This was our first year at raising pigs. We raised 2 from about 45 lbs to around 200-230 lbs. 1 boar and 1 gilt. They are great animals to be around. Ours were never aggressive as some people had warned me. The cost you show are very close to ours but we had ours processed off site. I created a movable pen out of some hog panels and connected them with carabiners and used metal garden T posts to keep the pen on the ground. We moved it weekly. This year we will be running some electric wire stands through our woods with about 6 or so paddock areas to rotate them through. We plan to raise 2 for ourselves again and maybe 2 to sell. I think we will try to do the processing on site this time.

I'm glad we took the plunge and gave it a try. I thought it might be too much for us. It is a bit of a step up from our chickens. But we made it, learned a lot, and now have a freezer full of pork. Good luck!

Michael and Neville, owners of Woods Hole Hostel, near Pearisburg, were doing exactly what you are contemplating and they are near your area.

I remember electric fences and one or two shoat sized pigs on ground Michael was clearing while I was there last spring. You can contact them through their web site at http://www.woodsholehostel.com/ Michael loves to talk about his homesteading.

Hubby and I raised pigs for several years. They were a joy. The first meal was hard . But the flavor won us over.

Is that poundage cost for meat on the hoof or packaged meat? Are you ready to cure hams and bacon? As a child I was "elected" to chase after my Uncle John's hog when he was at work and it got out--which it often did. I'd usually find it in a shady alley lying in a mud puddle. It weighed hundreds of pounds more than I did. I had to pull it by the ear the thousand yards or so back home. Uncle John had a good fence, often patched where the pigs found a weak spot. They were good at tunneling under their fencing. On the positive side, pigs will eat most anything including much your chickens can't handle, including corn cobs, corn stalks, citrus peels. A man in our town kept a fire going under a vat where he cooked scraps gathered from local grocery stores, restaurants and schools. He slopped the hogs with the result.

Bakers Green Acres has a three part You-tube series on processing pork. http://bakersgreenacres.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgFvcM7dqJ8

i razed pigs they dont need a 1/4 acker the more room you give them the more weight they lose running. and they are smart if there is any sticks or any thing they can use to short out your hot wire they will.you will still have to come up with a way to smoke your bacon hams and so on. pigs are like dogs they dont have sweat glands so in your heat you will need to make them a good mud waller you provide the water they will do the rest. hope this helps tom.

I want some too! Hubby is NOT convinced!

On the slaughtering note, I had a coworker who attended a Boucherie last year and loved it. It's a Cajun tradition where everyone (or at least a few folks capable and committed to slaughtering the hog/s) shows up early in the morning to kill and butcher the hogs and spends the rest of the day cooking/preparing them. Of course, it's a social event too, so it has all of the usual makings of a cookout. Sounds like the way I'd want to go about slaughtering if I were considering raising hogs.

I just wanted to mention that we raised hogs this year and we purchased cattle panels instead of hog panels cause they were on sale(we did think they'd work better too) and they work great. We raised 3, one for us, one for a buddy, and one for my mom. We just got one back from the butch and we are very pleased. We do plan on butchering one ourselves, we are gonna build a smoke house at the end of the month, we plan to build it out of whole birch logs we harvest ourselves because birch is good for the flavor. We will use the smokehouse for tanning buckskins also.

We are going to start raising hogs and have been inspired by Farmstead Meatsmiths (http://anatomyofthrift.com I think their videos are amazing)--the selling point for me is all of the extra benefits of tillage, manure, and then meat. We are looking into raising some small American Guinea Hogs. If they browse for most of their food, they wont get so lardy.

but I've learned a lot about pasture raising them from Walter Jeffries at sugarmtnfarm.com His pigs get most of their feed from pasture and hay. He also supplements waste whey from a local dairy, because pasture and hay are lacking in lysine. Walter has also raised pigs on pasture and hay only, but he says they grow more slowly and produce almost no fat.

Dairy is probably going to be tricky for most people -- barley, maybe with some linseed meal, sounds like it would also produce superior pork. Most of the small grains are going to be better as feed than the corn and soy that commercial pigs get.

Interesting to see everyone's experiences with pigs!

Daddy --- The price per pound was for the meat after processing. I'm actually kinda interested in curing hams and bacon, although presumably if I got daunted, I could just roast the hams uncured the way I do legs of lamb and deer.

Sara --- I've enjoyed reading about hog-killings like that --- I think they're a southern thing, not just Cajun. I don't think I'd want to host one my first year with pigs, though....

BeninMA --- That's one of my favorite blogs to follow. I'm waiting impatiently for the book that he mentioned during his kickstarter campaign (and for the sausage we're going to get this winter as the result of donating to said campaign. )

One thing that I read is that you can used barbed wire to keep the pigs in but you need to put one strand right on the ground so that when the pigs are rooting around they will not go under the strand (along with the other strands hire up).

We picked up a couple of pigs at the beginning of the summer and have added another one this fall. The daily work involved in raising pigs has been minimal so far. The most labor intensive part has been the fencing. We had rented a trencher to run some water and power lines to my brother's new camper out in the woods, so we used the trencher to dig a 6 inch deep trench where we wanted to put the pig pen. Then we put a wooden post every 8-12 feet and strung field fencing on them sinking it down into the trench as far as we could get it. So far they haven't even tried to get out of this new setup. When we put them in a pen that was for goats and had the bottom of the field fencing at ground level they stayed in it for 2 days before getting out. They were a little smaller then, but still, they just dug a tiny hole and wallowed under the fence. With this other fence being set down in the ground a little and the pigs themselves being a little bigger, my conclusion is it would just be too much work for them to dig their way out (or at least I hope). i have some rings for their noses but haven't used yet because don't want to unless i have to.

I recommend getting some pigs. They are great at getting rid of stuff you and your animals can't or shouldn't eat. There are all kinds of ways of supplementing their feed for free too (i.e. rotten fruit, nuts that your don't want or can't eat, stale bread from bakeries, dead chickens, chicken and fish guts after butchering, rotten eggs, kitchen waste, old leftovers etc etc). I'm sure not all those things are stuff everyone recommends but they sure do like that stuff, and historically it has been fed to them forever.

as far as butchering goes, the pig farmer i got ours from does a pretty simple style of butchering. he skins them. cuts out the tenderloin and a few pork chops, and then turns the rest of it into ground sausage in the freezer. though a friend of mine says the bacon making is pretty easy to do, but i haven't checked into it yet. if you're interested in some peeks at my shoddy pig fence and shack and my tale of having to wrangle the older pig this fall (which was anything but fun), then you can read them on this page here: http://crowsonshire.blogspot.com/search/label/pigs

go for it. they're productive and fun animals. just give them enough room or your whole place will smell like a pig sty.

Somebody sounds mighty excited about pigs. 'Tis fun to watch.

I have a girlfriend who runs her own farm and sells mostly meat. Cold weather farm country. She says the yak are a stubborn bunch but weather the cold really well, pigs are standard fare and quite easy compared to the cows (she milks) etc.

I am looking forward to your pig posts next summer.

Hi--the benefits might outweigh the risks and costs... I do remember that even Uncle John in Scituate, RI raised pigs. Maxie liked them. Sounds like you've opened a Pandora's box. That is, I can see that a 200 lb body is worse to kill close up than a wild deer you can shoot from afar.

What about the high intelligence factor?--mom

Mom --- Since we eat pork already, the comparison would be pastured pork versus factory farmed pork --- the former is always healthier than the latter. Mark's a little worried about being about to kill a pig, but I don't think he needs to be --- we seem to have gotten used to that part of meat-eating lately.

We raised two Berkshire barrows (brothers) this year, from April weaning to September butchering. We sheltered them in borrowed a calf dome filled with straw bedding. At first, we fenced them with eight hog panels held with t-posts. This worked fine to contain the boys, but as they grew, we enlarged their territory with a fence made from surplus shipping pallets. Surprisingly, the pallet fence contained them without problems, despite the fact that it was not secured with any posts, just screwed together in zig-zag fashion. We eventually gave them the run of our woods, which are fenced with field fence held with wooden posts set in concrete. Not once did our pigs try to escape, although they are remarkably frisky at times and can really RUN when they want to. The boys fattened up quickly on pelleted hog feed supplemented by their forage as well as vegetable trimmings from a nearby Chinese restaurant. If you are trying to decide whether to raise pigs, remember to factor in setup costs beyond fencing. We bought an $85 feeder which is pretty much wrecked after one season. The watering device was another expense; we added a watering cup (about $30) to a 55-gallon drum with a lever-lock top. Butchering cost more than $500 and when the hams and bacon are ready, there will be an additional fee. Using the whole pig is a challenge, too, as many of the cuts are unfamiliar. Overall, though, it was worth it to know that our meat comes from happy healthy animals that only had one bad day in their lives.

Anna mentioned that pigs like old or un hulled nuts. Well, I have a bunch of walnuts I wouldn't mind getting rid of for a tad of meat or even just lard. Not sure if anyone is interested in trading. You'd have to be in the Tricities area and willing to pick it up in Bristol Tennessee. Will eat for fatback.

I just spent a weekend in the Lake Wales Ridge forest preserve. There was a lot of rooting in evidence. Let me tell you!!! Those pigs really git er done!!. An old time cracker friend said that hogs were the only thing to clear a tract of "nut grass" which propogates via nodules in the root system.

I think it would work well for you.