[vegalottie]

hi looking at keeping  pigs what is the best sty or ark am thinking of 3 to 4 pigs and how much space do they need to to be free range many thanks
chris

[HappyHippy]

Hi Chris,
As far as I'm aware there's not a minimum set area to class them as 'free range'. If you're raising them for meat, it's best not to give them too large an area (or else they burn off all that lovely food you'll be buying) The recommendations for adult pigs is 5-6 per acre, if it's weaners raised to pork weight you're thinking of a quarter of an acre should be more than enough for 3 or 4. As for arcs - everyone's got their preferences and the range available is endless - plastic, wood, metal - insulated or not, floored or not and a lot depends on the land and type of pig. For example if you were keeping large white pigs outside over winter on wet ground I'd say go for an insulated, floored arc to keep them warm and dry. But if you were keeping Tamworths on dry ground they probably wouldn't need the insulation or floor. It's a kinda 'how long is a piece of string' topic  If it helps, my Kune Kunes live in an unused diesel tank with a door cut in the front and plenty of straw for bedding and my current 'meat' pigs are in an arc made of old pallets (with the gaps filled with lengths of timber) and the roof off an old VW camper. I have double skinned the pallets so that in the winter I can stuff straw down the gaps to keep them really toasty 
Good luck !
Karen

[Hilarysmum]

We try to stock 4 on half an acre at our present level.  We have been doing a comparison with 4 other owners of pigs from same litters and found that even where the pigs were kept in very small areas, ours were bigger.  We also found that carcasses from our pigs produced less back fat than those kept on the smallest area.

[Mr Pig]

If you refer to the code of practice:
http://www.bpex.org.uk/downloads/299949/296067/Labelling%20Code%20of%20Practice.pdf
you will see that it refers to 'generous' areas without definition so i would suggest you email bpex (address at end of the code) and ask for specific numbers to area details.

[Fowgill Farm]

Hi you say you want to keep 3 or 4 weaners to pork weight.
We have a piece of land 18mtrs by 36mtrs which is divided into 3 paddocks. We rotate the paddocks so each can rest between batches of pigs. If you get weaners at 8wks and send them to the butchers at 24wks, they're on the ground for approx 16wks. Each paddock is rotavated and reseeded after use and the next batch go in the next padoock so you always have two paddocks resting. Its a bit like crop rotation!
An 8ft x 6ft movable ark would be adequate for the numbers you're suggesting.
See 'Getting started' section on the GOS website www.oldspots.org.uk/getting_started.asp
Land & housing article.
The BPEX site though useful is mainly aimed at the commercial boys which i trust you aren't.
HTH
mandy