Waylon Breaux

How yall are?  I'm in west central Louisiana (Natchitoches Parish), and my girlfriend and I have 5 mixed breed hogs (blue butts cross with who knows what).  We are raising them on the ground, using electric fencing.  A couple of weeks ago, we had some REALLY bad weather come through, toppling a beautiful grandfather red oak onto our pig shelter (pigs are fine) and frying TWO of my battery powered fence chargers.  Luckily I had a small back up charger.  However, while I was frantically rebuilding things and hustling up money for a bigger AC charger, I neglected to remove the old section of electric fence that no longer worked.  They would pass under and over it, all the while contained in a larger pen powered by the back up charger.  So, once I got my new charger installed, and it was pumping out between 6-7 thousand volts, i turned my pigs out into their pen.....only to watch as two of them calmly pushed up the bottom wire (4-6 inches from the ground) and wander where they pleased.  So, back into their hardened pen they went (a wooden shelter surrounded by field fence).  I call it their "re-education camp" because i have installed one strand of hot wire along the bottom inside of the field fence.  Do you guys think that this will re-teach them to respect my fencing or are they now ruined educationally and fit only for sausage?  Look forward to hearing your answers.

new day...new problem.....i have a kid goat under 6 months old, that has been limping and today i inspected his foot, since he wasn't putting any weight on it.  This picture isn't all that great, since it's tough to take a pic of a fidgety goat with one hand while the goat is upside down.  I think i should lance this but i'm fearful of cutting on the goat and giving him tetanus.  Any thougts?

a sad update.....we lost this nanny goat just a couple days after she appeared to get over the bout of diarhea.  i guess she was too exhausted and/or dehydrated to recover.

This is an awesome design!!  We've done something similar on our farm in Louisiana, using the roof of our goat nursery, which is the same size as your roof.  You'd be amazed at the amount of water you can collect.  WE even did a little chart that tell us how many gallons we collect for every 1/2 inch of rain.

Thank you so much for the in depth answer!! We will start putting your suggestions into practice ASAP.

Hey everyone!! I have a nanny goat that is really thin and has diarhea.  She was doing fine until a couple of days ago when we noticed the diarhea.  We want to keep our goats as organic as possible (if possible) but we realize that there are times when you gotta do what ya gotta do in order to save the animal. Any suggestions on how to treat this, as well as suggestions on how to prevent this from re-occurring in the herd will be greatly appreciated.  We are in west-central Louisiana.

Hey all.  I need some tips.  We have 3 high tunnels 70' x 30' x 12'.  We are in zone 8a.  We just had our first hard frost, got down to 32!  We tried to put an old BBQ in the middle of one high tunnel, in order to help our tomatoes get thru.  Warmed it up a couple of degrees, made a lot of smoke.  Still had frost form on the inside of the plastic.  What are some good (and cheap) ways to help these things stay warm?  

hey all!  I don't have pics of my hugel beds (pits?) here in Louisiana, but they are working GREAT!  We planted one hugel with hot peppers and on the same day planted sweet pepper in flat earth.  Just by looking, you'd think that the hot peppers were a month or two older than the others.  I'm using 4' x 25' beds, dug 1 ft deep, filled with a layer of wood, then a layer of chips, then a layer of manure, a layer of compost, and finally the original soil.  They hold on to water well, but since it's been so dry here lately we have had to dump a couple of buckets of water on them now and then.  

I'm in Louisiana, zone 8a, and have had no problems with growing sweet potatoes.  They really like this area.

lol!!! Love this!!  I'd like to share words from another great man, if I may:

"People will believe a lie if they want it to be true OR they are afraid that it is." -- Richard Rahl, Wizard's First Rule