[Polished Arrow]

It's been a hard day's night here at Cinderhill Farm.  It all began when, driven to despair by the mud situation in the piglets' pens, we decided rather too late in the day to move them to the 'at rest' pens.  These pens were not due to be used for another two months, but needs must.  I have fallen over three times in the last two days in the pig pen at feeding time, and my OH has once, on account of not being able to move our wellies owing to the thickness, depth and texture of the mud. 


So.  If we were moving the piglets to areas further away from each other, it was also time to split them by sex.  What could possibly go wrong, starting such a job at almost dusk, in a field of black mud populated by black and white pigs all covered in black mud (we are not called Cinderhill farm for nothing!).  Yes, of course it became virtually impossible to tell one pig from another, and to sex them in the mud and the dark.  Once identified, it was something else to move that pig from one pen to another without losing the ones you already had on the correct side!  BUT, it was managed.  And only 1kg of pellets were used in the process 


While I did the pig separation and pen movements, my OH nobly offered to give the arks a make-over.  Yes, I know it was virtually dark by then, but hey, ho.  When the mood takes you...  But the mud inside the houses had made the straw so heavy that cleaning it was such hard, heavy work.  We put all the old straw out into the pens to soak up the wet mud and to provide 'hard' standing for them outside their doorways.


At last we were all finished, and the arks were warm and welcoming     It might have been as dark as can be, but I know 15 little piglets who went wee wee wee all the way home tonight, happy as can be to be able to play in their new bedding. 





But what we will do for pens for them all in a month or two's time, I don't know.  I wonder whether it is too late to put down grass seed (or any other, fast growing feed crop) in the ones we have just evacuated, and how long would something fast growing take to be worth the seed investment costs I wonder?

[Berkshire Boy]

Sounds like you have been having fun. I think it is too late to sow anything now, I sow my pens with stubble turnip which is fast growing, about 12 weeks but doesn't grow if planted after beginning of September. I tried it last year and was just a waste of seed. ground isn't warm enough here in Wales.
I have the same problems with mud, we are on clay and its no fun. In the spring I am going to build winter housing so we  and the pigs don't have to struggle again for another winter.

[Bionic]

Their ark looks lovely and cosy now so they should be happy for a while 
I don't envy any of you keeping pigs over this winter. My pen was muddy enough in the summer and it was a relief to get them out of there when the day came for their last journey.
Still, last winter was very dry (for winter) so perhaps things won't be so bad if we get a similar one this year.
Sally

[Foobar]

One day two weeks ago I had gone out to feed the pigs - a five minute job.  Twenty minutes later I returned to the house where upon my OH said "Where the hell have you been for so long?!"   My reply : "I got stuck in the mud".
I had braved the mud to check around the perimeter of the 'lecky fence, but got stuck in the clay.  My feet just wouldn't budge and I was sinking deeper the more I struggled.  Luckily, the pigs ate quickly and came to "rescue" me - I had to grab onto them to help me pull myself out!!  Whoopsie .

[Fowgill Farm]

Have to confess to having been backside over face twice this week in the mud, got the toe of my welly in a hoof print and went flying forward carrying 3 trugs of pig nuts and fell flat on my bum out walking the dog, fortunately just my pride injured  but its getting dangerous out there. Have had to move a gilt in out the field today as she is struggling to wade thro the mud and i don't want her injuring herself.
Mandy

[Mrs Snoodles]

We're getting to that stage too and are doing a big move this weekend.   It gets to a point doesn't it when enough is enough?  We tried to encourage our boar over into his new nice GREEN GRASS paddock this morning. Popped the leccy fence post down etc. Should have been a simple 50cm max trot over to the other side....but he was having none of it. Not a bit.  Extra nuts and cabbages .... Nope. no go. Will not move anywhere near where the fence line was. 
Of course the super friendly lovely gilt was very willing...but we don't want her in there do we??     

[hughesy]

Sounds like everyone's in the same boat. We have clay soil too and it's a nightmare. What scares me is getting both feet stuck and then one of the pigs pushing at your legs as they try to get at the trough. Potential for a nasty accident. If I worked for someone else the H & S people would never allow me to work in that kind of environment. We all need to take extra care when working around pigs in the winter. If I had buildings I'd bring them indoors but no such luck.

[Mrs Snoodles]

Last year I had a good knock from one of big girls. I was OK but from then on, we started to use Paxton 1m troughs, which I literally chucked over the fence side, filled with feed and pulled up and out when they had finished. A bit of an faff but I felt that I just couldn't afford to be over on my backside in mud with pigs, on my own in the middle of a field. 

[sokel]

Well up untill the last month our pen wasnt too bad with actualy the top half still having grass, this has gradualy got worse day by day and TBH I started to put waders on if I had to go in there.
 Thankfully the stable they have has access from the front of it and it is a block of 3 looseboxes, so we have opened the dividing gates so that  they have the 3 loose boxes 1 to sleep 1 to feed then the last one is the one with the hatch in the back so that is being cleaned out daily as they trail the mud in

[Polished Arrow]

Mad, isn't it, but it does feel better to know I am not the only one to have been flat on my face/ stuck in the mud/ down on my bum in pig pooh recently 

The pigs have done a good job in 24 hours of trying to trash the 'at rest' pens that should have been used in a months' time and have lasted a month long.  But they looked happy and less edgy, and feeding them was easier this evening as there was NO RAIN today 

Maybe, just maybe, all that rain is over now and we can have a nice, dry winter like last year

[Tiva Diva]

Mrs S, we find that if our pigs are reluctant to cross where we've dropped an electric fence, that putting some straw down on the fence line really helps!

[SallyintNorth]

I too am feeding the 'big pigs' by throwing / pushing their feed bowls over / under the fence.  Just too difficult to keep your footing in there with two big hungry girls milling about in this muddy soup.

Before coming up with the 'hands off' approach, I had said to BH that he should keep an eye on the time for my return from feeding the pigs - I'm fairly sure Meg-pig would know it was me, even if I was horizontal, but 'that gilt' would eat me for sure, I said!    (She's the one in the freezer and dry cure now, I'm pretty sure Bertha wouldn't eat me - so long as she recognised me horizontal...)

'Little pigs' have a lovely dry bed and play area under cover, but they do get bored if they're in for days at a time.  I put them out for a few hours R&R in the orchard-cum-wall-to-wall-wallow when I think it's warm enough for them to cope.  If things don't dry up I'll have to start taking them for walks in the pasture for a bit of stimulation.

[Anke]

If things don't dry up I'll have to start taking them for walks in the pasture for a bit of stimulation.

Can we PLEASE have a picture of your piggies on a lead....
But I am thinking that ours will have to go a bit sooner than planned with all that mud... we are on clay too, and these last two weeks have really been bad. 

[Polished Arrow]

That's helpful, BB.  Can you tell me from where you get the stubble turnip seed, and roughly how much you expect to pay for it (for next year now).

Hey, our pens have dried up even better today, and the sun shone for exactly 1 minute and 32 seconds when I was out feeding them this morning!  I have moved their water trough to a place where the impact of spilt water should be less on human feet and piggy trotters (though further for them to walk in cold and frosty weather) and have 'wasted' several bales of hay on soaking up some mud in a narrow neck between the pen and the run. 

They are all now removing the hay and redistributing about the play area, as it is more fun than leaving it there to do what it was meant to do [size=78%] [/size]

[hughesy]

Torrential rain here again this morning has actually improved things. The clay is now liquid around the troughs and doesn't suck your wellies off to the same extent that it does when it starts to dry a bit . Plus Daisy and Poppy were in their ark and didn't hear me coming so I was able to chuck the feed into their trough before they got there.