Kara Ann wrote:can you comment on how you overwinter your pigs? Shelter? How do they do with long stretches of cold rain?
My pleasure! Yes, wet winters with wind, and a week of freezing weather, usually.
We built a wooden shelter to the pigs, with a wooden floor (that was raised from the ground) with lots of straw bedding in the winter that they could really burrow themselves into, and a thinner layer in the summer. It had a roof made of those wavy metal sheets.
The shelter had a door opening at the front (to their wooden-fenced yard with a gate and pasture behind it - everything electric fenced as well) and a second door at the back that I could access for cleaning.
In the winter the pigs spent a lot of time in their shelter if the weather was not good. So they also used one corner of their shelter as an indoor toilet. To muck out the shelter without the pigs running into the garden, I made sure they were happily munching in their pasture, closed the gate to their yard, and then could open the backdoor of the shelter for cleaning.
In the winter the shelter had a curtain of plastic flaps to keep the weather out, but allowing the pigs to move in and out freely. The wooden enclosure around their yard sheltered them from the wind as well.
The curtain of plastic flaps should be of heavy material ideally, but I didn't have that, so I made a double-thick curtain of thickish foil. They found it interested and chewed on some flaps, not ingesting (I could find the pieces in their yard) but breaking it, so it needed to be renewed every now and then.
The roof of their shelter had a little gutter that filled their water trough when it rained.
Pigs are VERY intelligent. And social. And adorable. Much like dogs! Enjoying belly-rubs and knowing who's who when you call them.
No, only when it's hot, to cool down.
