Can Pigs Clear a Lawn?

I’m buying a house with 2 acres of land. The land has a few sparse trees, but is mostly lawn grass. I want to clear the existing grass and plant better grass for grazing goats.

I was wondering are pigs good for clearing out lawn grass? Will they uproot the grass? And will the grass provide any additional nutrition for the pigs?

Ryan Burkitt wrote:I’m buying a house with 2 acres of land. The land has a few sparse trees, but is mostly lawn grass. I want to clear the existing grass and plant better grass for grazing goats.

I was wondering are pigs good for clearing out lawn grass? Will they uproot the grass? And will the grass provide any additional nutrition for the pigs?

A section at a time works best. Lock them in and give them water and treats let them work for their food by grubbing up the ground and uprooting / eating all the grass etc.. Goats and some breeds of cows like Dexter work well with pigs clearing land!  The pigs will actually till the ground if you get the right ones. See what types thrive in your area and then of those which are the best for living off the land or the ones that are "hard" on land, in other words uproot the ground. Which is what you want where as someone pasture raising pigs doesn't want them grubbing up the roots killing grass.

Sheep graze, goats prefer to browse.

Hi Ryan,
Can pigs clear a lawn? Yes.
Will the grass provide nutrition? Some
Will the pigs need extra food while in that place? yes
Will the pigs make holes all over the place and leave stuff behind? Yes

If you want pigs... that might work ok. If you just want to plant better grass... I feel like there might be some methods that are less work and faster and don't involve pigs.

1. Don't remove the grass at all. Just scalp it as low as your lawn mower will go. Then plant the new seed at the time of the year that that grass grows the best.
2. Rent a sod cutter machine for a couple days, strip the sod off, and pile it to make compost in the corner... then plant the new grass.

I would not deliberately do it.  I have seen the damage by smaller breeds, and it has  not been pretty. As has been indicated, the pigs go where they want to go, not where you want them to go.