Releasing Farm Pigs into the Woods (FIRST TIME)

in today's video I'm taking my pigs and I'm going to set them free and release them into the forest this could go smoothly or this could go horribly where'd my pigs go wish me luck you guys because I'm setting those guys free so it's been about two weeks since the pigs arrived here on our farm wish me luck there Abby dog and so far things have gone very very well the pigs have settled in they've gotten used to me they've gotten trained to their electric fence and so now it's time to release them from their training area and take them into this new area that I just set up we've got trees we've got old scrub brush and shrubs and around the perimeter of an area here I have set electric fencing very similar to the fencing that I've already trained them to oh guys but now that they know to respect the fence I feel pretty good about releasing them into this area because I've created this boundary that cuts through our forest here is basically on the edge of the forest and the pasture you can see actually all of our birds live over there and there's just lots of space for them to roam explore till the ground yeah you can even see we've got like old rock walls that are through here like I also want them clearing out the scrub like this stuff ultimately I actually want to turn this into a nice part of the farm that gets used more but it's been so overgrown over the years that I need some help clearing it and the pigs are essentially the laborers that have hired to help me clear all of this we'll spend a couple weeks in this area before moving on further into the forest again just for a frame of reference of where on the farm they are you can see this is the stream that we've created that's where our pond is basically I use the cutoff Point as the stream because I don't want them getting in there next time I move them I'll run them through here and onto the other side of that tree you can see Abby Doug off there in the distance hey Abby dog how's it going sweet but now before I take on this ridiculous undertaking let's just check our fence to make sure it's still hot yeah 10 000 volts that's what I'm looking for again it runs all the way through here and just to totally admit to you guys I'm very nervous about all of this this could go wrong and if it does my pigs are off in the forest and having to hunt them down not a concept that I relish the opportunity for but I have done a few things to increase my odds of success number one I actually just built a new feeder for them and at this point in the morning they should have been fed by now and so they're probably a little bit hungry My Hope Is that their hunger is what motivates them they also have this updated water I just put together and so hopefully this one doesn't leak now the trickiest part is going to be once I release them from there they're going to want to get out but then I'm going to have to close off this part of the fence so that it just really connects from here to here and I've got to connect this line from here over to that fence post over there and I have to do it without turning off the power or zapping myself because if I turn off the power the pigs could escape again there's no physical barrier like I have here it's entirely electric wire but enough yakking from me let's just get into this and do it okay girls guess what it's moving day today I think they can really tell that something's about to happen here I know I know sweetie time to move hey back off back off I know you've never quite known Freedom like this before I don't want you to think that this is an electrified all right away we go free go free there we go look your sister's gone there we go good job girls I know Freedom isn't this exciting now come walk with me come on come on girls it's funny I thought they would be so focused on the freedom that they're actually just like confused by what's going on and they came back into their yard there you go let's go let's go watch out for that fence let's see if I can encourage them with some food hi sweetie let's go let's go come on I wouldn't have thought I was gonna have this much trouble getting them out of here if you look at that they're eating grass for the first time all right let me close this off let's go back in there no no no hey don't fight and chew on that come on all right that's step one of getting them out you guys are adorable come on little piggies you know it's funny to me this is the first time they've ever experienced this much open space and they're so confused by it they don't quite know what to do with it but yeah this isn't their new life now after the training period they don't have to be so confined it's just in their best interest in my best interest to confine them during that training period yeah that's a camera look I got food for you I know you're hungry oh look at them they're so curious and adorable so much energy right now so now that they are distracted with what's going on over here I need to turn my attention to closing off the fence area because I want to box them in now so now this is the one moment where I have to turn off the electricity just temporarily I need to take these reels I already had set up and pre-unrolled this is the thing I needed [Music] I don't know where my pigs go they're gone oh there they are I'm scared there for a second all right let's turn the fence back on we're starting to run around okay they're now secure right there at the end I zapped myself really good oh so what do you guys think of your new home plenty of space to roam and explore and be free I know it's exciting yeah we're gonna give you the tour so yes this is your new feeder I actually took the leaky water barrel I had put out a chunk of it and now there's plenty of space for all sorts of food and slop and you guys probably won't tip it over and make as much of a mess and waste as much food you guys also have the habit of attacking GoPros I've noticed so then yes these are the birds these are your next door neighbors they're a little bit noisy but they're very friendly you know it's funny I feel like I have a game of Angry Birds set up here you have the birds on one side and the pigs on the other I feel like Farm life has now become a version of a multi-billion dollar Mobile gaming franchise yes and this right here is your new waterer it's actually empty right now I need to fill it up I have it over on this side because it's really close to one of my hydrants and so I can just hook this hose right up to it and be ready to go and this is the outer boundary as far west as you can go you can't go any further than that so just know that I don't want you guys wandering off I can tell you're a little bit curious there aren't you how's it going Phil so I know another thing folks have wondered is what their names are going to be and I've actually finally landed on it so right here this one her name is Phil leotardo this one right here the smaller one is Artie Buco and then we have little Paulie Germany right here yes they're all Sopranos names looks like Phil leotardo is taking a deuce is this gonna be the new spot that you guys leave all your waste I mean if that's the case go for it yeah you know one of those things people told me about raising pigs is that they often leave their waste in one spot but my experience has actually been that they poop everywhere but now that they have a larger space maybe that'll prove to be true so lots of space to roam and explore thank you gals are gonna like this a lot I take a little getting used to now another question I know I'm gonna get in the comments is why didn't I put like a hard perimeter fence or why don't I have them inside our hard perimeter fence and there's actually two reasons number one to keep a pig inside a hard perimeter fence is very very difficult and very very challenging and I would have to basically build a fence that's Fort Knox and because my plan is to keep moving them it's just not practical to have a perimeter fence number two once they're trained to it electric fencing is way more effective for containing pigs and so much like I move my cattle on a very regular basis these gals are going to be moving on a regular basis they'll be in this area for a couple of weeks I'm not really committing to a time period right now because I'm still trying to figure out like the ratio of pig to land like you know particularly as they're still or they're small like how much space do they need and how long can they stay in one spot so I'll just be watching and monitoring when it feels like it's time to move they will move just look at how they're chomping away at those I think those are Blackberry canes yeah definitely clear that stuff out you know there's this old wood pile that I'm sure there's all sorts of bugs and grubs inside of that you guys are welcome to tackle probably start a bonfire once they're through here yeah this is gonna be a great spot for you gals I'm gonna give them the opportunity to do more exploring but I will go do some animal chores and then check back in with you guys in a little bit [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] morning guys I know it's been a lot of chaos this morning I know I know so because of the pig move and how I wanted to time the pig move this morning I'm like totally out of sorts on the rest of my chores I know Abby we're behind schedule this morning and we both hate that don't we good morning just some feed and get on with it by the way we're gonna probably have some comings and goings with the weird chickens very soon number one they're gonna have to vacate their winter Coop because it's going to turn into the brooder for some new goslings who should be hatching soon number two my rooster boys who are there are probably gonna have to go away and then number three the reason they're leaving is because they have to make room for a fresh rooster as well as maybe a new hen or two but I'll explain all of that one in a future video so you should probably hit that subscribe button to find out what happens I know Abby we're late and visiting your birds this morning how's everybody doing this morning huh yeah I would say that the birds are gonna only spend a couple more weeks here in the hoop coop before they all move out and I send them out to pasture still sitting on that Nest huh gal yes I'm letting her run her just to kind of see what she does naturally so we'll see what happens probably by the time she gives up on that Nest or something hatches I will actually ultimately move everybody out as you can actually see here I just fix the door and I'm opening it wider now because the days are much warmer and I need to ventilate it more pretty soon I'll also start opening up the sides as well the birds have had access to this entire area out here but I know I'm gonna need to move them pretty soon because Good Golly this is starting to get picked over like for example this is the grass that the birds have had access to and you can see it's mowed pretty short but then as you look over here you can see that that grass is long and Lush and ready for eating like here's your aerial side by side comparison it's pretty dramatic actually and so I'm gonna send them further into the permaculture Orchard very soon but I do need to build some new infrastructure to help me do that so we've got some duck eggs up in here oh my gosh I don't know if you guys can see that in there but there are several eggs buried in this nest oh my god oh my God oh my Lord [Music] oh my God we got one two three four five six seven eight eggs buried in there I don't know Abby what do you think now usually I've been reclaiming the eggs before the Ducks get them but I'm wondering if one of the Ducks wants to turn this into an actual nest for herself and if that's the case maybe I will just give her access to it and so I'll put those eggs back in there it's actually not a bad spot to raise little ducklings yeah Abby let's put them back in yeah maybe these are gonna be future ducklings out so I will give these to the pigs and then there's the worst eggs that get laid they're these stream eggs yeah these are definitely going to the pigs okay maybe these will go to the dogs too as part of your breakfast yeah they get a little jealous oh looks like they're learning that fence wire are you settling in there girls of course they also just knocked over their water barrel I haven't filled it up yet once it has about 10 gallons of water in it they can't knock it over and the reason I placed the nozzle where it is is so that it it keeps that much water in there at all times but it was empty and so I gotta go in there and deal with that in a minute let's go Abby we got some Hungry Birds oh you guys already like ate a third of your bird food Jeremy leave Abby alone good girl Abby just stay away from Jeremy so we only have eight duck eggs this morning but of course I know where a lot of those duck eggs are ending up right now we've got two chicken eggs so far because we're collecting later than usual and we only have one goose egg this one goose egg in here will go into the incubator later today and because my goose egg laying is starting to really slow down this might be the last crop of goslings I set to seed right now for the year and very soon I'll start turning my attention to hatching chickens I know that might sound crazy because I haven't even had my first batch hatch but if you guys recall I've set it up so that I will have goslings hatching every single week for the next several weeks and so I just need to think about how I put these guys in there and so I'm just very much focused on keeping a fresh rotation of my eggs in the incubators so I'm still doing my daily walks with Macho Man and in some ways it continues to get easier and easier but lately I'm finding it's getting harder and harder as well because there's a distraction you see he's really into eating that fresh grass I should probably be holding on to it but it's actually not too bad because it becomes like another reward system so much like I use the brush is a way for him to get comfortable with wearing the halter and being led around and realizing that this is always a very good positive experience having access to Fresh grass isn't a bad thing either you are starting to shed buddy the cattle will be moving out soon I would say they're probably about still another week or two away we've had so much rain lately pasture's so soft I'm concerned about the cattle doing too much damage the way it's going to work is the heifers are gonna go inside the permaculture Orchard so inside that fence right here all the mature cows are going to go up to the top of the hill and come father's day-ish Randy's going to be set loose with the girls and he will start to breed with everybody he and Joey are going to still stick around the barn for the next few weeks I'm not rushing to get them out of here because again I continue to work with Randy and it becomes much much easier to get him access to just a little bit of grass versus the whole crew of all the girls foreign [Music] hey don't bite my foot so yes the pigs have thoroughly trashed their old area again we're going to turn this into garden beds as we vacate them we'll probably give it a couple weeks to compost over and maybe throw some fresh straw down but as we're nearing our last frost date this is pretty much ready to go for usage which is kind of cool and if I'm making the list of pros and cons when it comes to pigs what they do for the land if you're like managing them and being thoughtful about where you put them is pretty incredible now I know some of you guys have been a bit critical of me for keeping them in this smaller area you know really saying that you wish I gave the pigs more space during their training period quite honestly based on all the advice I was given if you give them too much space it creates more problems I think the one mistake I made on day one was I surrounded the entire pen with electric wire versus just doing one side but other than that I think this was actually exactly the right size training pen for Three Little Pigs and I'd pretty much do the exact same thing if I had to do it over again there we go now they've got their Pig glue all nice and strawed up and ready to be used you'll still probably use this pigloo for another month or two and eventually I'll make a different type of shelter for them as they get bigger but because it's cold and because I want them to be able to be protected a little bit more from the elements and given the size that they currently are this pig glue is the perfect size you know much like a dog you actually don't want a house that's too big because they want to feel like they're in a cave or like a burrow of some sort but speaking of the pigs let's see if we can find where they're at oh piggy piggy piggies I got a surprise for you where you at girls piggy piggy piggies looks like your water chop is full let me turn this off yes I've now fixed this so it doesn't leak which is good here would you guys like some eggs those are your favorite I know how are you girls doing you settling in here you seem pretty happy seems like there's so much to explore yes you have the Angry Birds on the other side of the fence but don't let them bother you black Francis is giving them the stink eye let me just double check my fence here because I always get worried that's looking good do you like the new feeder I'm leaving you with the old feeder for today but once that thing empties out you're only going to be eating out of this guy I know right it's exciting stuff and yes your pigloo is back and in full force just like you like it I just added some fresh straw to it so you got that going for you as well oh you're playing with that cedar branch okay

Channel: Gold Shaw Farm

Views: 250,069

Keywords: gold shaw farm, duck farm, goose farm, vermont farm, farm vlog, sustainable farming, future of farming, sustainable agriculture, future of farming technology, farm business plan, farm plans, farm vlog usa, start a farm, farm plan, first pigs, homestead pigs, raising pigs, raising piglets, forest pork, wood pigs

Id: 3MXLafTvmsg

Length: 17min 32sec (1052 seconds)

Published: Sat May 20 2023