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Hairyloon	Pigs There is a local group trying to take on the lease of a farm which has been abandoned for two years. Pigs have been suggested as a good way to clear and fertilise the ground, but the idea has been dismissed as "Not a practical, affordable or quick answer." I'm not finding that entirely convincing, but I don't know much about pigs...
Ty Gwyn	To give you any information to convince you or otherwise,one would need more details that just an abandoned farm, Acreage would be a good start and the practical ability of said group.
Hairyloon	To give you any information to convince you or otherwise,one would need more details that just an abandoned farm,

Some general points would probably be helpful. I should probably read my "Backyard pig keeping" book, but it isn't here.

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Acreage would be a good start and the practical ability of said group.

I believe it is about 16 acres, and I don't know about the practical abilities of the group: averaging less than mine I suspect.

dpack

are they willing to do 24/7/365 hard work?

have they a wide variety of skills and the ability to learn a load more first time?

any buildings?

how much can they invest? time? and especially money they are willing to lose?

do they like pigs? i know they are charming but not flinching when you get a broken finger and smile as you continue farrowing while sat in a puddle so mum and piglets get the dry bit at 4 am requires love Laughing

if they like pigs eating them can be a bit awkward at times, if they don't like em they don't deserve to have any

re clearing land it depends on the land and very good fencing

gregotyn

I have been a pigman in a past life. And as Ty Gwyn says much more information is essential before any hard information could be given.
16 acres is quite a lot to start up with, if alone and keeping a job going! Remember pigs need feeding twice a day, and having their manure removed daily on most systems. They are a tie, but rewarding creatures. You would need to keep your pigs in a building or invest in electric fencing if you want them to go outside and have a pig hut; they must have shelter to sleep in and be warm! They will plough your ground for you and that includes under the fence and escape-grass is greener etc! Electric fencing and a backup hard "fence" is essential if you are not to be around all day! If you collect the manure it will grow a good crop of potatoes next year. Pig manure is acidic Potatoes grow down to ph4! Of course the ground needs to be fairly flattish for spuds!

You need to get a book to read about it-go to the library and borrow 1 or 2 and have a good read. The ground can always be covered with horses, till you are ready to have the pigs, or decide to keep the pigs indoors. Letting the grazing to horse people could raise capital for the pig enterprise. I do that at home and well worth doing. If the ground is levelish, you can also do as I do, sell the hay as a standing crop. The man I sell it to makes haylage which is ok for horses. It is a semi silage, but as I understand it, it is not fermented. He mows it today, turns it tomorrow and bales it the next day maximum; usually done in 2/3 days total, all into mini round bales and wraps it the same/next day, and carted back to his place the day after that. 3-4 days maximum.

The plus is you wouldn't want to have 16 acres covered in pigs, they could be a valuable aid to fertilizing the ground in readiness for a potato crop for example. Potatoes are a valuable crop for pigs and potentially for you. If all is where it should be, flat ground, drained soil, and arable I would do- 2 years pigs, one year potatoes and 2 years barley, for bulk feed for the pigs, using a contractor for the barley and potatoes. That way the ground doesn't/shouldn't get pig sick; you get an income from the contractor and the barley feeds the pigs! It is not that simple in any way, but I would try!

Ty Gwyn

What was this 16 acres used for before abandonment?

Is it cleanish land or scrub?

Is it free draining land or wettish?

What`s the fencing like?

Is there a house and buildings?

Hairyloon

This is about as much as I know: Linky
I believe he grew some kind of crops, but I don't know what.

The last tenant died and it's council owned, which is why it has been left for two years.
I don't know if pigs would be good there or not, but I thought I'd read that they're recommended kit for any smallholding.
Looks like perhaps not for this one though.

Nick

Pigs will absolutely and easily do the job you want.

But. You’ll need excellent fencing and water. Without those, you’re sunk. With those, it may make sense. It may not. Tick the easy boxes and find out more details.

Slim

The question I haven't seen answered (though gregotyn was also sort of asking the same thing) is: even if everything is great and you've got folks rotating pigs through the 16 acres, what are you following them up with? And is anyone prepared to handle that? Is there equipment to harrow & otherwise prepare the areas that will be fresh out of pigs and or them into whatever is next in the rotation? Let's say you do a 4 year rotation and potatoes are next. Does anyone have the equipment and experience necessary to grow and harvest 4 acres of potatoes? Where will the crop be marketed/donated? Etc

dpack

it does not seem to have a house/yard/barn/styes etc

that is a problem with livestock on both constant care and security

with a static caravan or similar 24 hr might be possible if the planners would allow it

imho stock need somebody around but pigs can be happy with good arcs and an electric fence to contain them(they will escape now and again, see constant care etc)
the care giver might not be happy living in a pig arc Laughing

the land looks a bit scrubby but a rotation of pig and arable/roots/spuds might be possible over a few years

with a 5 yr lease there would be quite a lot of front end costs and perhaps only a year of full production towards paying them back before they might or might not get another 5 yr lease(especially as after a few years of improvement it would be worth more in rent or as a sale price)

i looked at 2 similar parcels of land with such a scheme in mind and recon that owning the land is required and you need to allow 5 to ten years to pay off the land if it is at agricultural rather than at equestrian/development/subject to planning prices.

with rented land long term planning is a bit risky as it is only your land while it is available and soil improvement does not fit on a lorry like pigs and their arcs if you had to move.

dpack

who left the gate to the feed alley open? Laughing

for a trust to do such a job would require a full time skilled pig handler to be employed or sourced by other means

Hairyloon

Pigs will absolutely and easily do the job you want.

Well that's what I thought, and why I sought a second opinion.

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But. You’ll need excellent fencing and water. Without those, you’re sunk. With those, it may make sense. It may not. Tick the easy boxes and find out more details.

They seem fairly firmly decided, and probably not worth having the argument with them.

The question I haven't seen answered (though gregotyn was also sort of asking the same thing) is: even if everything is great and you've got folks rotating pigs through the 16 acres, what are you following them up with? And is anyone prepared to handle that? Is there equipment to harrow & otherwise prepare the areas that will be fresh out of pigs and or them into whatever is next in the rotation? Let's say you do a 4 year rotation and potatoes are next. Does anyone have the equipment and experience necessary to grow and harvest 4 acres of potatoes? Where will the crop be marketed/donated? Etc
Those questions apply even without the pigs. It's not my project, so I don't need to find the answers to them: we might reasonably expect the people running it have thought about them.

for a trust to do such a job would require a full time skilled pig handler to be employed or sourced by other means
I think that was probably the main issue that put them off. Shan

I have spent enough time chasing pigs through pine forests to know that you need regular sight of the pigs plus good fencing. Yes, I did have to chase them through the forest because after upending every single pheasant feeder through the forest and eating the contents, they were definitely not hungry enough to follow a bucket.... and it wasn't my fencing that gave up, some nitwit left the gate open in my field (no not me or Mr Shan). Hairyloon

I have spent enough time chasing pigs through pine forests to know that you need regular sight of the pigs plus good fencing.
Moving away from the original question and into more general piggery, is there any scope for technological solutions?
For example, something like the electric shock dog collars that have been banned.
Leaving aside the obvious problem, I imagine that pigs have a better rate than dogs at destroying such things, but OTOH they have to have ear tags, which they presumably manage to keep: perhaps the tags could include RFID to trigger an alarm if the pigs escape?
Does not absolve the need for good fences, but reduces the attentiveness requirements so that other things can be got on with. Ty Gwyn

If for arguments sake,these people start off with weaners or at least under 12mths old stock,purchased from a farm,they can move on a temporary paint mark,and will only need to be tagged when they move off the holding after the age of 12ths to another holding,but need tagging or slap marked to an abattoir at any age.

Not heard about any techy tags you mention but I`m primitive with sound stock fences that keep my wild boar enclosed. Shan

We tended not to ear tag and always slap marked. The reason we did this was because our pigs were not confined to small areas, so had plenty of interesting bits to snout about in. A tag ripped out of an ear in the hedgerow is not a happy occurrence!

Escaping pigs tended to come down to a couple of issues:

* pigs flinging mud or turf onto the electric fence: oh yes, they are that bright.

* battery going dead (run down quick by vegetation against or flung onto the fence)

* Jabba managing to figure out the pulse on the fence - oh yes she did, I had to move the setting from slow to fast pulse.

* Idiots leaving the small pedestrian gate open in our second field (the bloody pheasant shoot)

The first issue (electric fence) could probably have been resolved by mains powered electric fence but in our case, it would have been quite a job to do it as the power source was quite far away.

The 2nd issue was a problem that eventually resolved itself when the gamekeeper got tired of having to refill and reposition every single pheasant feeding station.

I think it might be worth exploring a mixture of cameras and alarm sensors. Mr S recently bought an outdoor camera that can pan and tilt and of course alarm sensors are freely available. Hairyloon

The first issue (electric fence) could probably have been resolved by mains powered electric fence but in our case, it would have been quite a job to do it as the power source was quite far away.
May I suggest a device that monitors the fence and sends a report back to base to let you know about the battery going flat?
I won't be surprised if there is no such thing, but it ought not be a difficult thing to produce (he says...).
What sort of distance are we talking about?

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I think it might be worth exploring a mixture of cameras and alarm sensors.

If you've got a thing attached to the pig, then that opens up all kinds of possibilities to trigger alarms if it moves too far away.
The first question is of whether you can attach such a thing to a pig in a satisfactory way. Nick

An alarm going off once they’ve escaped is not the solution. 16 acres is tiny compared to the size of the acreage the other side of the fence. The solution is not letting them escape. (More than once I wished I’d fitted gps pinger to a dexter). Days I wasted. Days. Shan

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I think it might be worth exploring a mixture of cameras and alarm sensors.

I would see escaping stock as a way of seeing what my neighbours were up to, when I went to retrieve them, and hoping the stock hasn't done too much damage-not in reality!
The saying round our way is that good fences make good neighbours; and that is so true. Round here if stock escape it is usually sheep, as it is the lamb's first lesson from its mother, "see how far you can walk in a day? Baa-baa, make sure you are back for tea!" Mistress Rose

Mistress Rose

The only experience I have with escaping stock, and that not first hand, was a Soay sheep that had to be severely confined until sent to Wales in disgrace, and some goats that also had to be sent away. They were both at our local country park and caused quite a lot of trouble. The goats of course, being goats, did it during the last F&M outbreak, and the Park Manager let it be known to the local farmers that if one got shot on their land, he wouldn't be too upset. gregotyn

Looking at it, the holding could be very good, The poly tunnel looks in good order which is a start. A lot of work; but looking at it, with a few pigs and sound fencing the clearance could be done for you and a saleable product available in a few months. Priority is to get a chairperson and committee-not too many on it!
You will need a source or water. I collect mine in buckets-it is free!
I am not sure I agree with dpack about a full time pig person. But you need a pig person who knows what he is talking about on hand to advise, and advice is often available in a local area. But you need 2-3 people who want to 'do' pigs! The ultimate is to get a vet who wants to take part in the whole project as a 'member', (rather than someone who charges through the nose), and so would hopefully charge less than an employee of the practice-well worth a try. Asking with an element of cheek can go a long way, especially with a new vet to the area-perhaps wanting to get "in" locally? Young vets live amongst the people they vet for, both you and me!
If it goes ahead, do the poly tunnel first and get production underway. With everybody involved helping to clear outside to be able to electric fence and fixed back up fencing for the pigs-to clear the site ready for cropping. One "crop" of pigs for a few months could be enough, they will reduce all scrub to soil quite quickly-I've been there.
I would try to get a strong, secure shed built, to sell vegetables from eventually?, but initially for tool storage. If and when you feel the need for a human presence on site at night, you could install a caravan for night guard duties, but that is some way off-much water and bridges to deal with first! Hairyloon

What I would do as a starting point, at least partly because one of the directors has a bee in his bonnet about heat pumps, is to use one to heat an aquaculture setup: integrated fish, fruit & vegetables, and the heating would allow for producing products more used to warmer climes. dpack

how much cash do they have?
heat pumps and warm water prawns etc are not cheap kit.

re the full time thing i would not keep livestock without a dedicated full time keeper on welfare, security and husbandry grounds.
24/7 with the beasts is not required but livestock need available and regularly aware 24/7 care as required

for instance member x is feeding twice a day that week but is an accountant, at work all day and the fence breaks at 10 am or one is a bit quiet but they don't notice it is very poorly at tea time.
how does that work for the pigs or the neighbours? Hairyloon

how much cash do they have?
heat pumps and warm water prawns etc are not cheap kit.
I don't know, but one of the directors has an obsession with them: he wants to heat the city with them...

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re the full time thing i would not keep livestock without a dedicated full time keeper on welfare, security and husbandry grounds.
24/7 with the beasts is not required but livestock need available and regularly aware 24/7 care as required

For clarity, a full time stock keeper would be there full time, but need not be using all his time on the stock?
They seem decided and I'm not going to argue it unless other members also show some interest.[/quote] Hairyloon

how much cash do they have?
heat pumps and warm water prawns etc are not cheap kit.
I don't know, but one of the directors has an obsession with heat pumps: he wants to heat the city with them...
I think a heated greenhouse is a more sensible place to start.

Quote:

For clarity, a full time stock keeper would be there full time, but need not be using all his time on the stock?

yep, most days stock take a few hours but some times they might need 3 days and nights of constant care .

on easy days somebody needs to be about to notice any problems, an easy day can get complex at any moment. Hairyloon

Their plan: https://www.kvdt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Business-plan-Final.pdf dpack

that makes sense, gruntavators don't get a mention.

so long as they can get the local uptake on veg boxes and fulfil those orders it should work ok

the folk starting it seem to have a pretty good skill set

the start up costs seem rather low for what might be a bit tricky to staff etc until folk see it is up and running. it seems plausible that staff or unlisted equipment might be required rather than volunteers for say field planting or harvest at times.

spuds for instance or neeps need a lot of labour and/or kit to feed 80 + families
peas Rolling Eyes

etc

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