24 November 2010

Creative Farming: My Father’s Pig Hut On Wheels

by Ulla

My father is constantly creating solutions so that he can best utilize our pastures.  Now that we have started raising pigs, creative solutions were needed to incorporate them into our farm. Pigs are omnivores and their manure is a great fertilizer but they can be extremely destructive. My father has built mobile feeders and huts so that we can move the pigs around our farm. Rotating the pigs minimizes their impact; an added bonus is that they help to spread manure and we reduce feed costs because they consume a lot of fresh grass. We have been fascinated(and enthralled) by how much grass they consume and also how minimal their impact has been on a large pasture.  This system would be impossible without electric fences making this system very modern and new.

I created a photo essay on a very dark rainy day:

My dad putting some finishing touches on the pig hut

He made sure that there is grip for the pigs to climb into the hut with. Pigs can get excited.

We then filled it with hay. Hay smells delicious. The pigs will eat the hay and also use it for bedding.

My father moving the hut with the tractor. This makes moving the pig hut very easy, as you can see! 

We had to coax the pigs into the hut with corn, but once they realized it was there to keep them warm and cozy they now huddle together in a pile. Pigs are very smart.

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24 November 2010 | By Ulla in Farming 101, Grassfed, home-pg-gallery
  • Rebecca T. of Honestmeat

    I love this design- and it is aesthetically pleasing too! Do you know if he can move the trailer with the pigs inside, like if you needed to move them to a further pasture or if your slaughterhouse was a mile down the road? What kind of weight load can it handle? We build these things out of old cotton trailers- they are functional but not so pretty to look at.

  • http://twitter.com/nyculla Ulla Kjarval

    Rebecca,
    THanks so much for the comment! My father’s father was a furniture designer so my father has some design sense from him, the hut also it reminds me a bit of a viking ship! I am not sure how much weight it can handle I will ask my father. I know the feeder is designed so that when we are harvesting the pigs they go into the feeder, and we can load them into the trailer so it is not traumatic. Our concern was that the pigs would be pasture wild and get really stressed when being loaded onto trailer for slaughter. I think we would have to get road permits, etc to make it road worthy.

    All your ideas are very neat though. Moving them between pasture in the hut is brilliant and would make them accustomed to being in a trailer! I will have to ask my father.

  • Ingimundur Kjarval

    Hm. No problem mowing them when they are smaller and you could of course move a few bigger ones. But ones they get to full weight you would not want to many in there to move about. But it is a hay wagon gear underneath, so if the gear can take it, no problem. Love dad.

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