Thursday, August 11, 2016

Pig Fence Set Up

             Hey folks! As some of you may have read, we recently got our first pig! He is an American Guinea Hog we renamed Bruce (His former name was Tarragon. That just seems to fancy for a pig, imo.), so he's not going to be huge when he's full grown. Out of all farm animals, I never, ever, thought I would own a pig. Like, the thought never even crossed my mind, especially since pigs kind of freak me out. But anyways...


             I thought I would share a (relatively) short post on our fence set up for Mr.Pig. It actually didn't take us very long and it was a lot cheaper than you might think! Overall, we probably spent about 1 ½ to 2 hours putting it up and spent between $110 and $150 on supplies. (I think it was closer to $110, but I didn't feel like digging for the receipt, to be honest.) You can buy electric pig netting type fences that are easier to set up, but we're cheap. ;) We do plan on moving ours around as needed, so we'll see just how easy (or hard) it is to move ours around in time.


             Most, if not everything, we bought for fencing was on sale. These handy dandy step-in posts are normally $1.99 at Rural King and were only $1.50! In fact, we bought 10 more when we were there next because they were still on sale. Can't hurt to have extras on hand, right? Other than that, we used galvanized wire, an electrifier/shocker (for fence to make it electrified), extension cord, sticks and rope, and a few electric fence clips for trees. John also rigged a small plastic bucket to fit over the electrifier and cord ends so they don't get wet when it rains. Oh. And we also ended up getting some gate handles, though we don't really need them yet since we're turning the fence off before checking on Mr.Pig for now. (More on that in a minute.)


             So yah, not nearly as much to get started with pigs as I expected. In fact, Bruce is a registered Guinea Hog and he cost about as much as all of the fencing materials, so not a bad deal. It's not like we had ever put an electric fence up before, so it was relatively easy to execute too considering the short amount of time it took. However...


             When we finally brought Mr.Pig home, he escaped in about, mmm, 10 minutes of us getting him inside his enclosure. Luckily, my father in-law saw him get out and they helped us find him. I still can't believe we actually caught him, but we did! (Only took an hour and a half through our trees and thick brush. Ugh.) Our theory on him getting out is that he was eating too close to the fence, got zapped and went running out because my father in-law said he squealed pretty good when it happened, so the fence was definitely working. (Plus we checked it before hand as well with a tester. Oh yah. The tester was like $15 too. Not necessary, but handy.) Moral of my story: Make sure you test your fence, possible keep him/her in a smaller enclosure within the fenced in area to begin with (especially if you have a piglet), and keep an eye on them for awhile and have something on hand to catch them with if needed!

He has a pretty sweet get up for such a little piggy!

             Which reminds me, we ended up using some old chicken wire panels left by the previous owners to make a small, makeshift, temporary enclosure for Bruce so we don't have any more mishaps. I think he would be fine to be let out now since it's been over a week since we got him and he gets VERY excited when he sees us (people=treats), but we'd rather be safe than sorry. 

Oopsie. I didn't mean to drop it on his head. 
 
             I feel like I'm starting to get a little off topic, so I'll save the rest of my thoughts for another post. Until next time...




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