Piggies

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Anyone else keep pigs on here? Just aquired a pair of Mangalitza sow piglets to keep in our orchard, they hopefully will be producing some sausage seeds next year for us to. Meet Cagney & Lacey

2021-08-24_10-19-29 by Old_Chad, on Flickr

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Edited by scrw. on Tuesday 24th August 22:36

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We have access to a fair few acres other than the orchard, plenty of it could do with rooting up too luckily!

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Getting bigger!

20210909_151501 by Old_Chad, on Flickr

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Fairly friendly, happy for an ear scratch, and uber friendly when you have the feed bucket

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Electric rope and a decent powered energiser seems to do the job. It is a different setup to where they were born so the first few hours there were some cracks and squeeks but they soon learned what it did! Wen I start allowing them out of their fixed pen I will use 4 or 5 strands of the wire so it is a more visual deterant, hopefully it will work. As long as they are not too bored or hungry all should be okay.

Need to setup a roof over their trough, crap weather is making it soggy in there.

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Piggy situation is escalating, a friend had a 3 acre field up for rent, so we did Also, the place we got Cagney & Lacey from had 2 of their brothers still available, so we now have a couple more on the way. These chaps are barrows and will be just for sausages next summer .....more pictures to follow.

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LOL, is a side line in body disposal classed as diversification? ...eco burial anyone...? They will be penned separately to stop fighting, girls one side, boys the other. Mangalitsa's get big, their dad, Bruce, was a scary looking beast, reminded me of the film Razorback, soft as a brush, but wouldn't want to meet him on a grumpy day! Will see if I can get a photo of Bruce when I pick the new ones up.

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New piggies arrived today, forgot photos so will do some in the morning. Said I wouldn't name them but we have already, Ameil & Snorkers. Will not be getting attached, they are for scoffing!

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Cagney is the blonde one, Lacey the ginger.

Blonde boy is Ameil, Ginger is Snorker.

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They have got their winter woolies on now, proper hairy. Surprised the boys are smaller than the girls (middle 2 in the photo)

20211121_111318 by Old_Chad, on Flickr

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Have split the field we rent up into separate pens so they dont root up the entire field in 1 go, they are very effective rotavators, now moved into pen #2

20211218_131533 by Old_Chad, on Flickr

Wifey also got me a canvas done by a local artist....

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Moved them into a new pen in the field, currently have 3 set up, but think I will end up with 4 or 5. Plan is to hand seed with a pig seed mix (grass and root veg mix) and rotavate over the top to mix in. The have broken down the grass and roots really well, the field has not had livestock on for 20 odd years.

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new pen

signal-2022-01-21-123837_001 by Old_Chad, on Flickr

~2 months work on the smallest pen in the field

signal-2022-01-21-123900_001 by Old_Chad, on Flickr

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This is the Dad of my lot, Bruce. About 300kgs worth of thankfully friendly pig. He isn't mine & I don't think I am going to get a boar for my girls, I prefer to take them on holiday for servicing rather than have to feed a tank all year.

bruce by Old_Chad, on Flickr

New toy for my tiny tractor (we need a tractor section on Pistonheads!), can level off and tidy up/reseed the paddocks now, only 1m wide but does a good gjob if a little slow.

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a pig rooted paddock
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Rotavator in action

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I am reseeding with a pig pasture mix, so with root plants life turnips etc.

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and to the next pen!

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It's been silly wet over the last few months so only got 7 weeks out of the last one, hoping for 2 months per pen so hopefully some drier weather will mean the new pen lasts into May when the reseeded older pens are greened up somewhat.

What pig rotavators do!
20220308_120157 by Old_Chad, on Flickr

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My pens are around 1/2 an acre and last 4 pigs ~ 8 weeks, they are very effecting rotavators. Shame the paperwork to move piggies is such an arse (and they have to stay a minimum of 1 month) they are great for clearing land.

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rather disturbing how quickly the piggies can demolish a fodder beet the size of your head

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Oh yes, plan is for first one to be done in august, next in october. Not planning to breed from Cagney & Lacey until next year at the earliest, so may buy in a couple more to fatten up.

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Nice, once we have our smallholding built and have the piggies on site with us we will have some sausage seeds. They are too much trouble to be a few miles from home. I saw ours when they were young and they are just cammo escape artists when they are small! 4 of these are ours https://www.facebook.com/158697509259585/videos/17...

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Piggies got their ear tags the other weekend. Wated to wait until the weather was drier so they weren't going to get the fresh tags muddy & chance of any infection. Gave them a spray of antiseptic and tagged them while feeding, not one flinched, was a complete none event (I was worried I would have a pissed off piggy trying to eat me because of a sore ear)

The blue rinse brigade!
signal-2022-04-06-204500_001 by Old_Chad, on Flickr

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Down to 2 again, just Cagney & Lacey
2022-12-12_03-20-21 by Old_Chad, on Flickr


Other 2 are now in the freezer, between them we got 133kgs of joints and 44kgs of sausages.

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Excuse the state of the sausages, we scoffed all the mis-shapes.

Cost wise, feed & processing of the 2 was about £700 for the year and a bit we had them. Mangalitza's are slow to finish, I am looking at getting some Berkshire's & Oxford sandy & black's next. Our setup can sustain about 8 at a time without too much hassle, so plan to stagger getting weaners and getting a more steady throughput, sausages seem to be the favourite, and I am starting bacon in a week or so, with some experimenting with a smoker too.