How we Raise Kunekune Pigs, Part 3 - Housing, Fencing, Winter vs Summer, and Raising them for meat
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Welcome to part three of how we raise Kunekune pigs!! If you haven’t read part one or two I cover a bit of background information of how and why we rotational graze our pigs, do they graze or root, how much space they need, and how we feed them. In part three I will cover the following topics, please feel free to clink the links to skip ahead to those particular topics.
How do we house our Kunekune?
How do we fence our Kunekune pigs?
Do Kunekune pigs do well in hot weather?
Do Kunekune pigs do well in the winter?
Can you Raise Kunekune pigs for meat?
How do we house our Kunekune?
Kunekune housing can be a fairly simple light and movable structure or as elaborate and sturdy as a stall or section in a barn. We prefer simple, light and moveable structures for our pigs because of the way we prefer to raise them. We house our Kunekune pigs in calf hutches, Porta Huts, or a simple shade structure during the summer months. We like the calf hutches because they are much lighter and easier to move around. The Porta huts are bigger and heavier and we use those for pasture farrowing as well. When the weather is warmer and there is not suitable shade in their paddock we will give them additional shade either with some t-posts and a tarp or a simple mobile shade structure. If you are breeding your pigs there are other considerations to size and features for their house/structure that I will cover in later blog posts about breeding and farrowing tips.
How do we fence our Kunekune pigs?
During the growing season, March through November, we fence our Kunekune pigs using Premier One Hognet or Piglet net and the Intellashock 60 or Intellashock 120 depending on how many fences we have hooked up. Usually the Intellishock 60 has plenty of power for two groups of pigs and that is usually four 100 foot nets. You have to keep weeds, sticks, and such off the fence and you need to have the fence as close to a square as possible. A square shape ensures vertical and taught sides. We honestly rarely have our fences in a square and almost always have weeds and stick on the fencing….so do as we say not as we do. Our fences almost always still work fine. As the sunlight gets less towards the fall, weeds and sticks will drain the batteries if you do not follow best practices and the pigs will continue to test the fences and eventually get out.
I have felt as though the pigs respect our fencing extremely well and it does not take very many times of them hitting their nose on the fence for them to not get close to the fence at all.
During the winter months, December through March, we fence our pigs with hog panels. We use three t-posts per panel and we are checking the fencing connections often especially if we have a warm winter. This is because when the grass is literally greener on the other side of the fence the pigs will push on the fence to reach that grass. Some pigs are worse at this than others. Surprisingly my boars seem to push on fences the least and certain sows do the most.
Most years we set up new winter paddocks for our pigs and then we take them down in the spring. We consider this area a sacrifice area but the winter paddock area will recover to be regrazed at some point in the growing season. By taking down the fencing each spring we can run several other species of animals through that area as well without having weedy and unsightly fence lines.
Do Kunekune pigs do well in hot weather?
Here in Michigan, Kunekune pigs do very well in the summer but do require a way to cool their bodies off, plenty of shade and cool water to drink. I start to pay closer attention to the pigs when the temperature is above 65 degrees and provide shade and wallows more so when it is above 75.
Their preferred method of cooling themselves off would be with a wallow made from mud and water. If you can provide a wallow with actual water and mud they would love it! At our first property we did not leave them in one spot long enough for them to actually make a wallow and we did not really have enough pasture space for them to be making wallows. We provided kiddie pools for them and that worked very well. At our new property they were clearing out underbrush and we were able to allow them to stay in a paddock for two to three weeks and they made plenty of wallows. They did not need kiddie pools all that much but we still provided a pool for them out of habit. Certain pigs just simply want a wallow and will do whatever they need to do to get the water out of their water bowls and pools to make their wallows. We have one sow who is notorious for picking up her water bowl and dumping the water out over and over and over again until she has a wallow. One time she did it eight times in a row as I was filling the bowls up!!! Her determination is admirable…she is also the sow that is the pushest with fences…maybe there is a pattern!
We also have shade available for them in the warmer months. Our new property has more tree coverage and is much shadier so the pigs were able to stay fairly cool all summer because of that. Heat is much harder on a pig than cold weather. We seem to have more health issues with pneumonia or difficulty handling parasite loads in the summer than we do in the winter. If you do not have trees/shade naturally available you can make simple shade structures out of wood and steel or t-posts and tarps. We like to provide some shady areas that also receive some kind of a breeze meaning some other shady area other than their house/structure.
And lastly you must always have water available for them. Because we move our pigs so often and we are able to check on them multiple times a day we use simple bowls for water. We usually have two-three bowls per paddock and fill them up 3-4 times a day on hot days. We have used 55 gallon drums with pig nipple waterers as well but our pigs always preferred the bowls. And because we were moving them so often the barrel seemed cumbersome. If you can not check on your pigs often or simply want a more hands off approach then a nipple watering system would be a great option. The first few warm days in the spring above 65 degrees we make sure to encourage fluid intake because they are not used to needing more water and can more easily get overheated, especially if it is sunny.
Do Kunekune pigs do well in the winter?
Kunekune pigs do extremely well in the winter in Michigan. Our pigs are either housed in the Porta Huts or a calf hutch bedded down with plenty of straw and plenty of buddies to cuddle with. I 100% think pigs enjoy winter more than summer! The main consideration I have with pigs in the winter is making sure they still have plenty of water intake and we do this by soaking their feed. They do not seem to drink that much water and maybe they just don't need to because we soak the feed? Other than a structure, straw and buddies they really do well in winter!!
Can you Raise Kunekune pigs for meat?
Yes! We have only ever raised our pigs for meat and for breeding purposes. I think people can be skeptical about raising Kunekune pigs for meat due to their absolutely wonderful personalities and “pet like” behaviors. And while their personalities make butchering time a bit sadder, it makes raising them 10x more enjoyable!!! We raise our pigs to about 16-18 months mainly because that usually fits our butchering schedule. They have the most flavorful red marbled meat ever! They also supply us with ample amounts of lard that we use everyday in our cooking, baking, soap, and beeswax candles. The pig in the picture above is named Banana 2. We tend to name our meats pigs with food names and those are the pigs that my children name most often. We have a Banana 2 because one year my youngest was sad we were not going to have a Banana anymore so we named another meat pig Banana 2.
Well that pretty much rounds out how we raise our Kunekune pigs and some common questions we get! In Part Four of how we raise kunekune pigs I will be going into choosing breeding stock and pigs, what I recommend you get as far as males, females, one or two, and some breeding tips that we have learned along the way!
And if you want to learn more about our Kunekune breeding stock and available piglets click here!