They're Back! Idaho Pasture Pigs return to the homestead.

hey everybody Welcome Back To Living Traditions Homestead well tomorrow is going to be an exciting day here on the homestead but that means that today needs to be a day filled with work tomorrow we are getting a delivery of two piglets that we will be raising up for meat for our family they are Idaho pasture piglets you guys know that we love the ipps we've had them on our Homestead for at least the past four years and we just want to continue raising them for meat because they're such great pigs now the cool thing about these two piglets are that they actually are coming from one of our sows that we sold earlier this spring so these piglets actually were bred here on this Homestead they were our our boar Charlie and our Sal Linda they're hurt they're piglets so we're getting two of them back to raise up this year for meat but before the need to get the pig pens ready and for piglets and even though it was too long ago that we had pigs in these pens they've kind of gotten overgrown we've got some cleaning up to do some additions into these pens quickly before they come tomorrow so that's what we're going to be doing in the first part of this video with you guys today so let's head inside of the pan we'll kind of show you around kind of give you an idea of what the plan is going to be for raising these two over the summer and then we'll get to work so even though we sold all of our breeding pigs we did keep two good sized pig pens set up so that we can continue to raise pigs every summer for meat so we've got two pens and our plan over the summer is to rotate these two piglets uh between the two pens so when one starts to get eaten down we'll move them to the next pen let the original one kind of grow back up then we'll move them back and we'll just do that throughout the summer the two pens are the same size each one is 40 feet wide by 128 feet long so they are decent sized pens especially for just two pigs you can see that we've got a few different shelters in them this one just happens to have two shelters the other one just says one but I'm sure they'll only use one of them at a time anyway uh each shelter also has a water barrel which today we need to clean out and get that all set back up we are going to be adding a feeding station to each of these later today so we'll show you what those consist of but the first thing that we need to accomplish today is to get the electric fence in both of these working once again a lot of weeds have grown on them over the course of the summer so we're going to do some weed eating today you can see that for our electric fence we have a physical we have a pit hog panel that goes all the way around but then we like to run one strand of electric fence here on the inside that just keeps the pigs from trying to root underneath the actual fence so we need to go with our weed eaters and we're going to just weed eat and make sure that there's no weeds actually touching the electric fence then we can get our Energizer hook back up and make sure that everything is working correctly [Music] see you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] we have all of our weed eating done and the electric appears to be free from any Weeds now so it is time to hook up our Energizer now this is an Energizer we've had for quite a long time use it for a lot of different things it's a zariva brand we have lots of different brands of energizers So today we're going to use this one um we're gonna go hook this up normally you would have a red and a green lead coming off of here but my green lead broke and all I had an extra was of red so we're gonna have two red just need to make sure we have them hooked up correctly color really doesn't matter it's just for your own reference so the way that the electric fence Works in these pens is again we have a single strand about about eight inches off the ground all the way around this pen and like I said we have two separate pens here same size and the electric actually runs both pens at once so this is the pen we're gonna put the piglets in first right here uh but we're gonna hook the electric up over on the other pen because that's where I have a grounding rod installed so we need to make sure it's working both pens effectively so we're going to hook this up and then we'll test the fence with a tester and see how many kilovolts is getting so we're just going to set our Energizer here this is a solar powered Energizer so ideally we want it facing south that will give us the best chance of it uh recharging every day now in this case again this red one here this is going to go to our grounding rod ideally this would be green so we know that it's ground but that'll be fine just like that and then we have this other red one this one's gonna actually hook onto our electric fence here and we're using the electro braid it's a braided electric rope so it's it's like it's like rope with little strands of wire that run through it that conducts the electricity all the way through the fence so we're going to go ahead and turn this on all right looks like it's on and then we'll use our fence tester we'll test right here first looks like it's getting 8 000 volts so that's good let's go test it on the pen where we're actually going to put the piglets since that one's kind of jumped off of this fence over here so we'll test right here I always like to test at the spot that I know is the furthest away from the Energizer because if it's good there that means it must be good everywhere and 8 000 volts there as well so that is plenty to give these piglets a good jolt if they try to root around this fence I don't know if these piglets are going to come to us already trained on electric or not I believe that they are and if that's the case they may never even touch the electric fence here but if they do they'll get a little jolt it's not enough to injure them in any way it's just enough to give them a shock and let them know hey you're not supposed to be doing that and usually within a day or two you never hear them Get Zapped again unless they're like playing and one of them pushes the other one into it so we should be all set as far as that goes let's continue on to get the rest of this pen set up so tomorrow morning when these piglets are dropped off we can get them right in here and they'll be all ready the next thing we're going to do is set up a feeding station for these piglets I ended up bringing two of our old feeding stations with us from the previous Homestead they're a little bit smaller than the great big feeding stations that I used to use I decided for those of you who've been watching this for a long time you know that about a year or so ago I said I was not going to use the wooden feeding stations anymore because they just didn't hold up over time and I still think that that's true for the ones that I was using before and partially that's because we were using the watering cups on the feeding stations and when they would leak or the pigs would make a mess with the water it would rot out the feeding stations really fast so the two that I brought with us don't have water connected to them it's just feed balls and so they're holding up better over time so we're going to stick with the watering Barrel over by itself and then we're just going to feed on these feeding stations the nice thing about the feeding stations is the pigs eat out of a bowl instead of on the ground and my experience even though it's no big deal for pigs eat off the ground because they spend most their day eating off the ground but by feeding them in the bowls what they do is they eat there and when the feed is gone they go back about their business where if you feed them on the ground it seems like for the rest of the day they keep coming back to that spot where you fed them and looking if there's any more feed and then just rooting around and digging holes in one spot hoping they can find one more little piece of feed on the ground so it really works out best to use these feeding stations which is why I brought these two with us so I'm going to grab the tractor we're going to bring one of them over here and get it moved into this first pen [Music] [Music] foreign station in place and you can see we got a little bit of a problem it's sitting on a hill so we need to make one quick fix I just happen to have some pieces of 4x4 and look at that it's like the exact right length so we're going to attach this to the bottom to help even this out a little bit that's a lot better yeah that is much better and we'll just screw that in I've got these extra long screws I actually bought a bucket of these one time at an auction and I thought I don't know if I'll ever use these really long screws and I'll tell you what I've used about half of them that I bought already they come in handy for a lot more things than I ever thought they'd come in handy for we'll just be able to screw in like that thank you perfect that ought to hold that nice and tight so the only other thing we need to do to get this feeding station ready is add a second one of these bowls I like these rubber pans on these feeding stations because they're easy to clean out and they hold up well over time but because we're getting two piglets I want to add a second one on this one now we do want these for feed only not for water so I'm going to make a hole in this one so that when it rains and things they don't fill up with water because that's the only bad part about attaching them is that you can't tip them but if you don't attach them almost every day when you come out to feed your pigs they're at the far end of the pan so I like to attach them but first what I'm going to do is I'm going to take a drill bit and I'm going to drill well I guess because this is still at a little bit of a slant if I drill a hole on this bottom edge here that'll probably be all I need to do relax [Music] and that should be fine we'll put that like that so that the water can't build up in there and then we'll just screw this straight down to the feeding station and this should be all set it is going to be nice to have piglets back on the homestead I really enjoy raising pigs I've told you guys many times over the years that I actually think pigs are my favorite animal to raise here on the homestead and I think that that is still true but breeding the pigs and having them having the Breeders and going through all of that process that was a part of it I just didn't enjoy but I do really enjoy I do really enjoy having the piglets during the summer raising them up for food for our family uh there's nothing like pastured pork it is just an amazing flavor so we get these pigs to eat down a lot of grass over the summer of course some good grains as well and uh we're gonna have some good pork in the freezer by fall we actually already have an appointment scheduled with our local butcher for these piglets I believe that the appointment sometime around the middle of November so these piglets will have a while to grow out and then they'll be going in the freezer before winter all right the next thing that we need to get ready for the piglets are waterers and uh like I said we're using the 55 gallon drum Waters these are the same ones we used for our adult pigs and there's old water in these so I am going to dump these out because the covers that come off and the water isn't the greatest inside so I'm gonna dump this out and then I'll show you guys how this works as we refill it all right foreign [Music] so what I like to do is put them up on something like this we were able to get these plastic pallets from a company in town they've come in really handy and they won't rot out like wooden pellets do over time so the way that these waterers work if you're not familiar is that the pigs will come up it has two of these little nipples on the sides and the pigs will bite down on this nipple which will make water come out flow into their mouth and they'll drink out of them almost like a straw now once pigs get used to these they love them and they're very good at drinking out of them now a lot of people have asked why we don't put the waters all the way down at the bottom so that the pigs can drink all of the water we do this for two things one if it were all the way down at the bottom we'd have to raise it up higher for the pigs which makes it more Tippy also by having it up like this there's always water in the bottom of the barrel which adds extra weight which means that the pigs can't push the barrels around like they could if they were completely empty these nipples aren't really cheap so if they push the barrels around and it bends the nipples or the barrel starts to leak that can be a bad thing so by leaving them up like this so that there's always enough water in the bottom to add some weight the pigs won't push them around like that so that's why we have them up off the bottom it's just simply to help protect the barrel and so the pigs don't push them around I'm going to rinse this out and then we're going to get this filled up and then there's one last thing we need to do to get this area ready for the piglets to show up tomorrow morning the last step in is to put some straw in the two houses out there for them it is not cold here you guys so they don't really need it to stay warm but it will be soft and cushy and you know we like to spoil them so I'm just going to split this one bale of straw between the two houses they're going to be able to do the most of the work I'm just going to put the flakes in there and they can root around when they get here tomorrow but last step and we're all ready for piglets thank you we have several of these shelters they're actually called Porta huts and even though they're metal they are they provide a lot of great shade they don't get hot in there at all on the back up on the top is a lip that folds in so that the hot air that settles on the top here can escape out obviously out the front but also out the back so they work really well for our pigs you don't have to use them for pigs you can use them for lots of other things we also really like them because they're pretty portable and we can move them around when we need to I'm just gonna throw some of these in here those piglets will have a good time spreading this around rooting around there's also quite a bit of grass in there so it'll be nice and cushy for them all set for piglets well that's everything that we need to get ready for today now the piglets are supposed to be coming sometime tomorrow morning the people are actually driving them here to drop them off when they call and let us know that they're getting close uh then we'll come out it will fill up their wallow that we have out here for them these are pretty new wallows the pigs never really use these so they're not going to hold water really well yet but once the piglets get in and start rooting around in them and making them a little bigger before long they'll start holding water really well but I don't want to fill it up tonight because it might just drain out before they get here so tomorrow when they call us that they're close by we'll make sure to bring you along get that wallow ready and to introduce those new piglets to the homestead see you guys in the morning well good morning everybody it is the next morning it's about 8 30 right now 8 45. they just called and said they are in our little town called Ava with the piglets which means they ought to be here in about 15 or 20 minutes so it is time to start getting our wallow filled up as soon as they get here we'll get the camera rolling and we'll show you guys them dropping off the piglets I think they're about eight or ten weeks old I'd have to go back and look what they when they said they were born so I'm not sure if we're going to be able to lift them into the pan or if we're going to have to back up with the trailer so we'll see when they get here but let's get this wallow filling up because it's going to be in the mid to Upper 80s today and these piglets are going to definitely need somewhere to cool down and this wallow is going to be perfect for them foreign guys Chuck and Kelly are here with the piglets from Gilbert Farm they're here in Missouri as well they came about three and a half hours with the piglets this morning look at how amazing those piglets look nine weeks old can you believe that now again these came from the sow that we sold them her name was Linda you guys know Linda quite well she's been here for a long time so these are Linda and Charlie's last litter together because Charlie went to a different home uh what can you guys tell us about them so far so our nine weeks old they are very good size they have um their mother has taken great care of them I can tell so we um they um she had nine yes nine total um we have um most of the feeders from the litter sold and then we still have um one female breeder and one male breeder that um are left so um and they are all equally the same size great piglets very active know how to eat well obviously right now if people want to get a hold of you guys because you not only have the rest of this litter but you have some other litters you said as well how do they get a hold of you guys um find us on Facebook on arm is our farm page and we do have an us and then we will also be on the um Idaho pasture Pig registry website um under the registered breeders tab so our email is Gilbert Farm organic gmail.com nice so you guys if you're looking for IPP feeders yet this spring get a hold of these guys I'm glad we did all right they're hot they're want to get in here we got the wallow filled up so let's we're gonna try to lift this whole thing out and let them out right in the Run area [Music] all right and have they been trained on a water barrel nipple yes water yes ever since they could start reaching it yeah they yeah they've been they've been on it you're gonna get them out all right let's let them out watch out buddy come on guys I guess so I guess they're just gonna live in here forever come on girls yeah I should have mentioned too that these are both guilts so they're both female piglets look at those fat butts yeah there we go come on there you go yeah they're a good size for nine weeks they really are yeah they were born March 23rd come on chunker yet look at that really she's coming you didn't want to get into this how are you you go [Music] hi what are you doing did you have a good day today you like your new home [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] so it's been about 10 or 11 hours since the piglets first arrived here on The Homestead it's evening time now to be honest they spent most of the day today just sleeping I think it was a big change for them plus it was a really hot day out but this evening they started to come out they started to explore a little bit they were pretty friendly with us and they joined a little bit of time in their wallow as well right now they are eating some of their dinner everything about their behavior seems like they're adjusting very well we're super excited to have them on the homestead and we're so excited to be raising pigs here again right you guys we think that going back to just raising pigs over the summer as feeders is going to be a good compromise for us here on the homestead like I've told you guys for years raising pigs is one of the most enjoyable things I think about homesteading I've really enjoyed them over the years but the breeding aspect of it just ended up not being for us and I think as you guys start to Homestead or if you are homesteading now you you're going to realize too that there are things you're going to try there's going to be parts of some things that you may really enjoy but this is all a learning experience and you just got to figure out what parts you want to do and what parts aren't for your homestead so you guys were really happy that you joined us today if you're enjoying videos like this make sure that you hit the Subscribe button and remember that the best way that you can help us here on the homestead is just to share our videos on your social media until next time thank you so much for stopping by our Homestead take care and God bless God bless

Channel: Living Traditions Homestead

Views: 83,340

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

Id: F3v5TO-NHhc

Length: 27min 39sec (1659 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023