New Pig Sties

Home Sweet Home

Pigs have a habit of eating anything they can get their teeth into. This includes wood. After many years the telegraph posts and timber rail sties lost their battle with pigs, who won triumphantly. What we then needed was some serious engineering!

Pigs struggle with concrete and steel, it’s not conducive to their diet and spoils their fun. While the pigs looked on in pure disgust, after a few weeks of hard work, the new sties were built. which i was determined would last my life out, probably even my children’s.

The final design has fulfilled everything needed for a pig sty. There is ample internal bedding space and feed area. Plenty of ventilation but with no drafts. Easy access into the field and forest at Pannage season, but most importantly, a simple system for moving the pigs around.

Many hours of the day have been lost with trying to load pigs into a trailer. First setting up gates with bailing twine and then encouraging them in one direction when they were determined to go in the other. I generally never knew who got more stressed, them or me. We now have a simple gate system and the pigs can be moved without them even realising it.

A new farrowing pen was designed and built. We have in the past let the sow give birth in an open pen, but sadly you do have casualties. The sow is big and the piglets small, unless they can get out of the way quick enough, the sow will accidentally lay on them. It is very upsetting and a waste of life. I don’t like farrowing pens,they restrict the sow’s movement and it is not natural.

The new farrowing area gives her plenty of space to make her nest and to move around. It provides safe areas for the piglets to move to when mother is about to lay down and a heated area for the piglets to sleep. We have tried it for the first time this year and it worked perfectly.