# Why not pasture raise hogs?



## Stitch (Jul 21, 2016)

I have about 10 acres of pasture i havent done anything with yet. My original plan was to raise a dozen or so cows on it, but the start up cost is high, soninwas thinking about hogs. Is there a reason you rarely see anyone pasturing pigs? I know they root and dig, but at the same time it takes 4-6 months to raise them from feeders to butcher, which leaves adequate time to rework and reseed the ground. My only pork experience has been raising them in a shed, which at the current market price and feed price is a losing battle. That being said, according to the research ive done you can run round about 10 hogs oer acre of pasture with minimal extra feed, so even with the current low pork prices it seems like it could be profitable. So my question is, is there a viable reason NOT to try it?


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Nope.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Stitch said:


> So my question is, is there a viable reason NOT to try it?


Poor to average fencing.

Regards, Mike


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## MFSuper90 (Jun 26, 2015)

The 4 to 6 month finish time is when the hogs are being fed almost 100% grain. Pasturing hogs would definitely take longer to finish. Also hogs are fence destroyers. A hog will test your electric fence 2 to 3 times a day to be sure it's on. You'd almost want to have paneling around the whole thing. Also another thing to consider, I am in not an expert in hogs by any means but I do know they are a true monogastric and I don't believe they can take an all forage based diet. Horses on the other hand are monogastric but they are considered modified monogastric due to a special organ that can digest high amounts of forage. (I'm trying to reach back in my college memory and can't seem to find the name of that organ). That's what I was taught and maybe I'm wrong but I wouldn't be grazing hogs without supplementing grain if it were me


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## Stitch (Jul 21, 2016)

I did think about that VOL. My fences are very good to cattle standards, so i think if i added posts and ran heavy 36 inch wire mesh along the barbed wire it would keep them in. Thered be some cost incurred with that, but that sounds like a good improvement.


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## MFSuper90 (Jun 26, 2015)

Also another thing to consider. Hogs are very prone to disease and that's why people have them in bio secure buildings nowadays. They gain and Farrow far better in perfect conditions vs outside in elements


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## Stitch (Jul 21, 2016)

MFSuper90 said:


> The 4 to 6 month finish time is when the hogs are being fed almost 100% grain. Pasturing hogs would definitely take longer to finish. Also hogs are fence destroyers. A hog will test your electric fence 2 to 3 times a day to be sure it's on. You'd almost want to have paneling around the whole thing. Also another thing to consider, I am in not an expert in hogs by any means but I do know they are a true monogastric and I don't believe they can take an all forage based diet. Horses on the other hand are monogastric but they are considered modified monogastric due to a special organ that can digest high amounts of forage. (I'm trying to reach back in my college memory and can't seem to find the name of that organ). That's what I was taught and maybe I'm wrong but I wouldn't be grazing hogs without supplementing grain if it were me


The 4-6 months was just research based, thats not for sure. It has generally taken us around 90 days to raise hogs jn a shed on slop and grain. As for the diet, im not sure about that either, but i would be suplimenting them with slop/grain.


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## Stitch (Jul 21, 2016)

MFSuper90 said:


> Also another thing to consider. Hogs are very prone to disease and that's why people have them in bio secure buildings nowadays. They gain and Farrow far better in perfect conditions vs outside in elements


Farrowing isnt something id ever see myself getting into. Were i to try it id buy feeder sized pigs.


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## MFSuper90 (Jun 26, 2015)

Stitch said:


> Farrowing isnt something id ever see myself getting into. Were i to try it id buy feeder sized pigs.


Farrowing in a pasture would definitely be a disaster. The farrowing crate was invented for a reason. I'm interested to see how it goes if/when you try it out.


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## Stitch (Jul 21, 2016)

Ill definitely post updates if i go that route.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

I don't know that it is all that profitable, but we have raised hogs on the ground for YEARS. The profit (over confinement hogs) will be in marketing of hogs raised on dirt.

Farrowing crates are nice but not mandatory. Good fence IS mandatory. We are using hog panels on dad's farm and my farm and they seem better than the old hot wire. I wouldn't be scared to run hogs inside of your woven wire, but I would run a strand or two of hot wire around the inside to keep them away from it.

My hogs eat a lot of hay and also get grain or hog feed.

I have Red Wattles and have raised Black Guinea Hogs (which ARE a forage hog)

Skip A Rope, Mark


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

We had 4 that lived outside on hay, scraps and grain with a little shade hut. Kept in with electromesh. When they were little they would be fine until they got out once, then they would get out over and over. Once they got quite big that lost its interest. My sister used them to churn up the garden in the spring then basically as an instant composter. We had 3 families supplying table scraps, old veggies etc. They also ate all the cracked eggs, maybe dozen a day.

They were a giant pain in the butt generally. Consumed a huge amount of food and water. Once slaughtered the cost worked out to about 20% more than a hog from the local butcher shop.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

slowzuki said:


> They were a giant pain in the butt generally. Consumed a huge amount of food and water. Once slaughtered the cost worked out to about 20% more than a hog from the local butcher shop.


That's funny.

Regards, Mike


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

You could call it a failed experiment. My sister dragged her feet getting rid of them as she grew attached. I feel kinda of bad as I sort of bullied her into shipping them.



Vol said:


> That's funny.
> 
> Regards, Mike


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

slowzuki said:


> You could call it a failed experiment. My sister dragged her feet getting rid of them as she grew attached. I feel kinda of bad as I sort of bullied her into shipping them.


Lol, I suspect you would probably feel worse if you had'nt....


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

If you do outside hogs get them from a clean source. Dont over crowd them so they live in filthy conditions and than diseases wont be much of a problem. But do deworm them and watch for worms. The other thing if you can get more of the heritage breeds. They do better to scavenge for themselves. They are rare now. Mostly because they got too fat on an all grain diet.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

As a kid, we always had a few hogs. They were outside year-a-round (in Michigan), had a couple of small buildings to go into (with straw), woven wire fence (no electric at the time). Biggest thing I can remember was to keep them 'married off', as my Dad would say. But today, IDK, if you can buy/use pig rings anymore.

Larry


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## twfarm (Dec 16, 2016)

We raise three or four feeder pigs every year, Heritage Breed Tamworth. We raise them in the woods right now but have recently moved to a larger farm and are thinking about putting them in a pasture as well. It takes us about 4 months to grow them out but we do supplement. We have dairy goats and feed them goats milk and an all natural commercial feed. This year it cost us about 4.20 a pound to put them in the freezer, processed by a USDA inspected butcher. We contain them with fence panels. We don't have much of a problem keeping them contained. The guy we get the feeder pigs from has a fairly good size operation and he pasture raises. Not sure how much he supplements but, he uses electric fencing to contain his hogs.


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## barnrope (Mar 22, 2010)

We have farrowed and finished on pasture for the last 4 or 5 generations back to the 1800's. Until the dynamic of hog economics changed with the shift to corporate raised hogs, we farrowed around 300 sows per year on pasture, and around 150 in the farrowing house in the winter, all in pens on straw, never a crate.

We always raise the pasture pigs on full feed, to let them forage would take way too much ground, and they would have their birthday before they were market size.

also we rotate pasture every year on a 4 year rotation. This will allow the soil to rest and any disease and worm eggs will die in that time.

We still farrow 20-30 on pasture just because its in our blood.


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## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

There is someone around here that has a bunch in the field with the cows, they are the black & white strip pigs.... every time I ride by the field the hogs are close to the cows, and it looks like the fence is just barb wire but I could be wrong as I haven't stopped and had a close look yet..

We have a potbelly that sleeps in the house now for 5 years now, he leaves the house when he wants by just pushing on the door, he eats more grass than my horses do and loves the acorns just as much...


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

We had hogs at one time, pastured some, electric works well until they root enough dirt up on the wire then they can walk right out. If woven wire is used they will still root, cover the bottom of the wire then it will rust away eventually. Only the smaller ones get in the pasture, we had a gate built with openings and a board on a hinge over each opening to make it a one way kinda deal, kind of a self sorting setup. Any size could walk into the finishing area, but once they got so big they could get back to the pasture.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

glasswrongsize said:


> I don't know that it is all that profitable, but we have raised hogs on the ground for YEARS. The profit (over confinement hogs) will be in marketing of hogs raised on dirt.
> 
> Farrowing crates are nice but not mandatory. Good fence IS mandatory. We are using hog panels on dad's farm and my farm and they seem better than the old hot wire. I wouldn't be scared to run hogs inside of your woven wire, but I would run a strand or two of hot wire around the inside to keep them away from it.
> My hogs eat a lot of hay and also get grain or hog feed.
> ...





barnrope said:


> We have farrowed and finished on pasture for the last 4 or 5 generations back to the 1800's. Until the dynamic of hog economics changed with the shift to corporate raised hogs, we farrowed around 300 sows per year on pasture, and around 150 in the farrowing house in the winter, all in pens on straw, never a crate.
> 
> We always raise the pasture pigs on full feed, to let them forage would take way too much ground, and they would have their birthday before they were market size.
> also we rotate pasture every year on a 4 year rotation. This will allow the soil to rest and any disease and worm eggs will die in that time.
> ...


Do you have any pictures handy of fencing?

I have a neighbor who started farrowing. I would like to try some of his in the woods. Not sure yet how much I wanna spend to make it happen. This would definitely be a "just for fun" and not a "get rich quick" scheme.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

deadmoose said:


> Do you have any pictures handy of fencing?
> 
> I have a neighbor who started farrowing. I would like to try some of his in the woods. Not sure yet how much I wanna spend to make it happen. This would definitely be a "just for fun" and not a "get rich quick" scheme.


Moose, I was waiting for Barnrope to respond because mine is an embarrassment....here goes.

Caution, you might want to squint, look off to the side, close one eye, etc and not look directly at the eyesore, or your head will go right to aching.

This pen is purdy small and I only keep 2 or 3 pigs in there for butchering, but dad's is considerably bigger....just takes more hog panels.

I start with a 1/2 of a 210 tank. The bottom had been been cut out of this one for another purpose. I prefer them with the bottom still attached and just take the gas hatchet and cut an opening in it.. I secure the hog panels to the side of the tank and start wiring the panels together..weaving through trees and whatnot.

























I overlap the hog panels by one square; it is wired in two places that way and is a heck of a lot stronger than wiring end-to-end. I didn't drive posts until I already had the panels wired together and where I wanted time (they stand just fine when made into an arc). Then, I drove the posts NEARLY to where I wanted them. Next I wired the panels to the T-post. Lastly, I drove the posts another couple inches thereby burying the bottom of the hog panel into the leaves/dirt so they couldn't get a nose under it so easy.









My feeders are inside the fence but against it. My water is on the outside of the fence and sitting on two pallets. I run the pipe through the fence and put two nipples on it. You prolly can't tell, but the pipes are hose-clamped to the panels to keep from twisting etc.








I'm in oil field country and tanks are available. If tanks are not available, gravity flow wagon beds work pretty good also. This bed, I picked up for $90 with a good running gear with extendable tongue and decent tires. Bed was "extra" because I only wanted the running gear. I use this one for a sheep pen for lambing if I need to secure a ewe or two and their lambs in REALLY cold weather. The bed is far easier to attach panels while keeping them upright without having to put a flex to it.

















It works for me, but I prolly give real hog operations a bad name.

73, Mark


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## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

This is an interesting topic. I'm sorry that you guys have to go to so much trouble to raise hogs. Here, pasture raised hogs cost us nothing to raise. If we want one to put in the freezer, we shoot or trap and shoot the right sized one. If we catch several in a trap, most of us sell them to buyers at feral hog collection points. Most of the time these feral hogs are quite a nuisance as they badly tear up our pastures and hay meadows. I don't wish feral hogs on anyone. They don't seem to have any farrowing problems either...


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

vhaby said:


> This is an interesting topic. I'm sorry that you guys have to go to so much trouble to raise hogs. Here, pasture raised hogs cost us nothing to raise. If we want one to put in the freezer, we shoot or trap and shoot the right sized one. If we catch several in a trap, most of us sell them to buyers at feral hog collection points. Most of the time these feral hogs are quite a nuisance as they badly tear up our pastures and hay meadows. I don't wish feral hogs on anyone. They don't seem to have any farrowing problems either...


I noted a little tongue-in-cheek there on feeling sorry for us.  I agree that we have it better having our hogs contained and under our control; I'm thankful that you wouldn't wish the feral hogs on us. I've read on here of the multi-thousands of dollars of damage the lil prolific fellers cost y'all in your farming endeavors. There were a few feral hogs around here for a few years, but I think they all got eradicated before they got too far out of hand. My understanding was that some jackwagon turned loose a load of hogs :angry: .

On the other hand, it sure looks like fun "hunting" them hogs from a whirlybird...too bad I'm skeert of heights!!

We have to put up fence to keep then IN and you have to put up fence to keep them OUT. That's a good example of the differences in different areas.

Mark


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## atgreene (May 19, 2013)

We raise pastured hogs. 1 strand of aluminum wire, 12"+- off the ground, use nylon rope or round plastic insulators to tie off. Move them from time to time. Never had one escape, 7000 volt fencer. Joel Salatin from Polyface does a nice job explaining pastured pork. We run ours about 6 months, butcher raves about the quality when he sees them. We do 20+ per year for our farm store, will need even more this year. It's not hard, anyone who says you can't fence a pig isn't doing it right. Enough voltage and plenty of fresh ground and you won't have issues.


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## atgreene (May 19, 2013)

That strand of wire is all that keeps them in. It's touching grass and raspberries everywhere, and the same fencer handles all our high tensile fence, about 40 acres all told.


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## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

atgreene

That is a much better looking hog than our long-nosed, wild, pasture raised feral hogs. Last night about this time, I put down a 245 lb (weighed) pregnant sow, but am afraid to post a picture on HT for fear some PIA PETA member might take offense.

Last night before retiring, I scoped the pastures and saw hogs. Had to walk about 1/2 mile in pitch dark to approach them with the wind in my favor. My wife's Great Pyrenees guardian dog and our two cow dogs normally go with me, as does our calico cat, Callie, on these night-time sojourns. When I got close to where the hogs were, I put up the NV scope and noticed the GP and larger cow dog attempting to chase the hogs but the big sow and her sounder (what a group of feral hogs is called) turned on the dogs, chasing the dogs back to me, and unbeknownst to the hogs, the whole group came to within about 40 yd of me at a lean up on a pine tree. Hogs were stopped by a 5-strand bob wire fence, but were milling around wanting to get the dogs. Wish I could shoot worth a darn at running hogs- could have gotten several more. I like dogs that, instead of chasing these critters, get chased back to me.

VH


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

Good subject and we had hogs on 2 strands of electric fence on rebar posts .. Had a 2JOULE low impedance charger and they never got out . Back then we installed something on each hogs rooting device to disable the rooting . Probably a thing of the past . But that was the key back then . ....I remember nothing fancy for feed trough and the never wasted a drop . We no longer have any hogs .


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

I've got a few murderous sows and an old one nut boar hog. A few piglets the sows take a shine to. Mine stay penned up. I don't trust those shifty bastards. One of my hay customers has hogs just roaming around. They come down with the dogs to escort me on to the property.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

My first posting earlier was when I only had 2 hogs that I was raising for table-fare. Since then, I have fenced @3/4 acre patch of an old house place with a well nearby. There was plenty of buckbrush and briers and whatnot which they have since cleaned up. I built same style as other fence; I used @150 hog panels overlapped same as the previous post to encompass the area. I have had as many as 50 pigs in there in various sizes at the same time.

I am finding/have found markets for them in excess of "market price" by $.05 per pound to a local butcher; he takes a load, is closer, and pays a LITTLE premium. I also have had good luck selling to individuals on the local "trading post" (on line) and craigslist for @$.25 over market. Word-of-mouth is (by far) the biggest seller of dirt-raised hogs for me.

Profit margin on $3.50 corn (purchase price) and $27.60 per cwt of 40% gives me about $60 per head "profit". That is not counting fencing, time, etc...just feed inputs. I expect $60 per head is a little exaggerated for an average, but the demand is growing. Also, it is too early to tell my exact feed bill due to the fact that there are many left to sell and feeding the sows til they next litters (at another farm, but fed from the same feed). Like any niche market, it can take awhile to build a client base...it's going faster than I expected finding market for the heritage breed (Red Wattles) raised on dirt. Should be able to cut down on the the $.05-over hogs and sell more $.25-over hogs...maybe more.

The hog chores *used to* take an average of 5 minutes a day... I would take the side-by-side down there and check feed and water...it took 5 minutes to drink a beer while I watched them for a bit looking for anything amiss. Then the wife bought me one of them Yeti Beer doo-hickeys; started taking 30 minutes to do hog chores cuz I can nurse a beer longer without it getting warm sitting there with my feet up and watching them being happy lil pigs. Chores became more dangerous though cuz there is no warning that you're about out of beer (such as it getting warmer or weight of an empty can)...dang near broke my neck first time tilting my head back to find there was no beer left.









































I sure enjoy them and they cut down on the blood-pressure medicine...dang things are happy to see me day in and day out.









They sure enjoy hay that I had stacked under some trees 3-4 years ago and that had rotted to nearly nothing..that's a plus (learned my lesson there!). They also really like any kind of table/garden scraps and chopped corn stalks.

















I see no downside to pasture/woods raising hogs if you have the desire.

If purely economical, it MIGHT pencil out; if you enjoy critters and good vittles, it DANG SURE pays to have pasture/woods raised hogs.

Mark


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## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

Dad always raised our pigs on dirt . We always fed ours lots of pumpkins and cob corn.


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## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

Today I removed feral hogs 41 through 45 from this ranch- began counting since the week before Thanksgiving, 2017. Mostly trapped, some shot in the open pasture and hay meadow in the dark-of-night. Sold some to a regional buyer but the currently low price is almost not worth hauling them. Finally found a group of people who like the pork and in return for giving the pigs to them, we get dozens of tamales. Even better than us hauling the feral hogs to a low-price buyer.

Even with removing so many in a short time, they are still coming to sites where I feed corn in and around traps and monitor their arrival times using game cameras to schedule a predictable time to sit in the dark to ambush them. The pastures and hay meadows are being badly torn up.


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