Evolution of the Hoop House / Deep Litter Bedding

Well these first couple of posts are turning into postmortems on my first couple of cycles of raising feeder pigs in the winter. The initial idea was pigs in the winter, they poop and then garden in the summer. Though working well in theory, in practice it was a muddy mess and the pen took too long to dry in the spring to get in there with the tiller. A big problem with our already short growing season.

Pigs in Mud

They did have a place to get out of the mud, but it was still kind of cold with no good place to bed down really well. Shivering away the calories (future post on feed efficiency) was not good. The neighbors complained to the health department (another future entry topic that has a happy ending). I needed a better way.

I first learned of the concept of deep litter bedding when reading a book on raising chickens. A few google searches lead to this article, this blog entry, and this blog entry. So I decided I would try to make my own variation on the hoop house. I used cattle panels, t-posts, a tarp, ratchet straps, lots of zip ties. I can give more detailed instructions in a later post, if people want them. At that time I also built a deck on skids to put the feeder and water barrels on.

Hoop house skeleton

Using small pieces of hog panel and electric fence I combined this with my old hog house I had built on skids and got to this:

Inside view from feeder with straw

I put rebar in the ground and ran a hot wire along the inner perimeter so the pigs would leave the hoop house alone and it has been working great, so far.

The idea is that the pigs will eliminate waste on to the straw. The straw will soak it up, bond the carbon and nitrogen thus minimizing smell and providing warmth from the composting action. All I have to do is keep adding straw to wet spots and the bedding pack will build up. Toward the end of the pigs time hear I do plan on letting them out in the garden space to do some tilling and gleaning but not let them turn it into a moonscape like previous years.

Just south of us is a farming community that has some small wheat farms and I was able to load up on 50 pound bales of straw for $2.50 a bale. I got 60 bales, I should be set. Craigslist once again!

Kids and Straw

So I'm set to go, right? Well right away a problem showed itself. The pigs were choosing to defecate in the old pig house that has a wood floor and not on the straw! It stunk! I shoveled poop two days in a row to put it on the straw. This was not the plan!

So I went to work to barricade them out of the pig house until they were trained to do their business on the straw. Scrap wood pile to the rescue.

It's ugly, but it has worked! The pigs are doing all their business on the straw now. Now to keep an eye on the moisture level and add straw as necessary.

One other little problem that has come up is that the straw keeps building up around the edges and hitting electric fence. Not a huge problem but I have go in everyday and kick it away from the electric fence wire.

So hopefully with this setup I will keep the pigs dryer and warmer, minimize mud, and have some great compost in the end. I will keep you updated.