Dec 28
Food, water, warm dry bed
Posted in Livestock by David Wilson
On one of my first days at the Berkshire College of Agriculture we had a memorable pig lecture. The lecturer, Mr Ferguson, walked into the lecture theatre and wrote in large letters on the blackboard: food, water, warm dry bed. He said, 'That's all you need to know about looking after pigs. If you get these things right then the rest will take care of itself'...
He was quite right, clean water and good quality organic pig feed are paramount. Our pigs have cereals (barley and wheat) blended together to make their food. They also have the run of the grass paddocks and the sows, in particular, like to eat the grass which is good for them.
Our pigs have huts which they sleep in at night and if it rains they all run inside and head for their warm straw beds! Pigs like to dig up the ground which is a deeply instinctive behaviour and in the hot weather we create wallows for them so they can enjoy some cooling mud baths!
As pigs can't sweat they need muddy water to cool down and the mud baths have the added benefit of reducing skin parasites. 'Happy as a pig in mud' is an old saying - and it's quite true!
