tell therefore, how novel a thing it is, to even have access to hardwood to use to make anything. In some parts of the world.

[@haroldbevins393]

Great video today Troy, and that can go for any animal regardless of what it is.

[@christinejohnson7114]

Thank you for the video. I appreciate the information. I haven't yet convinced my husband we should raise pigs but I'm working on it.

[@LWYOffGridHomestead]

I've never raised pigs...very informative Bonnie

[@qkranarchist3015]

In Maine, we have recent food sovereignty protections. From Bangor Daily News article (2017, Maine’s new food sovereignty law puts local control over local foods): "Now, thanks to LD 725, if a town or municipality creates and adopts an ordinance, those meat and dairy producers are free to process their food on site - as long as it is for direct sale to customers. "More importantly, the state can’t penalize the producers for doing so. "At least for now."

[@chrisswain5633]

Let’s hope the new administration, allows small farms sell to the public, without the strict and large corporations defining how a farmer does his business!!

[@iouliavvedenskaya3942]

Thank you so much for this short instructional video Troy! I am watching your channel for the past 4 years, learned a lot ... I moved to NH 3 years ago and started thinking about adding pigs for the first time. We have high predictor (coyotes) pressure in our rural area. What would be your advice on raising 5 pigs in such situation? How do pigs react to coyotes running around, "singing" every night ... can they defend themselves in principle? Many thanks for your time!

[@thejackhomestead8638]

2 pig are prefect for us.

[@swanbranch]

Great information on starting with pigs. Thanks! Question, for the trail camera, what format does it record video in? I'm hoping mp4, but I've had several brands lately that use other formats.

[@RedToolHouse]

It does MP4 and 1080p

[@HammerHeadRanch]

Troy, where do you get your feed? I am in the Charleston area.

[@RedToolHouse]

I get my feed at Greens in Charleston. Since they have been under new ownership, they are stocking bulk feed from their feed mill in Jackson County. Call Desi at Greens and she can get you pricing on locally ground feed.

[@belgarath97]

Great video... and my wife votes no pants

[@charger7022]

We have a really great feed mill locally we get our chicken feed and our meat bird feed for About $18-$19 per 100 lbs. so is the $16 per hundred for your pig feed is that average?

[@codyryan6866]

U can raise all kinds of pigs they all taste the same u can’t eat fat belly Yorks spot Humps Chester Poland Berkshire there other breeds u can raise breed and eat

[@henrymorgan3982]

Forgot storage.

[@bradjenkins932]

What?

[@jbbrown7907]

#1 3 or 4 pigs.

[@jbbrown7907]

One male. Three quilts.

[@jbbrown7907]

#2 I like Durock cross.

[@jbbrown7907]

#3 I like a slop route. A solar cooker with slops from pubs and restaurants plus moving pigs often makes feeding pigs only cost what it costs to drive around your route and washing buckets.

[@jbbrown7907]

#4 Moving pigs almost daily, single hot wire. Hose or sap line for water

[@jbbrown7907]

Shade is only required with the white pigs. Red and black pigs can cope with less shade.

[@ericedwards3708]

$.16 cents per pound for 16% hog feed? What are you getting for that? Certainly not non gmo, right?