Saturday project.............

The muddy pig yard

Due to the never ending rain, our pig yard is a muddy mess. The pig house is dry but the pigs really like to lay outside during the day. I know pigs are supposed to really love mud and they do seem to have a lot of fun in it , but knowing they do not have a dry place to lie around outside bothers me. Besides, it really smells! It's sticky, nasty mud. It would dry out quickly if it didn't rain for a few days but there isn't much hope of that happening.

Saturday morning we decided to extend the pig pen so Steve and I headed for the feed store. We use 16 foot, 52" livestock panels for our outside pig pen with 7' t posts. The panels are a little pricey but it's a great way to create an escape proof pig pen and that's a necessity here.

Before we could get started, we needed to get the pigs closed in the pig house. A little corn does the trick. The guys managed to get the door closed but Dave couldn't latch it.

Steve trying to get to the door without losing his shoes in the mud!

Setting up the new panels

The pig yard will be about 20 x 64. The grass won't last long with 8 hogs rooting around. I'll put a round bale in here for them as well. They eat alot of the hay and root around or lay in the rest of it.

The pigs checking out their new digs

I have two heavy metal, 4 section hog feeders that we keep chained to the fence so the pigs don't drag them off. We have a hard time keeping them clean due to the mud when the pigs step in them, etc. Tom came up with the idea of building a platform out of pallets and plywood and setting the feeders up on the platform. Works like a charm :)

He actually likes them! They like the apples he's feeding them :)

Our supervisor, refreshment and cheering committee (my Mom) with her watchdogs obviously working very hard

It was a busy weekend -the whole family worked hard. We accomplished all that we set out to do. The pigs are happy and I feel better that the pigs are more comfortable. Happy pigs are tasty pigs :)