Pigs and sheep as pets/land stewards?

Hello I'm just checking all avenues for land clearing/maintenance pals. We dont eat meat but not against raising animals for work around the property. What breed of pigs do good in forest and dont get over 200-300 lbs and live a long time? Was thinking maybe 10 maximum. And what breed of sheep do well for grazing and live long? Thinking maybe 10 sheep as well. Like I said were just trying to put together a good solid dependable workforce to assist maintaining our 27 acres. We have lots of sloping land and hardly any really flat spots. Hints the reason for the workforce. Not very fun Bushhogging 20% grade regularly, when the sheep would love to have at it and the only overhead would be keeping drinking water around for them instead of fuel for the tractor and my time. I got better things to do then mow grass but that's what they live for Haha. So seems like a win-win to me. And if I'm wanting to keep 10pigs and 10 sheep what would the upkeep entail for this size of a team? Do I need any vaccines for them? Hygiene upkeep? I assume during summer it's easy breezy as long as you have water for sheep to drink, but winter grazing I would assume ends and then what do they need to eat? And pigs forest foraging, would they need any supplemental food in winter? And the team is gonna need protection from our native mountain lions and coyotes, so I was thinking either a great pyrenees or maybe a few donkeys. Any issues between pigs,sheep,donkeys,great pyrenees being around each other becides the initial dog training? Sorry for all the questions at random, I just typed them as they came to mind while typing this up.

Thanks mike

10 pigs is a whole lot. What fencing do you have around your acreage? What fencing are you planning to use to keep these animals in? If you just let them loose they'll graze the same area until it's flat. They don't wander around willy nilly in my experience. My pigs graze the sainfoin for months and it's only 4 acres. They don't even wander to other parts until the sainfoin is done. So you'll need to fence them into specific areas you want them to handle and then move them or they aren't going to do what you want them to do, mow everything down.

My pigs hate my pyr and my pyr is scared of my pigs. I have American Guinea Hogs. I've found it depends on what line you get them from as to the size. Our boar is 350lbs but we got some girls from a different place that were around 180 full grown. Just small. I know Ballerina Farm in Utah uses a donkey for her mountain pigs. We have a big ol' boar and nothing has ever tried to attack him or the barn so we don't have a guard. You could say he is the guard. We've never had a pig that appreciated having a dog around and we did get them as babies. They know a predator when they see one and they bite them. That's why our pyr is so scared, he's been bit.

You're going to have to worm your pigs. I'm the laziest pig owner there could possibly be but you have to care for them. Spring-fall I let them out to roam our 40 acres. We don't have a fence that will keep our pigs in but we also don't have anything around for them to wander off and eat. When they do start roaming off the property it's late fall and it's my indicator that they must now be locked up and fed. I feed all winter. I have a pond that I keep full of water all spring-fall. In the winter I have rubber dishes I use because they're easy to break ice out of. I have water in the barn that I can't use when the temp is below 20. Then I bring gallons of water out from the house twice a day for them. They have a warm barn that they choose to go into year round. I also have a little pig house inside the barn for cold winter nights which has bedding in it. They do go in there when it's cold. If it's not cold they don't. Pigs are smart, they know how to care for themselves but they must be given the proper resources to do so. I personally couldn't see just releasing them into the forest with nothing. Mine walk home every single night to go to bed in the barn. There are a few occasions when someone knocked the gate closed and the pigs broke through the fence to get into the barn. I can't see them happily sleeping out in the open no matter what time of year it is.

10 pigs will cost a lot to feed during the winter. I had 15 last winter and I was spending at least 5-600 a month in feed. Plus I had to bring out absolute buckets of water. It can be a lot. I suppose you could butcher all the hogs in the fall every year and sell them. Then you have no winter feed needs.



I know nothing about sheep but imagine most of the same would apply.

elle sagenev wrote:10 pigs is a whole lot. What fencing do you have around your acreage? What fencing are you planning to use to keep these animals in? If you just let them loose they'll graze the same area until it's flat. They don't wander around willy nilly in my experience. My pigs graze the sainfoin for months and it's only 4 acres. They don't even wander to other parts until the sainfoin is done. So you'll need to fence them into specific areas you want them to handle and then move them or they aren't going to do what you want them to do, mow everything down.

My pigs hate my pyr and my pyr is scared of my pigs. I have American Guinea Hogs. I've found it depends on what line you get them from as to the size. Our boar is 350lbs but we got some girls from a different place that were around 180 full grown. Just small. I know Ballerina Farm in Utah uses a donkey for her mountain pigs. We have a big ol' boar and nothing has ever tried to attack him or the barn so we don't have a guard. You could say he is the guard. We've never had a pig that appreciated having a dog around and we did get them as babies. They know a predator when they see one and they bite them. That's why our pyr is so scared, he's been bit.

You're going to have to worm your pigs. I'm the laziest pig owner there could possibly be but you have to care for them. Spring-fall I let them out to roam our 40 acres. We don't have a fence that will keep our pigs in but we also don't have anything around for them to wander off and eat. When they do start roaming off the property it's late fall and it's my indicator that they must now be locked up and fed. I feed all winter. I have a pond that I keep full of water all spring-fall. In the winter I have rubber dishes I use because they're easy to break ice out of. I have water in the barn that I can't use when the temp is below 20. Then I bring gallons of water out from the house twice a day for them. They have a warm barn that they choose to go into year round. I also have a little pig house inside the barn for cold winter nights which has bedding in it. They do go in there when it's cold. If it's not cold they don't. Pigs are smart, they know how to care for themselves but they must be given the proper resources to do so. I personally couldn't see just releasing them into the forest with nothing. Mine walk home every single night to go to bed in the barn. There are a few occasions when someone knocked the gate closed and the pigs broke through the fence to get into the barn. I can't see them happily sleeping out in the open no matter what time of year it is.

10 pigs will cost a lot to feed during the winter. I had 15 last winter and I was spending at least 5-600 a month in feed. Plus I had to bring out absolute buckets of water. It can be a lot. I suppose you could butcher all the hogs in the fall every year and sell them. Then you have no winter feed needs.



I know nothing about sheep but imagine most of the same would apply.

well I was thinking we would start out with 4 bcuz I know they like to socialize. And once we see how that goes maybe get more, but 10 would be the max if we liked how they work the ground. But since you mentioned the boar being pretty self sufficient predator wise, would having four boars together cause issues?

what kind of predator pressure do you have?

Right now we dont have any fencing but plan to eventually fence off all the areas we plan to keep the animals in. Was thinking barb wire fence 3 or 4 strands. And sectioning the areas off to rotate them around so the ground doesn't get too abused, maybe 8 separate 1.5 acre paddocks and maybe a 2 acre central spot with shelter and a swimming/drinking hole. That's all the area we decided we could dedicate to an animal workforce. We have some areas we would like to have them abuse pretty bad so we could go from young nappy forest back to pasture for a berry orchard.(help with all the roots for some minor earth works)

How much does deworming the pigs cost?

I assume it would be the same for sheep?

Annually needed? Since I'm planning to keep them around for their lifespan.

what do you feed your pigs in the winter to cost so much? I dont know anything about them but that just seems kinda high for 15 pigs/month....

But since I'm not trying to fatten them up for the kill couldn't they lean up during the winter to offset some feed cost and fatten back up with the following summers growth. We have alot of pignut hickory trees, acorn bearing oaks, walnuts, paw-paws, persimmon, pin cherry's, and maybe other food bearing trees they can munch on, as well as whatever grasses and roots they dig up. Obviously these will only last so long into winter.

so what else can you feed pigs?

I assume a blend of corn and some other grains?

Would they eat hay?

We also will have birds around for pest control so eggs can be fed to them as well. Berry canes that get pruned during winter could be fed to them as well if they would eat it, but if they are hungry they'll eat it.

Any other feed options that are cheap for the winter?

How much is the average amount of food needed per pig a day?

Remember, I'm not trying  to fatten them up for the kill, just kept healthy enough to make it threw winter for another year of work. Basically a animal sanctuary but they have to work for that said sanctuary.

Thanks mike

Pigs will eat hay but they would rather sleep in it so you can't just give them hay and think they'll be fine.

I was going through about 40lbs of food per day in the depths of winter. They require more food in the winter as their metabolism is part of what keeps them warm. I was also buying hay. I do think part of that figure is dog food, as we buy it all at once. Still, it was a lot.

Our predators are mostly small though we have coyotes, I've seen a bobcat and there was a cougar killing horses when the mountains were on fire. Badgers are also an issue and raccoons. A lot of those smaller ones really aren't a risk to a full grown boar. It's not that a boar can't be taken down if a predator were hungry enough, he's just a bigger issue for most predators. They go for the easy pickings first I'd imagine and we have enough rabbits and the like around they don't really need to attempt to eat the boar.

I haven't found my pigs to be super useful in preparing ground. I think you'd have to lock them in a small area for some time for them to do what you want them to do. They'll dig around here and there but I tried to get them to till my garden and it wasn't very satisfactory.

deworming is cheap. I do it every 6 months. I have 1 bottle of dewormer and I might have to buy another one eventually. Just bought it at the feed store.

I cannot see my pigs eating berry canes. They'd eat your leg off when you deliver them before they would eat them is my prediction. You have to keep in mind these are pigs. They will happily eat you. A hungry pig is an uncontrollable pig. You hear the stories of pigs being impossible to pen or eating other animals, those are hungry pigs. My pigs aren't hungry. My kids are in there with them. I did way over feed the very first year I had pigs and my boar was so fat he could barely stand. I don't do that anymore. I just gauge how much to feed based on how they look. If they're getting too fat I feed less, skinny I feed more. It's not an exact science for me.

I kill all the mean ones too. If you've got a boar with tusks you're petting you don't want him to have an attitude problem. Even still I am aware that he could turn his head and accidentally stab me with his tusks. Pigs are nice. I love them. Super happy to have them but they're big, strong animals and I don't want you to get hurt.

I don't know if barbed wire would work to keep them in. They have thick skin. We have this very short, weird stretch of fence that is barbed wire for some reason and they don't have an issue with it. I see the little cuts on them but they don't seem to notice and they plow through it. I think this will be particularly true if you aren't feeding them. They will find food when they are hungry and a fence won't stop them.

elle sagenev wrote:
"I was going through about 40lbs of food per day in the depths of winter. They require more food in the winter as their metabolism is part of what keeps them warm."

I haven't found my pigs to be super useful in preparing ground. I think you'd have to lock them in a small area for some time for them to do what you want them to do. They'll dig around here and there but I tried to get them to till my garden and it wasn't very satisfactory.

I think you may be feeding your pigs too much and "spoiling" them to the feed instead of your land, if you want them to till for you anyway. But like I said I've never raised pigs. but it only makes sense that if you want them to root around and "till" they have to be hungry which means 40lbs of feed a day and they ain't gonna dig for it when they know you'll give it to them, no work involved. But you also are trying to fatten them up for the kill, I assume, so that means feed them. And when you said 40lbs per day, how many pigs is that for?  

How do wild hogs make it threw winters? I'm pretty sure there is an area about 3hours away from me that has wild hogs and their winter weather is the same as ours, so how can they make it on zero human help and you say you have to feed 40lbs a day. I just dont under stand it lol. Maybe I need to go pignap some wild ones.

I live in Wyoming. We don't have wild hogs here for a reason. I feed nothing spring-fall, they still don't till to my human specifications.

Wild hogs aren't constrained. You want to keep your pigs in a certain area you'll need to feed them. Like I said, a hungry pig will be hard to keep contained.

Best of luck to you.

I have raised both pigs and sheep. We had american guinea hogs, we only feed hay and butcher our boars. 250-350 adult size they tilled fine but we didn't feed at those times. We decided against getting pigs at our new place and started with cows then to sheep.
We have dexter's and dorper/Katadin cross sheep. For anything other than horses you need 6+ strand for high tensile or barb wire. Pigs and sheep 8+ strand setup minimum, if you're just keeping them for land management I would get some feeder pigs and sell them at the end of the season. Pigs can be alot of work to keep confined, and they start to pressure fences more. We were using hog panels and hot wire.

Sheep against my better wants have become the best all around animal for us. I use a crook and they follow me to the next paddock. I can use it to push them where I want when moving too. They don't pressure the fences like the pigs and cows do. They are not the pain like the goats are for jumping and squirming through fences. Easy to manage, all ewes would be good. 10 would be low cost to care through winter, bottle babies are work but they become like a dog. My son's little bottle lambs goes to the park with him, And never lets out of his sight. If you did a few each year and bottle feed them they would be just like pets. Only problem with them is they aren't as focused on browsing more grazing. Goats clear land better, sheep keep it manicured. Pigs would just be harder long term, use them in the beginning then pay someone to bring in a herd of goats and keep the sheep to mantain and control. If you use a wool sheep you can even get a crop of wool each year. Look in to breeds our dorper/Katadin cross are hair sheep, no wool crop but no shearing. They are not picky eaters, some wool breeds are better than others for their graze ability.

We have raised a wide range of livestock over the years and unhappy with commercial meat practices we wanted to remove our selves from the system. We have settled down to rabbits, hair sheep, and one cow a year. This provides almost all of our meat needs, produced at home our way.
A few pet rabbits would fill out all the fertility needed from animals to improve the land. It is amazing how our pasture is with the live stock to spread their fertility. On one side is a mowed field the other sagebrush and weeds. But we have 15-30 robins a pair of breeding birds not sure what they are. Hummingbirds and an assortment of other birds about just because of our trees and pastures. When you look out to see 15 chickens and as many robins, crows and others all eating worms and they are not on either side. Animals are the key to fertility.

Thanks
Brian
3HR

Depending on your sheep setup, they will most certainly take more of your time and money than mowing. If you aren't raising them for meat, then the way I see it is they are a depreciating asset just like the tractor, but without the fossil fuel expenditure. If you decide to get into owning livestock you will eventually have deadstock. You need an end plan/out plan particularly when an animal is approaching it's end of life--drawing out any suffering in the name of love is actually just cruelty in disguise. All animals end of life is a meat source--whether that's humans, wildlife, or soil microbiology.

That said, if you're interested in raising sheep I'd suggest watching Greg Judy's YouTube Chanel. From a permaculture perspective, he does a great job. You'll find few doing better.

With the proper genetics/breed and management, deworming isn't really necessary except in rare circumstances. Management is key, but requires more of your time. All conventional dewormers would kill your soil microbiology and should be a non starter in this forum (this is the permies forum after all) except as a last resort life saving effort with the animal kept on drylot quarantine until the chemical deworming has run it's course--ultimately moving to a genetically superior stock genetic that requires no worming medications.