The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Jefner87 on May 21, 2019, 02:49:43 pm
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:pig:
I posted last year regarding breeding a couple of my Hampshire gilts. Luckily my ladies did me proud and have reared (and recently weaned) their first litters of 9 and 11 piglets. Now it’s time to let them out of the stables where they farrowed into the outside world.
I have a small field available that I was thinking of putting them in to. I don’t want to give them the whole field as it’s a few acres and currently home to a few calves so I was going to fence off a corner but not sure what sort of size is going to be practical? I’ve said in the title three as I’ll have a third sow joining them soon.
Any advice or experience of others would be really great.
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I don't think my reply posted so sorry if this comes up twice!
Are they already living together? How do you intend to introduce a third sow. Plenty of room needed to get out of each others way. Hampshires are big sows. Are you going to run a boar in with them?
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Hi Harmony, thanks for your reply, the two who have had litters are housed together at the moment and the third is in the next stable across at the but was with them until about a week before farrowing. I intend to reintroduce them in a large shed before putting them outside. (They were all served at the same time and were living together at that point but only two held unfortunately).
I may introduce a boar if I can find one for loan but if not I would potentially use AI as I did the first time round. So I’d initially be looking at space requirements for three with the potential to extend the area for fourth if needed.
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I'm not great at measurements but if you had half an acre split into two then you can rotate or have two areas if needed.
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:thumbsup:
Thanks Harmony, your help is much appreciated.
Hopefully I’ll get it fenced off in the next week or so and have them out and about soon. The Scottish summer only lasts a week so I’d hate for them to miss it!haha