Rearing pigs
When we say professional, we refer to a structure that serves the purpose.
Something practical for pigs. There are different materials you can use to build your pig house and this is according to their availability or accessibility, location, and resources.
Accessibility makes it easy perhaps reusing, something to save your capital. A great pig house is safe and secure.
Some of the materials you can use are
Remember pigs fed well run back to get food so if there's no food or water then they really should run.
I am excited to share some pig behaviors. This is where we get it right.
What pigs love to do
PLAY
Pigs love to play. Just like for human children, play is an important part of piglets’
social and cognitive development. Pigs like to chase each other, run around,
play fight and wrestle with their noses, grunting and squeaking (which is piggy laughter).
ROOTING
Rooting is a natural behavior for pigs where the pig uses his snout to push into something repeatedly.
Pigs root in different ways for different reasons: for comfort, to communicate, to cool off, or to search for food. It’s important to give your pig appropriate outlets for their rooting. Restricting rooting will frustrate the pig causing behavioral issues like tail and ears bitting that could easily cause stress. Best rooting material could be hay, Rice husks, and sawdust. In the event that you already have concrete floors, you could still use hay or hang ropes or chains for them to bite and play.
MUD BATH/SWIM
To thermoregulate, they rely on wallowing in water or mud to cool the body. ...
Now that we know this behavior is natural we can work with it to have a close to perfect pig house.
We will construct a pig house for 15 pigs.
Structure
Using a 2:1 ratio
A pig at 100 kg ready to slaughter is 130 cm wide
(130 cm x 15 pigs )/1000 cm=1.95 m length accommodation
However, we will round off to 2 then a margin of 0.2 m-0.6 m to accommodate the pig behavior
so the pen for 15 pigs should be 2.2 m -2.6 m wide
and with our ratio of 2:1 a length of 4.4 m - 5.2 m
Depth 0.7 m - 0.9 m deep to accommodate feeders, water areas, and bedding material.
The pen should be a rectangle to accommodate the behavior of the pigs.
Watch this video to see a simple structure and notice some piglet behaviors.
BEDDING MATERIAL FOR YOUR PIG
When pigs are young they need heat for their growth, when pigs are mature they need to dissipate that heat because they are poor heat regulators. More often than not you will see mature pigs sleep on their waste or wet surface, this is to regulate body temperature. By choosing your type of bedding based on this behavior can improve the growth of your animals.
The types of bedding you can use are
Rice husks or chuff
Rice husks are one of the best beddings as they do not get wet easily and any waste can be swept from the pen. They are a soft material and so idea for piglets. Piglets play easily on husks and the material doesn't affect their breathing by getting in the nostrils.
Chips or Sawdust
Extra caution is to be used while using this material. It is advisable to use more wood shaving than saw dusk to reduce respiratory problems in the pig and mostly to weaning piglets or mix it with rice husks. Its advantage is providing warm bedding on concrete floors.
Hay
This is by far the best material for bedding in a pen, be it on a natural floor or concrete floor. Hay holds more advantages as its warm, provides a natural habitat image to the animal, is great for rooting and feeding the animal. Pigs feeding on hay have better gut development and thus utilize nutrients with minimal waste. This is the ideal bedding for Farrowing and weaning.
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