I personally have tried a number of methods to combat this challenge that could all be described as ‘cockamamie.’

Case-in-point, here I’m ratchet-strapping my beer brewing setup into the back of a Toyota so that I can drive around the farm and melt the animals’ water troughs with boiling water delivered from a brewing kettle set atop a propane burner. (You can’t tell from the photo and the sunny conditions are deceptive but when this picture was taken it was about 7 degrees Fahrenheit (-14 C).)

That was an enormous hassle.

So - no kidding - what we do now is to hook up a few hundred feet of hoses to the hot water tap on our washing machine to dispense hot water to melt the animal’s water tanks out in the various pastures.

[It’s not as bad as you think. We get all our heat and hot water during the cold season from a wood fired boiler. It’s fueled by firewood sustainably harvested on our land to supply the energy to make hot water and melt water tanks. It’s local and not environmentally harmful, but neither is it efficient from a time and labor perspective for this purpose.]

OK, so what then?

Have you ever run hoses all over the place to get your animals water? Have you tried to keep those hoses unblocked by ice during cold periods? Has that been a real pain-in-the-ass despite your efforts to drain hoses when you anticipate below freezing conditions are on the way?

If you are sufficiently frustrated then my idea here might start to look attractive…

What about a thermal mass battery that is off-grid powered by sunlight to provide minimal heat to melt ice so that your animals can get a drink of liquid water for at least a few hours per day during the cold season?

OK so here’s a first test of my invention melting ice (slightly faster under the ambient conditions shown) as proof-of-concept:

I don’t have a more dramatic test result to show at the moment because since I designed and assembled this system we haven’t had bad enough weather to give it a more rigorous test. And TBH I’m not out here wishing for worse weather…

So this is a work in progress. The principles are sound but YMMV.

Here’s all there is to it:

A DC electrical system run off of inexpensive solar panels, e.g. this 100W x 2 set:

A common water heating element such as this

The water heating element is encapsulated using common threaded metal pipe fittings for example:

Then the heating element assembly is embedded within a thermal mass of sand, e.g. in a ~6 gal bucket as shown

Electrical connections are made using high temperature silicone wire like this…

…and covered by high temperature rock wool insulation like this

Common solar wiring connectors are used for making the connections, such as

The idea is that the solar panels heat the sand “battery” (i.e., thermal mass) which melts the ice and retains heat for a period of time so the animals can get a drink of liquid water for a few hours during the late day/evening. It will probly re-freeze overnight, but then re-melt late the next day once enough solar energy has re-accumulated in the sand battery again. And so on.

You might have to play around with the ratio of solar panel capacity to sand battery mass and water tank volume to suit your local weather conditions. I’m going to keep messing with these ratios to improve next versions of the setup.

Will it work when the sky is overcast or during a snowstorm? Um, probly no.

If you have a very cold day that is clear and sunny then the system will work provided you have enough power coming in from the solar panels. My little test here in western NC during February used two cheapo 100W panels. If you are in a colder climate it would likely take more Watts (i.e., bigger and better PV panels).

You will probly have to experiment with what works in your situation. If your winter climate is both very cold and very overcast this probably won’t work for you. But if you have periods of sunny-but-cold days like we do in NC this could be a solution that saves you some headache keeping a supply of liquid water available to your animals for a least several hours per day during a subfreezing episode.

The project that instigated this post is a first for me in a couple of ways. One, most of my decentralized water engineering design work has been done in low-resource settings abroad. Other than installing some rainwater harvesting systems on our farm, I hadn’t done any water supply or treatment installations in the US.

Two, I haven’t done much electrical work and I have never personally wired up a solar powered water pump system (though I have played a support role in similar projects abroad).

But I can’t turn down an opportunity to face a design challenge in appropriate technology in the water sector! Let me know what you think of our invention here…

A friend recently asked for my help solving an urgent water problem.

He’s starting an orchard and permaculture site in steep, hilly terrain near our place in the Brushy Mountains. Normally summers here are wet with plenty of rain. This summer has been different however. Our region has had very little rain - in some locales almost no rain at all - since mid-May.

Over the past couple of years my friend has been on a major tree-planting binge, trying to get his orchard project up-and-running. With very hot temperatures and drought conditions over the past two months his trees are mega-stressed in in danger of dying. So recently he asked me to come up with a plan to facilitate watering the trees, and “Put a hurry-up on it!”

He’s got a spring that flows through his property that at least so far into this drought is still producing water. But the stream runs down in the holler, of course, whereas he needs water way up at the top of his property above the orchards so that he can gravity-feed hoses or a drip irrigation system to his fruit and nut trees.

Now we’re seeing the stream under extreme low-flow conditions but it’s easy to tell from the catchment’s morphology that during periods of high rainfall the creek swells, carves up its banks, and carries and deposits significant loads of sediment. 

So not only do we need to move water from a low point on the property to a high point, we also need to deal with episodic flow conditions and substantial amounts of sediment that could damage pumps, clog drip irrigation systems, etc.

So here’s what I came up with:

It’s an up-flow gravel roughing filter in a 200 L (55-gal) drum modified to have essentially a PVC pipe “borehole” in the middle of it. Down the simulated “borehole” we put a DC well pump driven by solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.

Water flows into the bottom of the gravel filter by gravity from the spring catchment. Sediment settles in the lower layers of gravel, and clear water spills into the “borehole” through holes in the PVC pipe. It’s then pumped to storage tanks at the top of the hill by the DC well pump. 

Sediment is flushed from the filter on an as-needed basis by backwashing (reversing the flow direction) by simply opening the large cleanout valve near the bottom of the drum to expel the dirty water.

The criteria for this project was that it needed to be done pretty quickly, fairly cheaply, robustly and with low complexity, and off-grid (since my friend does not have power at his orchard site yet).

“Daylight Drive”

I designed this system to be as simple as possible - the DC well pump is wired directly to the solar panels (with only an On/Off switch in between). When the sun is shining on the panels (and the switch is On), the well pump runs. If there’s partial sun or shade, the well pump runs slower. It doesn’t run at night - hence “Daylight Drive,” a term I borrowed from friends who have pioneered the concept at Living Energy Farm.

There’s no inverter (to convert between DC and AC power), and no batteries for energy storage. The inverter and batteries are typically the most expensive components of solar electric systems so this approach saved a lot of money.

SYSTEM COMPONENTS AND SPECS

Except for the irrigation hose, HDPE drum, and large diameter PVC pipe, all plumbing and electrical components were purchased from amazon.

My friend already had an HDPE “pickle barrel” drum we used to house the filter:

The gravel depth is about 28” (about 70 cm) and the total volume of gravel used is about 5 cubic feet (about 140 L). 

PLUMBING

For the “borehole” pipe I used a section of 6” inner diameter PVC electrical conduit I had laying around. I cut a hole in the lid of the pickle barrel to insert the PVC “borehole” pipe through, and epoxied the circle cut from the lid to the bottom of the PVC “borehole” pipe to close it. (This worked fine with what I had on-hand, but a better solution could be to use a section of PVC drain pipe with a proper slip-fit lid glued on the bottom end.)

The inlet and overflow lines are 1.25” diameter irrigation hose. They’re fitted to the drum using 1.25” bulkhead fittings and hose barbs (easy to find on amazon).

The cleanout is made using a 2” PVC threaded ball valve, a 2” threaded male-male close nipple, and 2” threaded bulkhead fitting (also easy to find on amazon). 

ELECTRICAL

DC well pump According to the manufacturer’s specifications, it is a 12 Volt submersible pump with a maximum flow rate of 3.2 gallons per minute (12 L/min) and a maximum water lift of 230 feet (70 m). I estimated that the elevation difference between the streambed and the water tank at the top of the hill was about 80 feet, maybe 100 feet. For the design I planned (hoped) that this pump would be able to deliver 1-2 gal/min at that elevation. 1/2” irrigation hose was affixed to the pump outlet to transmit water uphill to the storage tank. The pump cost about US$150 from amazon.

PV array This designed used two 100 Watt, 12 Volt PV panels wired in parallel purchased as a two-pack for about $120 from amazon. I enclosed the electrical connections in a waterproof case using cable glands, and added a waterproof On/Off switch in-line between the panels and the pump (all purchased from amazon).

OVERALL COST ESTIMATE

Depending on how much water line is needed from the spring catchment source to the gravel filter, and from the pump to the water storage tank, this whole system can be constructed for around US$500.

Here’s a photo from the first test of the setup:

And here’s my friend happy to finally have water flowing to one of the empty tanks at the top of his orchard:

At that elevation above the filter/pump we measured a flow rate of just over 2 gal/min (>7.5 L/min).

On a clear sunny day he should be able to fill three of these ~300 gallon (~1,000 L) IBC totes.

VULNERABILITIES AND CONCERNS?

In trying to anticipate what might go wrong with this setup, I suspect our main source of potential trouble will be the water intake. If it gets clogged, or the steam level drops further with the continuing drought, then insufficient water (or no water) could be delivered to the gravel filter inlet.

During our first test pictured above, the flow rate of water coming into the filter was greater than the flow rate out from the pump when the panels were in full direct sun (at zero elevation, so the maximum possible pump flow rate). Even with the pump at max flow there was still water going through the filter overflow port. In this condition, the “borehole” would stay filled, avoid the risk of being pumped out and exposing the pump to drawing in air.

But if conditions change and the stream catchment provides insufficient flow to the gravel filter, then the pump could run dry. These pumps are supposed to have an automatic shutoff if they get too hot, but who knows if this will be ok to protect the pump from damage if flow to the filter stops or drops below the minimum needed to keep the “borehole” full.

Another big potential vulnerability comes from my electrical work! This is an area where I likely “don’t know what I don’t know.” But - hopefully that will be remedied soon as I am attending a “Daylight Drive” training at Living Energy Farm later this month! I’m sure Alexis et al. will be happy to critique my design and suggest improvements.

Let me know what you think of our “quick-n-dirty” roughing filter / Daylight Drive water pump solution! We’ll see what all goes wrong with this system and I will report back on our troubleshooting.

As of February 1, 2024 we have one pregnant goat and up to five pregnant sheep and it’s the time of year where babies start hitting the ground.

When we think somebody is close to giving birth, or recently has given birth while we weren’t looking, she and her baby/babies get moved over into the aptly named “mama-baby pasture.” This pasture features the hunter’s shack which we retrofitted into a barn with stalls where new mamas and their babies can be safe and guaranteed access to plenty of nutrient-dense feed and subjected to mandatory twice daily (at least) snuggles.

The hunter’s shack used to be grid-connected decades ago when it was the only habitable structure on the farm. But it was disconnected long ago and we didn’t trust the existing wiring since much of it had been chewed and degraded by critters that had made nests in the walls.

We have been wanting power in the barn for a few years now - mainly just to run some lights and a ventilation fan during the hot part of the year. The master plan for our property has been continuously evolving but has always included extending power and water to the barn. But roll-out of the master plan is slow and always subject to revisions and reshuffling of priorities, so the barn has remained without utilities.

Recently I did a couple of podcast interviews that delved into the creative things that can be done with solar on a small budget and in a very DIY fashion. One of those interviews was with Alexis Zeigler of Living Energy Farm in central Virginia:

The other podcast was with Kris de Decker of Low Tech Magazine. In fact, Low Tech Magazine’s whole website runs off of a solar panel on Kris’ balcony in Barcelona, Spain!

Inspired by my conversations with Alexis and Kris, as well as Low Tech Mag’s recently published user-friendly guide to setting up inexpensive off-grid solar power systems, I thought I’d try my hand at designing a simple lighting system for our barn.

My criteria for this small project were that it would be (1) low-cost, (2) fairly simple and quick to set up and install (since I don’t have a lot of time to devote to this project right now), and (3) I could get the components quickly and do the install soon (since any day now we are going have new goat and sheep babies and we’ll need those barn lights!).

So I went to the good ol’ amazon-dot-com and ordered the following components for my quick-n-dirty install:

My order with tax came to about $115 - so, not terribly expensive.

A quick tech note on sizing components of the system

Just two simple formulas are needed to determine the size of battery and solar power needed for this system:

power (Watts) = volts x amps

energy (Watt-hours) = power (Watts) x time (hours)

The roll of LED lighting strip is 5 m (a little under 16 1/2 feet) long - long enough to reach from the feed room (which we also wanted to light) through the dividing wall and nearly the whole way across the barn interior. It draws 60 Watts of power.

How long do we want to run the barn lights at night?

Typically, we expect to just use the lights for a few minutes, one or a few times per night - say, when we go in to feed in the evening and early morning, or to check on mamas and babies throughout the night, etc. So I designed the system to reliably provide enough energy for one hour of lighting per night. Typically we will use much less energy than this. (For rare instances where we might use a few to several hours of lighting at night I have added a note below.)

To run a 60 Watt light strip for 1 hour —> 60 W x 1 hr = 60 W-hrs of energy needed

To select a (lead-acid) battery to provide 60 W-hrs of energy, we need to note that batteries (1) should not be discharged below 50% of their total capacity, and (2) they experience inefficiency of ~20% due to discharge losses. So to supply 60 W-hrs of energy, the battery capacity should actually be 144 W-hrs:

60W-hrs / 50% = 120 W-hrs

120 W-hrs + (20% x 120 W-hrs) = 144 W-hrs

By convention, battery capacities are given in amp-hrs, not W-hrs. Since amps = Watts/volts, a 144 W-hr battery operating at 12 volts corresponds to 12 amp-hrs:

144 W-hrs / 12 volts = 12 amp-hrs

Note the battery shown above is rated at “12 Volts 12 Ah.”

Thus a 12 V, 12 amp-hr (lead-acid) battery should be able to supply 1 hour of lighting that draws 60 Watts of power without over-discharging (and thus damaging) the battery.

OK what about sizing the solar panel to reliably recharge our battery?

Since the battery should not be discharged below 50% (and thus should just need to be topped up from half-empty rather than charged all the way from zero), we need a daily energy input from the solar panel of 144 W-hrs / 2 = 72 W-hrs.

And since we are mostly concerned with using our lighting system during winter (lambing and kidding season), we have to contend with shorter days and days that are often partly overcast.

The solar panel shown above is rated at 25 Watts - which is the max power it produces under direct full sun. Considering some clouds and shade from nearby trees and indirect sun, I assumed the solar panel would often produce at about half-power, or 12.5 Watts.

So the question is, if the solar panel is running at 12.5 Watts, how long will it take to put 72 W-hrs of energy back into the battery during a typical day?

72 W-hrs / 12.5 W = 5.76 hours

So for a winter day with partial clouds and shade, this solar panel should be enough to top up our battery from a 50% discharge in just under 6 hours. That sounds reasonable to me!

OK - but what if a mama or baby is having trouble and we need to be working with them in the barn at night for >1 hr?

We have several 12 V batteries on the farm similar to the one shown above. We use these to energize electric fencing during the rotational grazing season (April - December). If we need lighting for a few to several hours at night I can splice one or more additional batteries into the system. We anticipate (hope!) the need for this would be very rare so we decided not to build in additional capacity into our system. The battery/batteries are typically the most costly part of off-grid solar systems, so finding ways to reduce the need for energy storage provides a lot of savings!

Installation…

Remember - I said we needed this quick and I didn’t have a lot of time to do it. So the slapped-together look is intentional. Part of our make-do aesthetic here at Magpie Hollow…

Light Fixture

The LED strip is peel-and-stick - so I needed a smooth and (ideally) reflective surface to attach to. I mounted a length of scrap of 1”x4” to the ceiling and staple-gunned strips cut from old galvanized tin roof paneling for a smooth and reflective surface.

Solar panel mount

I used some scraps of metal strapping and ~18” long piece of 2”x10” left over from deck stair treading to mount the panel on the roof of the barn.

I thought about making an adjustable mounting system so that I can always have the solar panel angled correctly for our latitude, time of year, declination, azimuth… all that scientific stuff.

But - that would take more time than I had for this project and may not gain us a whole lot since the panel probably has plenty of capacity to supply the energy we need under typical use conditions even if not oriented optimally.

Plus - with this low-profile mounting it is hopefully more secure from storm/winds than if it were mounted up on some kind of frame. Put another way - an adjustable mounting frame for optimal sun exposure would have to be very well built to withstand storm damage. A frame like that would probably cost more than, and possibly a lot more than, the whole rest of the system. But for only $36 I could slap a second panel on there and double the output. Ya dig?

Control module

I slapped together this little shelf by the entry to the feed room out of stuff I had lying around. I mounted the charge controller on the feed room wall - notice I didn’t pound the nails in all the way. Maybe I will want to move things around later, or make some nice housing for the components. Maybe someday.

Wires shown are coming down from the solar panel on the roof and connecting to positive and negative leads on the left side of the charge controller. The battery connects to the middle two leads, and the right two leads send power out to the LED strip. I ran the positive wire out from the charge controller down to the existing wall switch (left over from the hunter’s shack’s former grid connected electric system) and then up to the LED strip - so we use the old light switch just like normal but without risk of burning down the barn in an electrical fire! Groovy!

You can see I was very careful to make everything neat and clean, dress the wires, etc. NOT!

Once all the components had arrived by truck from the ol’ amazon-dot-com I did the whole install in an afternoon. That included the obligatory forehead-slap-trip to my local Big Box hardware store (dang it!) to get a box of wire nuts and pack of those little white nail-staples shown in the photo used to pin the wires up on the walls.

Now when the sun goes down we can have a dance party with the goats!

Until then, please enjoy this recent impromptu video of evening rounds.

I had the clever idea to make a vid showing the easy routine (ha!) of evening rounds on the farm - tending the wood stove, making sure all the cute rabbits, sheep, goats and pigs have plenty of food and water and are secure for the night.

All was going well until a mischievous barrow turned up in a pasture where he was not supposed to be. Ah, farm life.

One of these days we'll make it look easy. Until then, an entertaining sequence of mis-adventures...

Think I’ll add this anecdote to the memoirs I’m writing: working title, “Too Clever By Half.”

Fall newsletter and more fun stuff to come soon! Love y’all come visit whenever.

Leaf lard is made by rendering leaf fat - the fat inside the pig’s body cavity, around the kidneys. This is distinct from subcutaneous fat on the back of the pig (fatback) or the belly (where the bacon comes from).

The leaf fat is the purest fat - if it’s rendered “low and slow” (over low heat for several hours) it produces a white, creamy, almost flavorless lard. This makes it great for baking and making pastries and desserts, in addition to typical pork fat uses like pan frying, cooking beans and greens, etc.

Leaf lard is also a miracle first-aid for your cast iron cookware. Nothing will keep a seasoned cat iron skillet’s surface slick and in that glassy mirror-like shine better than regular heat treatments with some pure leaf lard!

Leaf lard is shelf-stable for a few months up to a few years. Dark and cool conditions promote longer stability.

Quick details

• One of our kune kune pigs yields 7-10 lbs of leaf fat.

• Packaged leaf fat needs to be trimmed to remove meat residues, and the membrane that is attached to one side of the fat. Then the pure white fat is cut into ~1” square chunks.

• Start by heating 1/2 cup of water per lb of fat in a large stock pot. The water keeps the fat chucks from scorching on the bottom of the pot, which would contribute undesirable flavors.

• Heat at 220-250 F for 2.5 to 5 hours. Strain out the crackins and other solid matter.

• 10 lbs of packaged leaf fat yields about 8 pints of rendered lard.

The video below shows the whole seven hour process (prep + rendering) in just seven minutes! Here, 38.8 lbs of packaged leaf fat (four pigs’ worth) yielded 30 pints of beautiful pure leaf lard!

Try it yourself at home or buy some of ours!

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As shown in the photo above, it’s made to sit on top of (one-half of) our (4’ x 10’) raised beds. The idea is that rabbits can over-winter in this hutch, dropping their fertilizer right into the garden bed to compost.

When one-half of the raised bed is full of straw and rabbit poo, we’ll slide it over to the other half to fertilize. I’ll probably build one or two more of these - one to go with each of our raised beds.

During the warm season the hutch(es) can be pulled along in our veggie garden where the rabbits can earn their keep by eating grass/weeds and fertilizing for us.

Here’s Magda and her seven bunnies on the prototype rabbit tractor’s maiden voyage across our backyard.

Trying out a gravity-fed bucket watering system with hardware (not the bucket) from rabbitnipples.com. (Yes that is a real website!)

A hutch this size is probably ideal for four to six full grown rabbits.

Rabbits are really easy to raise and take up very little space. The main concern is to separate them from their pee and poo. Rabbit pee is super strong concentrated urea (strong ammonia smell!) It can burn the skin of baby rabbits. The wide slat spacing shown in this rabbit tractor allows their pee and poo to drop through and protects the bunnies. Plus we want all that good stuff for fertility in our veggie garden!

Our friends at Sheraton Park have posted an excellent primer on raising meat rabbits - check it out!

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Our kune kune boar Milhouse enjoying a pumpkin snack in his forest bachelor pad on a crisp fall day.

A few things to note up-front…

• Described here is the setup and equipment we currently (Fall 2022) use. Our approach has evolved over the past year-and-a-half raising pigs and likely will continue to do so. Any specific products presented here are just what we use - this is not to be taken as any kind of product endorsement and we don’t receive any money from manufacturers/suppliers. It’s just to give an idea of the equipment involved.

• What’s not included in this article:

  • where to get piglets/feeder pigs instructions or advice on which breed(s) to choose, though for discussion purposes we consider our kune kunes as an example “beginner’s breed”

  • logistics for transport to/from your site - for example, trailering - and processing (whether you do-it-yourself the old fashioned way, or take them to a commercial facility)

  • any local restrictions or regulations regarding raising livestock or selling meat in your area.

With that, let’s talk about…

1. nucleating your starter herd

2. their requirements for food, water, shelter, and medicine

3. key pieces of kit to keep them where you want them and out of where you don’t want them

4. how much full- or partially- forested land you’ll need for rotational grazing

5. a rough estimate of startup and running costs involved, along with the benefits of raising your own gourmet pastured pork products!

1. Pigs: how big and how many and how much $?

Talk to anyone who raises pigs and they’ll likely have a lot to say about the advantages and disadvantages of different breeds. In keeping with the theme of “starting small,” this article is based on our experience raising kune kune pigs, a breed that is relatively small in stature compared with other breeds.

One of our kune kune mamas and her newborn piglets

The kune kune breed was developed by the Maori people of New Zealand. They’re known for being cute, friendly, and relatively easy to manage. They’re enthusiastic foragers and do really well on pasture (but as omnivores still have to be fed a nutritious high-protein diet, see below…).

They grow slower than other breeds, taking 12-16 months to reach full size. In our experience females max out at around 200-250 lbs and males 250-300 lbs.

If you’re eager to convince yourself that kune kunes are the perfect choice for your small startup pastured pig operation you can find plenty of glowing testimonies about them online: e.g., “Perfect for Small Farms” and “A Hardy Homestead Breed.”

Pigs are social animals and get lonely when they’re on their own. They also eat better in groups - they compete for food and gain weight more quickly. So “starting small” means two or three pigs (rather than just one).

In our area, weaned kune kune piglets (feeder pigs) can go for $75-$250 apiece - quite a range. For estimation purposes, then, to get started with two or three pigs could cost around $400.

Purchase (3) piglets subtotal: $400

2. Nutrition & Wellbeing: food, water, shelter, meds

Water

They’ll need a moveable water tub to drink from, along with plenty of water to make a wallow for cooling off in the hot season. Or they might just use the water tub as a mini swimming pool!

We’ve had good luck with these 50 gallon water troughs as shown below. Although they’re a little pricey, their tough and rigid and can withstand 200+ pound pigs climbing in and out and bashing them around.

I used to use stock tank float valves like this one to keep them full of water…

…but often the pigs would knock the float valves off and drain our water supply tanks. So now I just fill the pigs’ water tubs up with a hose on an as-needed basis.

You’ll also want some durable plastic tubs for feeding. So for food and water tubs, hoses, connections, valves, etc., estimated costs could be in the range $100-$150.

Water infrastructure estimated subtotal: $150

Feed

Pigs are omnivores and can’t thrive on forage alone. We feed ours a 14% protein hog pellet from our local feed mill. For young piglets and nursing moms we feed a 16% protein pellet. Nowadays feed costs are $13-$14 per 50 lb bag. Our feed ration is about 2 lbs per day per pig. Thus to raise a pig from weaning to slaughter weight (12-15 months) feed costs are $200-$250.

The pigs obviously supplement their ration by foraging for grubs, roots, and edible plants. We also supplement their diets with a variety of treats: food scraps from our kitchen, excess hardboiled eggs from our chickens and ducks, acorns collected on tarps left around oak trees in the fall and swept off of shed roofs, and harvest leftovers such as watermelons, pumpkins, and apples.

Mama and piglets enjoying a watermelon snack.

Feed subtotal: $750 ($250 per pig)

Medications

Pigs should be de-wormed once or twice per year. There are a variety of approaches to deworming pigs including type of wormer used and feeding versus injection. A full discussion of pros/cons of different methods is beyond the scope of this article. We use Dectomax injectable wormer. It is probably best if you consult with a veterinarian in your area about a deworming plan for your herd of pastured pigs. For budgeting purposes here we’ll assume a dewormer medication cost of $50/pig.

Meds subtotal: $150 ($50 per pig)

Shelter

It’s good for pigs to have a place to take shelter from the elements. In particular, they need shade and other ways to stay cool during the hot season (an advantage of raising them in forested paddocks!). We built some small hutches for our pigs to snuggle in on cold and rainy or snowy nights.

Hutches like this are great for two or three pigs, and can be constructed at low cost using mostly scrap materials if available. For cost estimation purposes I’ll assume $100 for a few pressure-treated 2x4s, fasteners, and a bit of corrugated tin roofing.

Shelter subtotal: $100

3. Containment

With proper training pigs can be kept in forested paddocks using minimal infrastructure. In many cases, a single strand of electrified poly wire or tape at snout-height will suffice to keep your herd where you want them, and away from where you don’t want them.

Chances are, when you bring home your weaned piglets they won’t be trained to an electric fence. The first step is to put them in a training pen for about one week. Once they get shocked a few times they’ll learn to steer clear of the electric tape!

Training pen constructed from wire hog panels with electrified poly tape running around the interior perimeter.

We constructed this training pen using four 16 foot x 34 inch hog panels held in place using t-posts (three per side) and fastened at the corner with zip-ties.

Inside the pen we used metal rebar step-in electric fence posts and yellow plastic insulators to attach the electric poly tape.

Metal rebar step-in electric fence post (48” x 3/8” dia.) and insulator electric poly wire/tape attachment.

Insulators usually come 25/bag and it makes sense to pair these with 25 rebar step-in posts to have enough for the training pen plus setting up a forest paddock once the pigs are trained and ready to go out and forage. Total cost for the fencing hardware (including hog panels, t-posts, step in posts, and insulators) is then about $300.

For electric fencing we use 1/2” wide Gallagher Electric Fence Poly Tape. A roll of 656 feet of poly tape (plenty for this purpose) costs about $35 on Amazon.

And for an energizer we use a Solar Intellishock 30, which is available from Premier1 for about $250.

Training pen and electric fence equipment subtotal: $585

4. Foraging Area

How much forest paddock is needed for rotational pig foraging?

We did an observational study with three of our kune kune barrows (castrated males) to determine a ballpark estimate of how long to leave them on a patch of ground and achieve a “just right” amount of tilling and rooting.

Left too long in one place, pigs can turn an area into scorched earth. We’re using our pigs as the starting phase of a process of agro-ecological succession: turning overgrown, disused land into sparsely forested savannah or park-like pasture for grazing sheep, goats, and pigs.

The following series of short video clips shows the beginning of the observational study, and weekly check-ins on the pigs’ progress doing their job as nature’s little skid-steers rooting and foraging and turning up the earth (and manuring it!).

Start of observational study

After one week

After two weeks

After three weeks

After four weeks

After one month

We found that about one month was a good amount of time for three (small breed) pigs to forage in an approximately 2,000 square foot paddock.

Of course, this will likely vary somewhat by season, breed of pig, etc. But at least for now we are working off a foraging area assumption of 500-750 square feet per pig per month.

For now, we are also assuming a minimum paddock recovery period of three months. This obviously will vary by climate and season. But for purposes of doing some scoping calculations for a “start-small” operation on a small footprint, we’ll assume paddocks are given three months to recover before pigs return to foraging.

For a starter herd of three pigs, if we set up paddocks that are about 2,250 square feet in area each (750 square feet per pig) in the simple arrangement shown here…

…the total area would be about 9,000 square feet, or about 1/5 of an acre.

So to recap: You can raise three pigs on 1/5 of an acre, rotating paddocks monthly so that each paddock has a three-month recovery period between grazings.

5. Costs & Benefits

Adding up the startup cost estimates listed above comes to $2,135. That includes the fencing equipment and other hardware you need as well as feed and supplies to grow your herd of three kune kunes (or other small breed) out to processing weight in about one year’s time.

With creativity and resourcefulness you’ll probably find many ways to save on costs. For example, you might find a good deal on piglets or get some for free as hand-me-downs. Or get a good boar and sow and breed your own!

You might have a lot of the infrastructure on-hand already: scrap materials for building shelters, t-posts, water hoses and tubs, etc.

If you’re prepared to buy your feed up-front and have a place to store it, you could save a lot of money by buying in bulk.

The benefits of pig foraging include getting to watch happy healthy animals grow and indulge in their natural pig-ness. They’re certainly gregarious animals and fun to watch!

Pigs can be a keystone component of environmentally beneficial land management and especially for marginal areas - for example, providing (free!) labor and manure in establishing and maintaining regenerative and biodiverse agro-ecosystems.

And of course: pork chops, bacon, ribs, BBQ, fatback and lard, ham roasts and Boston butts! Wonderful high quality healthy meat for your family and friends!

bacon!

If you’re interested to read more about our pastured lamb and pork operation, including how we set our prices for retail cuts, see here.

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