The NEW PIGLETS Have Arrived! Expanding our Idaho Pasture Pig Herd!

good morning everybody welcome back to living traditions homestead today is a super exciting day here on the homestead a day we've been waiting for honestly since this spring when we originally decided that we were going to expand our herd of idaho pasture pigs so today we are awaiting the arrival of two special registered gilts that will grow up here on our homestead and become the new sows that will produce the breeder piglets that we're going to be selling in the future we've been working with a farm up in wisconsin uh kind of near where sir and i grew up actually called duck creek pastures kayla and her family have an awesome farm up in wisconsin where they do regenerative farming with idaho pasture pig some awesome chickens that they raise and just do an amazing job we are so excited to get some idaho pasture pigs from them they're on their way they're not quite here yet but we thought we would take you guys out bring you guys out here to see what we've prepared for them did the run area and then just reintroduce you guys to the current ipp pigs that we have so this is the new paddock that we've prepared for the two new piglets that we're getting today uh this paddock ended up being about 24 feet wide by 96 feet long we built this out of hog panels and then on the inside of the hog panels we have one strand of electric wire this is the system that we're going to for all of our ipps that we're raising here on the farm as many of you know for a long time we raised our pigs kind of more in a wooded area where we use nothing but electric wire and that worked out really well for just the grow out pigs when all we were doing was grow outs but now that we have pigs on the farm all the time and especially something with these ipps just having electric wire i wasn't cutting it anymore i think it's as they became more mature and as the male you know as our boar wanted to get with the sows and as the sows want to get with the bore they're a little more motivated than they are when they're real young so by having this system with the actual physical barrier along with the electric wire it has worked out really well and it has solved all of the problems we've had well you can see that this area is a nice pasture area there's lots of grass for these new pigs to eat now we will be feeding them grain as well a lot of people i think have a misconception that these ipps can do nothing but eat grass kind of like a cow and that's simply not true they still need some supplemental feed as well but they will definitely graze and eat a lot of grass and you can get by with less of the actual pig feed for them now for us for our ipps we feed around four pounds of feed per pig per day which is less than we fed with the other kind of more i'd call them standard hogs that we've raised in the past we've always done those on six pounds per day and in fact when we're raising ipps just to grow out just for meat we still stick with six pounds per day but for the ones that are going to be here long term that we want to keep nice and slim so they're in good breeding shape we cut that back to about four pounds per day and then of course they get milk from our cow they get veggies out of the garden they get a lot of extra treats so along with that four pounds per day so pigs love to eat so do i but i think that's maybe why we get along so well let's take a walk down further i want to show you the new uh hut that we have for them and the wallow area that we've built for them so you can see for these new piglets we picked up one of these porta huts this is just a metal a portable shelter it's used for a lot of different animals but i think this is going to work out really well for the pigs we've seen these a lot online but until recently we couldn't find a place to buy them kind of locally so we finally found that one of the mfa stores which is the missouri farm association stores here about an hour from us actually has them in stock so we picked one up if this one ends up working out well we're gonna go get more for all of the pigs so that everybody can have some good shelter right now we have kind of a mix of different types of shelters for our pigs but it would be nice because these are a lot more portable than what we're using for the other pigs so we have this all set up i think this is going to be nice for them there's a vent in the back so it stays actually pretty cool in there that's one thing that i was worried about with this metal is that in our warm weather it would get really hot inside uh but we've had this here now for a couple weeks and i've climbed inside of it a few times on hot days and i'll be honest it's really not too bad in there so i think this will work out really well for them and then kind of just behind the shelter we've dug them a nice wallow and i filled that up this morning whenever we build a new paddock for pigs i always like to start a wallow for them for a couple reasons these ipps in general aren't great at rooting so they don't dig a really good wallow in fact i should have done a bigger one for charlie because he hasn't made it any bigger than what i originally made it for him with the tractor and he just kind of lays in about two inches of water so someday i'll get in charlie's and dig him a bigger one so i dug this one pretty deep i'm hoping that these new girls that are coming today will enjoy this and maybe they'll make it a little bit bigger themselves but the real reason i like to start one for the pigs is that that way you have some control over where it is otherwise they may dig it you know right up by their feeding station they may want to start one in a spot that you don't really want a wallow by you digging one first with your tractor or even with a shovel you at least give them a spot to start in and then you have more control over where it ends up so this is going to be a good spot for them and we're just excited for them to get here [Music] [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Applause] well it must be spa morning for the other females that we have here ginger just got out just laying in there wallow having a good time this spotted one here is our grow out feeder pig for this year we will end up processing her in the fall kevin has named her dolly you can see myrtle over there she's just having a good old time laying in the wallow she's pregnant and i think she's starting to get bigger and hot and ginger is checking out her the straw in their house i think she might be getting ready to take a nap it's just a lazy day here for these ladies they have no idea that pretty soon they're going to have some roommates on the other side of the fence to watch it's going to be an exciting day for everybody now for those of you who have been watching us for a while you may remember that this one here the spotted one her name is dolly she's the one we're raising for meat this year she was actually part of the litter that was born during that big ice storm last winter so she's about uh five or six months old now i think she was born at the end of february if i remember correctly but she's the one who was born at like three o'clock in the morning when it was like negative 15 degrees outside and we weren't sure if any of those piglets were gonna make it and every single one of them survived she is doing so well um we're excited to have her and she is growing so fast you can see i also have set up for them one of our feeding stations this is actually one that we had back kind of in the woods for our grow out pigs in the past so i've moved this up here we've kind of revamped it a little bit for these new piglets but it's got everything they need we like to feed on these feeding stations because it just keeps everything so much more clean and it prevents them from rooting around and making a big muddy area where you feed them so this really works out well you see it's got a trough here and then it's got an automatic water as well we use these for all of our pigs now i'm not sure if these new gilts are trained on one of these yet or not but typically they learn really fast how to use it basically it's just this little cup it's hooked up to you can see a 300 gallon ibc tote back there all all three of these paddocks that we have work off that same tote but it's just a gravity fed system so when the pigs need a drink of water they'll come up they'll hit their nose on this little button right here that lets water out into the cup and then they can drink out of that cup and it just works out really well and it prevents them from making as much of a mess now sometimes they do learn that if they keep their nose on here for long it'll overflow onto the ground but uh in my experience as long as i have a good wallow and you keep that wallow filled up they're not too concerned about doing that over here by the water hi charlie hi this is charlie he is our boar and he it's kind of a big baby charlie loves to get belly rubs and back scratches you can see he likes to get his butt scratched he loves it when we come out here and spray him down with the hose yeah does that feel good charlie you guys this is why i love the ipps because they're just so mellow and so fun to be around i wouldn't feel anywhere near this comfortable around full-size bore of another breed charlie is about as big as he's gonna get and uh like i said he's just so gentle and so calm and just loves the attention he doesn't know that today he's gonna get a couple new girlfriends now they're still young so he's gonna have to wait quite a while before he gets to spend any quality time with them but eventually charlie will be the one he'll be doing his job with all the girls that we have here charlie is a registered idaho pastor pig and then ginger our guilt in our other pen she's a registered idaho pastor pig and then the two new ones that we're getting are our other two myrtle and uh dolly they are not registered charlie you're getting too big i know all right he wants too many scratches this morning all right we're gonna go make sure we've got everything ready for the two new girls to get here and then we're just gonna wait because we're excited and they should be here anytime you guys we are so excited because mitch and kayla from duck creek pastors finally got here we've been waiting all morning as you've seen we've been preparing for them to get here they have our two piglets that are about three months old and we're going to get them out we're going to get them into their pen but i just wanted to introduce you guys to these uh to these guys so that you can see who they are uh again duck creek pastures an amazing farm in wisconsin not far from where sarah and i grew up uh why don't you guys tell us just real quick a little bit about your farm so hi guys uh like you said we're from wisconsin we're from partyville wisconsin if you can't tell by the accent yeah i don't hear it but he tells me i have one i don't know um so we bought our farm back in 2014. uh we've been working hard on it and about four years ago is when we we first got our first pair of ipps and fell in love so we are fanatics now uh as you can see we're driving all over the place to try and get genetics out trying to bring genetics back and it's been an amazing trip so far it really has so much how many ipps do you guys have now oh um we have lots of different ages so yeah if we could give you a ballpark we have around 100 pigs right now on our farm wow um next year it's going to be double that at least so we are growing very fast um when you say fanatics you mean it we really we're yeah we really we're about to spend our heart and soul since we started we are very dedicated to taking this breed to the next level and getting it out there and um we had the opportunity to be a part of the idaho pasture pig association um idaho pasture pig breed associations excuse me and so that it has just brought everything full circle for the breed we've traveled all over and we've uh we're trying to bring in more genetics to wisconsin and also distribute the genetics throughout the us we want everyone to have the opportunity to have um diversity in their state and to better the breed right to help them have the option yep and you know the more genetics the more versatile you can get right the more you can you can strategically breed and work on a breed right and let's face it they're the best figs of their own i mean we've raised a ton of different breeds of pigs and there's nothing like that there is no other pigs for us for the people out there who say that they don't like the ipps i've never raised them that's my opinion right i mean i grew up with commercial hogs i mean you even look at them they want to kill you right you know right so when she showed me a boar that laid down for belly rubs right exactly i mean charlie i mean he's i mean he's like having a lab i mean he's he's that friend beautiful boy absolutely all right well let's get these guys out of the trailer or these girls out of the trailer and uh then we'll do some more talking over by their new pen all right all right all right here's number one all right there we go you're gonna love your new home new [Music] there friends go [Music] girl [Music] oh [Music] [Music] one [Music] oh [Music] it looks like the old girls are coming up to say hi to the new girls i think you're gonna like it here well looks like they are settling in well looks like everybody is curious as to what's going on so we want to take just a couple minutes to share with you guys kayla specifically is going to share with you guys the importance of you know a breed standard what we're looking for when you buy breeders what someone like kayla is doing to ensure that she's only selling piglets that meet the breed standards and kind of what she's looking for so you need to be asking the breeder for pictures of the parents to the piglet that you're purchasing you also want to run a cui which is coefficiency of inbreeding and you did for us thank you yeah and that's to make sure that if you already have piglets or that the ones that you're getting aren't inbred basically or related or aren't related very closely at all right right you just want more diversity in there you don't want any problems down the road and you know if you do plan on line breeding in the future you certainly don't want to start with something that has a very high cui and so once you find one that adheres to the breed standard which you can find the breed standard on the idaho pasture pig registry website so really read through that i read through it every single time i pick piglets every single time it is that important what are the main things i mean i know one of them is the length of the snout like you absolutely don't want ipps that have a long snout but what else is there besides that temperament okay that's number one okay we need to make sure that these pigs are going to be easy to be around safe to be around your kids should be able to be around them it's going to be hard to know temperament when you're picking out a piglet so that's why it's important to ask the breeder questions and you know maybe ask for a video too just see how they interact with their pigs and so then confirmation so that goes every part of their body their their whole type but really i select from the feet up so if they don't have good feet and legs they will not be able to support their adult weight they won't be able to support the weight that they have when they're pregnant they won't be able to support a mature bore when they're mating these are all things you it feet are so important so we really want to see strong pasterns we don't want to see a fine boned pig that a fine bone pig a small bone pig they just they don't have the structure to support that weight it's just they don't have it you know you want them to be wide you want them to be long you want them to have a very smooth top line you don't want to have a hump you don't want their tail set to be low that should be nice and high you want this is a meat animal you want nice big hams full ham right nice butt you gotta have a good butt yes don't forget about those shoulders that those shoulders are important right there's a lot of meat on the shoulders the wideness and the length of their body bacon also pork chops right those are very very important so familiar familiarize yourself with a good butchering book you guys we've recommended to you several of them that we use start to learn the parts of the pig that you eat and then start to look at the pigs and make sure they have good parts i mean really it's it's not rocket science but it is something that people overlook because i think emotionally they're like oh this one's cute or this one you know right you know and and the other thing that we've learned over time is you know don't buy any animal for your homestead because you feel sorry for it yes i mean that's easy to do but don't you know don't think well we can take this one that isn't perfect and make it better because chances are you probably can't especially when you're looking at breeders exactly that is color right okay yes i know we have some beautiful colors in this you know it's a bonus it's definitely important right look for what you need first and color color comes later right and if you want that color it can come later right but you need to start with a good stock right so we really want to support what the breed founder shelly dixon had in mind um that is really it's one of our main goals for our herd it's um we respect what everything she's done it's she has put so much into this breed and i also want to share with you guys that there is resources for you to pick piglets um the idaho pasture pig registry as well as the idaho pasture pig breed association on their websites they have resources for you to look through and it will it's extremely helpful we didn't have that when we started so this is created by breeders to help you select the best we only want the best to go out there this breed is amazing and we want to keep it that way we really want to see consistency and so both those websites are going to help you establish that in your herd well you guys we're going to let the piglets settle down we're going to move to the shade because it is it's terrible out here today we're in the 90s and we got rain yesterday so it is super humid these guys are from wisconsin they're not used to this sticky southern weather yet so oh we get a little hot and humid up there too well that's true and you guys get there you guys have mosquitoes we don't have mosquitos oh yeah not very many at all yeah exactly yeah so we're gonna move to the shade uh they've still got more pigs to to deliver and you know we're just so excited you guys first of all excited to meet you to finally you know get to see each other in person but we're excited to have these breeders because this is going to be an awesome addition to our farm in homestead and if there's anybody in wisconsin you guys check out duck creek pastures if you're up in wisconsin or really in the midwest at all right i mean you guys are delivering throughout the midwest we went to the east coast and we went to the west coast about uh what three months ago so so there you go 6 000 mile trip wow so there you go check out duck creek pastures you guys i would highly recommend just from the little bit we've talked so far today i can tell they're the real deal and i hope next time we make a trip up to wisconsin and come see you guys absolutely we'd love to show you our place we'd love to see it well it is early the next morning and it is time to go feed the pigs we thought we'd bring you guys along just to show you how well these new piglets have settled in we checked on them numerous times throughout the day yesterday and everybody is getting along well and everybody is settling in well but let's go down and feed everybody and see how they made it through the night good morning piggies how are you guys this morning looks like they're up already eating grass hi good morning i am just amazed at how friendly these piglets are we've never had piglets this size this friendly that says a lot about the way that kayla and mitch raise the pigs on their farm because normally piglets at this size i'll admit even ones we raise are not this friendly at all so this is awesome you guys want your breakfast let's go down to the other end of the pan they'll bring you your breakfast come on i guess they already know what the bucket is here you go there you go well they have both definitely figured out where the feeding trough is i've seen them both drinking out of the watering cup yesterday so that's not going to be an issue we're just excited to have these guys now ipps and pigs in general can start breathing at about eight months of age so these guys are about three months old so by next spring they will definitely be ready for breeding age and we're excited about that oh yeah everybody else is hungry too let's quick give everybody else their breakfast and we'll come back and check on these guys one more time lauren and charlie good morning girls i didn't mean to make you wait well yesterday certainly was an exciting day on our farm getting these new piglets i wanted to say a real quick thank you one of the stops that mitch and kayla made before they came to our farm was to another farm that breeds ipps uh colleen at that little farm in the country she sent along these awesome idaho pasture pig shirts for sarah and i along with some stickers and other things so thank you colleen that was awesome you can see i'm proudly wearing the shirt already today we had such a great time hanging out with mitch and kayla yesterday and their kids just a wonderful family so thank you again don't forget to check out duck creek pastures if you're looking for ipps right now and uh we're so excited to have these guys we hope that you'll stick around and watch these babies grow and watch as they become the new uh breeders here on our farm if you're enjoying our channel don't forget to hit that subscribe button as always the absolute best way that you can help us is by sharing our videos on all of your social media and until next time thank you so much for stopping by our homestead take care and god bless

Channel: Living Traditions Homestead

Views: 121,975

Keywords: Living Traditions Homestead, Missouri, Ozark's, homesteading, Ozarks, self-sufficient, homesteaders, unjobbing

Id: k9lvKc1hl4M

Length: 26min 55sec (1615 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 01 2021