[plt102]

I found two main things when I started keeping pigs, they are brainy and can escape very easily under stock fencing and they are quite expensive to feed. Consider 2 strands of good electric fencing and try to find suppliers of alternative foods such as waste bread processors, brewers, cider makers etc. They are great fun to keep and the pork will be the best you've ever tasted! Oh and invest in an extra freezer!

[OhLaLa]

I found two main things when I started keeping pigs, they are brainy and can escape very easily under stock fencing and they are quite expensive to feed..................they are great fun to keep and the pork will be the best you've ever tasted! Oh and invest in an extra freezer!

Couldn't have put it better myself.

My guideline:

Stock fencing will not hold a pig in. Apart from a wall, corrugated iron attached FIRMLY to cemented in posts is the fence to go for. Pig Arks will maybe last a season before they need repair/replacing.

Pigs like 'entertainment' (snackit balls, bales of hay without the twine etc).

Never put other stock in with pigs.

I've tried various breeds/crosses, some taste better than others, and some are 'easier' than others. My next pigs will definitely be GOS as never had that breed and (at the risk of sounding girly) they are soooooo cute!

Just read this thread and feel exhausted by all the regs needed to keep a soddin pig or two in the UK.
here in France I answered an advert and got 2 ( ear tagged) pigs for 45 Euros each - as I don't breed i have no need to tell anyone................
.............I only mention the above because it strikes me just how much red tape smallholders in the UK have to deal with and how challenging it must be.   

Naughty naughty!! You HAVE to be registered regardless of whether you breed.

If anything, the 'red tape' is tougher in France than in the UK - plus there is the language to also deal with.

The seller of the ear tagged pigs will have sent off their paperwork after they sold the pigs, and that paper trail leads to you....

....and if you had them during the month of January you were also required to have the necessary vacs done!

A home kill is allowed. It's the keeping them without a holding number that isn't.

Bonne Chance!!


  

[MAK]

thanks for that Oh La La - we bought them from Brits and they say we do not have to register as we are keeping for our own consumption. The English people who breed a serious number of pigs and many other animals currently have our next 2. They say that they don' like putting ear tags in as they can harm the animal. They will ear tag when the animals are older or give us the tags before we pick them up.
Neither sellers asked our address or papers.

Think I better check up on this
 

[OhLaLa]

I know, it's tricky. I've been told all sorts in the past by sellers and they are adamant that they are right. Only last week I had to pull out the relevant docs to back myself up; then watch them cough and splutter, as there's no arguing with that.

L'identification des porcins est obligatoire dans toute l'Union Européenne.

I bumped into one seller a couple of months ago that caught me out a few years back when I wasn't up to par with it all. When I questioned him about the error in the sale he simply said "pass".   

Many breeders prefer not to tag or fill in the paperwork as they are taxed on every sale. But if the pigs aren't tagged they are selling illegally.

As a buyer you take your chance. Plenty of people do it that way. Plenty get away with it. And plenty get caught.

I've attached these links for you. The French is easy to follow, and might help explain a bit:

http://www.gds69.asso.fr/web/gds.nsf/e9c718688b57374cc1257223007ffc79/3160aa90401dbff1c1256d0a00581a1f!OpenDocument

and

http://www.leporc.com/systeme-identification-tracabilite-porc.php



Apol if going off topic (or 'off country') a little guys. 

[oaklandspigs]

Ohlala - thanks for posting that - very interesting  - (and tested how much of my schoolboy french I could remember

[MAK]

ohLaLa posted a link to French regs for keeping pigs and it had a comments section.
My french is not great but it had someone who tells of his friend who will get 100,000 Euros for NOT keeping pigs this year. The questioner asked how many and what kind of pigs he should NOT keep to earn 200,000 Euros.
He then went on to ask would the farmers who produce the millions of tonnes of grain, that will NOT be eaten by less pigs being kept be paid for NOT producing the grain too. Funny 

Pork is cheap and there is overproduction in the north ( Brittany mainly).

[Berkshire Boy]

QUOTE ]Stock fencing will not hold a pig in. Apart from a wall, corrugated iron attached FIRMLY to cemented in posts is the fence to go for. Pig Arks will maybe last a season before they need repair/replacing.

I don't know what you lot do to your pigs to make them want to get out. Mine are in pens of stock fence and a few sections of post and rail, no escapees. May be you should try putting the fence up properly.

[OhLaLa]

I don't know what you lot do to your pigs to make them want to get out. Mine are in pens of stock fence and a few sections of post and rail, no escapees. May be you should try putting the fence up properly.

'Try putting the fence up properly'? Plenty of pigs get out. We can only advise on what works best for us.

Better to close the door BEFORE the pigs have bolted.

 

PS: And in our case one of the main reasons for putting up a more solid structure is the WILD BOAR which is a regular visitor on the other side of the pig fence. That alone is valid enough reason to put up something more solid than post and rail or stock fencing (which incidentally, our first lot chewed through).

[hughesy]

I can only imagine that the stock fencing that has let pigs through was not properly erected. It's a waste of time and money unless it's put up properly. I work at a farm supplies store and I can testify to many examples of clueless individuals coming in to buy fencing materials who have no idea what they're doing. Most of them won't be told either.