The Basics of Raising Feeder Pigs.

If you are a small farm with limited space and you want to raise your own pork, the easiest way to do that is to buy young feeder pigs and raise them out. You will need a lot more space and pens if you decide to breed your own and raise them up from piglets. But it could also be a great way to make a little more from your farm by selling the extra piglets. However, if you do not know much about pigs it might be best to get feeder pigs first and see how that goes and then decide what is best for your farm or homestead.

We buy feeder pigs and raise them. We do not have the space or time to breed and raise piglets properly yet and we are still in the stage of deciding what is best for our farm. So, for now we just buy our feeder pigs and raise them up to the desired weight, send them off to be processed, and then sell the meat.

Here are some things to consider and prepare before you purchase your first feeder pigs.

1. Breeds. There are many different breeds of pigs to consider. I won't go into a lot of detail here so do your own research as to what breed will fit your farm best. The heritage breeds tend to grow slower (about 8 months to butcher weight) than the commercial breeds (about 6 months to butcher weight). Some say the heritage breeds have better tasting meat. Any breed you raise on your farm is better then the meat from the grocery stores that is mass produced and who knows what kind of antibiotics and growth hormones the animals are getting.

2. Time-line. Feeder pigs are normally sold when they are 40 to 60 pounds at about 2 months of age. This is when you will bring them to your farm and start raising them. Depending on the breeding you could be looking at 4 to 6 months of feeding them until they are up to butcher weight. Butcher weight is normally over 250 pounds.

3. Feed. When you first bring your feeder pigs home you should be feeding 16% protein feed. Some people might recommend starting out with medicated starter feed for them but that is up to you. 2 to 3 months before slaughter you should switch to 12-14% protein feed. This will keep their fat contents down. The other question is: how much to feed and how often to feed? Some people use demand feeding and others have measured feedings. Demand feeding means the pigs have food all the time. Measured feedings means you feed them twice a day. We do measured feeding which is probably best when only raising a few pigs at a time. There will be less waste with measured feedings and you can keep their fat contents down easier. Anywhere from 4-8 pounds of feed per day per pig is common. This changes as they grow. We measure feed so if they eat it all by the time it is time to feed them again we know they need more but if they are not finishing their feed in the time between feedings they get less.

4. Water. This should be common sense. Make sure they have water all the time.

5. Pens. If you look online about how much space a feeder pigs needs you will probably be confused. Anywhere from 8 square feet to 50 square feet per pig is what pops up. The smaller the pen the quicker they grow as they cannot exercise as much but it is better if they have room to move about. The smaller the pen the more you will have to be on top of cleaning it to keep them healthy. In general pigs are clean animals and will keep their bedding area clean. We pasture raise our pigs and provide shelter for them with bedding hay or straw. They keep their shelter area clean but they really like to root up the ground. If you are pasture raising them make sure it is in an area that you do not care if they root it all up. Some people will put their pigs in their garden when things are not growing there and the pigs till it up real good for them. Hog panel fence is common to use for pig pens but pigs can be trained to electric fence. Pigs do smell so that is another thing to consider when you are deciding where to put your pig pen.