Yesterday Miguel, Yarik and I sorted pigs from paddock to paddock. I messed up a text I sent to Miguel first thing, causing him to feed the pigs we were going to not feed until they were moved. That’s a problem because the way we get them on the trailer is to put their food on the trailer and they then fight to get on. Then we simply close the gate, raise the trailer, and drive them to where they need to be. Once there and in position, we lower the trailer hydraulically, open the gate, and the pigs just walk right off. It just takes a few minutes and works well. But because I “murderlized the Queen’s english” in my text, we had to crowd the pigs onto the trailer. They don’t much appreciate this method and neither do we. I had to take my shower via water hose when we were done.
Regardless, we sorted out and moved pigs around to different paddocks. Some moved to brand new paddocks and some got resorted into new groups that were closer to each other’s size. It’s very similar to an elementary school where some kids move up to third grade, some skip to fourth, and some get held back in second grade. But for us, all that decision is based on size and weight, not end of year testing.
Now we have our finished pigs right by the barn where we can really focus on getting them full meals and letting them get that last bit of weight on before going to the processor. With our diet of pure produce, we don’t have to worry about over fattening the hogs so we can really pour the food to them and let them have all they can eat. As spring comes in and produce becomes more plentiful, this won’t be a problem to keep them eating.