pigs in barn basement, as warmers, water warmers, and duck warmers?

It's my first winter here in northern MA, first year of having pigs in my life.  

I love the pig wofati/Holzer shelter idea, and I am probably not going to do the work to actually make one this year.

However, I have the good fortune of having a barn with a huge basement (about 8' high) that just has random boards stored in it from the old days and other crap that can be cleared.  the floor is dirt.  not too much toxic stuff that I can see in there.  Concrete walls on all 3 sides but the doors.

2 pigs, mangaliszas, 6months old, female.  Small but woolly and escape artists.

And some 15 waterfowl and 6 guineas.

My thought is oh I wish I could not have pigs in my life anymore.  I'll do the pigs work.  I'll even do their taxes, but please let me just not have to worry about pig breaks anymore.  Plus, they have done hardly any of their work.  They didn't wallow their pond, the little s*&#ts.  

BUT--they are heat sources for other animals.  So maybe now is not the time to let them go.

I estimate them at a 200w heat source each if they're being mostly lazy (200-lb pigs or so at this point), so 400 watts of heat.  If the eat a ton of feed and shiver, then they'll give off more heat and cost more money.  And I don't want to spend money on heat and fail the eco-poser test.

The fowl would add another 350w.  Being conservative, let's call it 375 total (dividing it in half) for all the animals combined.

The barn basement is bermed on 3 sides, essentially, and just wooden doors on the fourth side (east).  It has windows on the east and west, small but it will draft some.  

How important is it to insulate the top (either by putting hay or something on the floor above or somehow attaching it to the ceiling)?  I don't think I can get non-sprayed hay, but I might well be able to get a lot of something vaguely insulative.  Even dry soil from a dirt pile, or sand from a sand pile. There is a big insulative thingy over it--namely the barn, two whole stories of mostly sealed-in air that will get some sun on it too...but won't have any additional heat sources (i.e. no other farm animals).

We should get down to -20 F minimum in our area, maybe a cold snap colder but for that we can put in a plug-in radiator.

I'm thinking of using hog panels, stuffed with bags of leaf waste from the suburbs or maybe just cardboard boxes from Tractor Supply, to make an extra wall of insulation between the animals and the doors.  I am sure the pigs will attack it, but I figure they will lose the war.

I figure it will need mucking out, which is unfortunate.  But on the plus side, this is good manure for the land which does need it.  Organic too.

I figure I will endure at least one more prison break, probably a few, over the course of the winter if I have the pigs.  But it could be worth it.

If I don't the birds will be colder...but maybe it's still fine.

Will they kill the wooden doors of the barn or will they show mercy? will the humidity encourage more powder post beetles?  mold? what else can go wrong that I don't know about yet?  would harsher parole laws for escaped pigs discourage recidivism or do they need therapy?  is electric fencing inside a barn basement a really poor idea? is insulation on the top needed or overreacting?  would it work to put the livestock guardian dog down in there with them too (he'll be about 8 months old, still nippy and has not listened to 200 of Paul's podcasts yet, thinks spreading plastic around the yard is his idea of permaculture)?  Thanks for any thoughts.

Every time you feed the pigs, call them by name or even “pig, pig, pig” will do.  That way, if the break out, they will come when you call.  Just be sure to feed them a little when they do come.

You don’t mention the sq ft of the enclosure, but I would add a few bales of straw to cover topside.

John F Dean wrote:Every time you feed the pigs, call them by name or even “pig, pig, pig” will do.  That way, if the break out, they will come when you call.  Just be sure to feed them a little when they do come.

You don’t mention the sq ft of the enclosure, but I would add a few bales of straw to cover topside.

Thanks John.  They do come when called…except when they don’t. They broke into their feed once and got full then went off down the road for tourism.  But mostly they come running if they see me or hear me.  That is a good tip.

I doubt I can get bales of straw that’s clean, but I can gather a bunch of loose from my field.

It’s about 50x 70 feet I’d guess.

The other part of my question is really more should I just give up the pigs, they’ve been the most stress and they come with a feed bill until some day when they qualify for free acorn access, and they are escape artists. They would be half the heat for the barn basement, but are they worth the worry of possibly breaching the perimeter fence/building themselves a teleporter out of scraps they find in the basement?

And the next hurdles discarded roof shingle wall over one section of floor, an old rusted disker too big for me to move, and maybe zoning the basement to keep the heat on one end vs dispersing throughout

Question: how certain is it that Bird brand shingles from the 50’s-80’s are free of asbestos or anything supertoxic?  My research suggests it’s not in this brand but is there chance they resold other manufacturers’ stuff? Or that there’s something else in there that’s toxic besides just asphalt?  I’ll have to post that in a different forum.

Sounds like an interesting situation.
Dry leaf bags are good insulation.
I would pen them in the clear section of basement  floor along with 2 -4 feet of leaves.
Keep more in the barn above, addore over the winter.
Sheet metal, cement board or a thin poured slab to keep the the pigs from rooting up the floor.
The flat floor will make mucking out easier as well.
I would worry less about insulation and more about the drafts.
You could hang tarps and blankets out side of  the enclosure.
A tote or barrel of water with an aquarium heater could adress the worst dips in temperature.

I've never kept pigs.
When will they qualify for harvesting acorns on their own?
Could you harvest the acorns and deliver them to the pigs?
I deliver everything to my chickens and they turn it into compost.
If I had an actual farm I would probably hit up food banks and dumpsters to feed the animals.
Lactic acid bacterial fermentation in barrels would be the storage medium of choice, it seems low energy compared to dehydration or freezing.

I keep pigs, but I don’t pretend they are profitable….yet.  I expect to round that corner in about a year.