All the while I had started out with
chickens, hauling water in for them. I moved on to two goats when I had graduated to pumping water by hand. But when I was able to pump water by sheer sunlight, I thought I needed pigs! You see I had a
pond that would dry out every august. It held water up until that point, but in August you could walk across it. Since my rainfall is over evaporation in my area, naturally the pond should gain water level every year unless it leaks. There's a post going around the pond forum, that you can gley a pond with pigs and get it to seal. I was so inspired by the results that I had to try it for myself.
Let me stop you right there. If you have the same idea to get pigs. DONT. They are horrible creatures to keep. Don't get me wrong. The experiment was a complete success. The pond has more water then it has ever had, and it did not dry out in August. However it was not worth the pain that the pigs cost me.
Here was my tiny water hole
and with three tiny pigs.
I'm so happy with the idea at this point. And they look so cute when they are small
over the weeks and months the pond did get bigger and bigger.
The pigs really seemed to roll around the edges and really pack them down.
But it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The pigs cost me a fortune is
feed. You must feed them in place for them to stay in the pond of course. I paid 100$ each piglet, and I estimate I spent 10,000 dollars on food (exaggeration of course, but more then I could ever get back)
Pigs are smart....It wasn't long before they figured out they could push their feeder into the electric
fence and short it out, then escape. They would flip over all my
chicken pens and steal the
chickens food. Then the unprotected chickens would be killed by owls and coyotes. The pig decimated my entire flock of 40+ chickens to nothing. They destroyed my garden and caused me so much grief.... The best day of my life was the day I sold them, I recieved $460 dollars. I will never, EVER have pigs again, and cannot recommend them to anyone.
I have recently found that ducks will create the same pond seal and are much easier to care for!!! DO NOT GET PIGS!!!