When we embarked on this pig farm adventure, I never thought I would be talking about growing pigs organically. But the little pig farm has become a passion that requires us to take on management practices that we did not know were possible 2 years ago. And why not, since we started pig farming to ensure the quality of the meat that we share with our family and friends. The largest obstacle for us has been switching from commercial worm medications to organic dewormers.
There are many commercial swine dewormers available, as well as antibiotics and many more chemicals and sprays that we have found to be more of a money pit than a viable solution. Unfortunately, pigs must be dewormed. Our pigs are grown on the ground, where they play in the grass and dirt. The exact same spot that those nasty little micro-organisms like to play. We had to find a different way of treating this problem, in a manner that would not leave us asking, “when did we give that pig a shot?”. All of the commercial swine products that I have found have a withdrawal period. This means that after you give your pig those medications, you must wait an appropriate amount of time to allow the poisons to leave the pigs system before you can safely consume the pork. Sounds delicious right?
There are, however, several alternatives that we have found to be effective at treating swine for worms. Diatamaceous Earth (D.E.) is a great natural remedy, not only for internal parasites, but for fleas, ticks, and flies as well. Do not buy this from your pool store, it must be food grade or you could do more harm than good to your hogs. Garlic is also known to be a great natural weapon to fight internal parasites. Garlic can be minced and put directly into the feed. Generally this will be an ongoing treatment not only to kill the parasites, but to keep them from wanting to come back.
Currently, we are fencing pastures to give the pigs an added benefit of natural grazing. While they are in pens at the moment, they still have room to run and act like pigs. We ordered our boards from Dewayne Watson. He owns a local sawmill so we can get our fence boards a little cheaper and we are sure they have not been treated with any undesirable chemicals. Once the fence is up we will treat it ourselves with Organic Wood guard. This will keep the fence protected from the elements, while protecting the pigs and chickens from undesirable chemicals.
As we move toward sustainable farming, we hope you’ll join us. The end results are not only more rewarding, but we are not leaving a cesspool behind for our children and grandchildren to clean up or live with. I’ll be sharing more on this subject as we transition into organic pig farming and sustainable living. Get the RSS feed and feel free to leave a comment. I would love to hear what’s on your mind.
I just started raising yorkshire pigs. I have 2 full blooded and one half wild. How much garlic do you use in thier feed? What would be the best food for them? Thanks for your time on this. As I said I am new and learning. Jeannette.
Sorry for the wait, we’ve been busy around the farm and I haven’t had much time for the website. To answer your question we use 1 Tbsp. per 25 pounds of animal, mixed in with the feed. We grow our own rosemary and we remove the leaves from 1 sprig and add that as well. The biggest problem is room. You need to rotate pens or in our case pasture to allow enough time to end the worms life cycle otherwise your pigs will be re-infested in a short time.
We have 5 acres in the Nevada high (4200′) desert. Would like to start a small organic pig farm to augment our gardening. What breed and how many should I start with? What size should the pens be?
With no natural pasture can we add garden trimmings to feed store food? Can we return the droppings to compost?
I strongly recommend you view the documentary “THE FUTURE OF FOOD” online at future of food .com Thank you, Mike
What breed and how many should I start with? There are several breeds that would do well in a pasture environment. The heritage breeds, such as Berkshire, Old Spot, Large Black, and Hereford are excellent for pasture systems. For foraging pigs you can use 8-10 sows per acre. You will need to supplement their diet with 2-3 pounds of grain daily and offer free choice minerals and salt.
What size should the pens be? Pen size is dependent on your operation. If you are going to allow the pigs to graze daily, then your housing requirements won’t have to be large. We don’t confine our pigs in anything smaller than a 16′ x 16′ pen. Hog panels come in 16′ lengths so it’s also easier to build pens to those dimensions. In a pen 16′ x 16′, we would only put 2-3 sows, and they are only confined for a few days at a time, while we tend pasture or mend fences. Being that you live in the northwest, you will need some type of barn, to get the pigs out of the snow and let them warm up.
With no natural pasture can we add garden trimmings to feed store food? Can we return the droppings to compost? Pigs being natural forages, would love your garden trimmings, and when you are done harvesting they would be happy to till the garden for you. We do compost the manure, but there is concern of salmonella in swine feces. Use plenty of lime and compost it hot to burn off any bad bacteria. There is some debate whether or not to use swine manure for edible vegetables. Here is a good article on pasture for swine>>> University of Missouri