My folks did hogs for years- Tams, yorks and hamps. we did durocs a few times as well. typically about 6-8 breeder sows, a boar and the litters. reared a thousand or more over about 15 years, and probably took 600-800 hogs to market, the rest went to friends lockers and luau. that was my thing- still is, really, pit roasting for parties. dad got sick when I went to college, and sold everything, except the junk. to pay medical bills. So the farm went away. im slowly eeking my way back to getting it going again, but with a much more studied design.
now and then, on account hogs are smart and hungry, they'd get out of the paddocks. sometimes we let a few out for a few days to bring a thicket down to manageable size. we did this on 16 ac. The way we did it then was a loud, messy affair. now Ive learned a few things and im ready to do it again.
rooting. one of our tam boars - boris ( being a 1100# boar)- had a bowling ball for a toy, and he would toss it about. one day when boris was playing the ball rolled under a friends crummy. Boris snouted under, and before we knew it, had pushed the truck over far enough to retrieve his ball.
for a good time get a log thats set full of
mice and grubs into a paddock; hogs will turn it into sawdust. when I was a kid we used to have this gum with a sweet cream inside; youd chew it and this goop would come out. I figure thats about what a vole is to a hog. nom nom.
Anyhow, they always had sweet spots in the feilds and woods. My folks didnt rotate the hogs, something I intend to do, and the hogs would dig in just like you say, alison, theyre big diggers.
sepp holzer says they are more valuable than interns if you manage them right.
most american breeds and certainly wild hogs dig. in hawaii, you can see this all over in the forests, where wild hogs have wallowed. its not just cooling mud, its all the promise of the juicy yum. ground rodents, grubs, anything that has worms in it will get a hogs snout to shovelling as far as I can tell. Ive seen them destroy 16"d logs filled mycellium (trichometes, and pleurotus in particular) and ive watched them sort toothpicks and onion skins from restaraunt slop while thrashing each other at the trough. the sensitivity of that nose and mouth is remarkable- its also thier only 'hand'. ...sorting the toothpicks out delicately, with precision. Id assume others hogs are the same. Hogs are made to move earth. and I ve read that they actually eat
alot of soil
on purpose. theyre eating bacteria and nematodes, etc, and thats simply part of thier diet- not hunger, just what they do....nutritional needs, ergonomics and habit. when piglets get white scours, the best cure is to feed them clean forest soils. Even after feeding, except perhaps when sunbathing or asleep, most of our hogs just dug and dug and dug. they didnt need more food (not that they were always ready for it) it was just what they did. Id wager, after rearing a thousand or more, that digging is something that would have to be bred out of a hog...so rotating them (which my folks didnt do well or with intention) to mitigate the impact of rooting is really key. using that awesome power to clear fields and brush, and rototil.
I wont runs hogs over and over- just now and then when I need some work done. and when its done, the intern goes in the locker. or an imu. you cant beat that. there are smaller specialty breeds that grow slow, im considering this as a longer term lower intensity option. small means less mud. and meat. and slower growing means longer times between takes. and lower mangement and feeding levels.
Not quite mutts though as we've been selectively breeding them for generations for the characteristics we need including the pasturability, mothering, temperament, marbling, growth rate, etc. See photos of them here:
