Some people that live on the place out back have some animals. Horses, donkeys, dogs, cats, and 5 pigs that they keep as pets. They were small when they got them and they allowed them to run around the yards like dogs. Then they started rooting up the yard so they penned them up. Now they're huge.
I looked up their lifespan and they can live 15 to 20 years. I don't know what they feed them. I've seen them out feeding them and it looks like they're feeding them about 6-8 gallons of commercial feed a day. They haul the feed out to them in muck buckets that hold about 15 gallons and it looks like it's at least half full. I don't know how many times a day they get fed.
It's nothing to me. They don't bother anything. But it seems to me that they're going to be enormous pigs eventually considering the quantity and quality of the food they're getting.
I can't imagine keeping and feeding 5 pet pigs for 15-20 years. That's a hell of an obligation.
The obvious solution would be to turn them into ham and bacon. But I don't think that's the plan. Like I said. They're pets.
It occurred to me that they will never be able to get rid of them unless they're okay with somebody putting them in the smoke house. That's why I said that it was a 15-20 year obligation.
Nobody's going to want a 400 lb "pet" pig. Anybody that took an interest in taking one off their hands is going to have Bar-B-Q in mind.
We had one that we let go about 14 months and it was 409 live weight. She wasn’t mean but you couldn’t get her to go anywhere she didn’t want to go.
Probably about that long. Less than 2 years. I can't see them unless I go to the back of my property. The last time I saw them they were all so big that they just lay around.
It'll be interesting to see how big a pig gets when it's kept around and fed commercial feed over several years.
I have absolutely no respect for people who can't kill farm animals.
They never intended for them to be farm animals. They bought them to be pets. I think they will eventually come to the realization that it was a bad idea. 15-20 years is a long time to keep 5 pigs. Especially since they will soon be so big that they can't move around.
We had pigs on the farm when I grew up, decades ago. They were tasty critters. What’s also amazing is the people that keep pigs as pets, “in their home.”
Back in the early '70s there used to be a family in a nearby town of 25,000+ that kept a full grown pig as a pet in their chain link fenced backyard. They lived in a regular blue-collar neighborhood with houses practically side by side. It was huge but friendly and would come up to the fence to be petted and for treats.
Granddaughter had a miniature pig for a while. It and a pony she had at the time became big buddies and anywhere one was the other was always by it's side or very close by. They slept, played, ate together and watched out for each other.
Back in the early '70s there used to be a family in a nearby town of 25,000+ that kept a full grown pig as a pet in their chain link fenced backyard. They lived in a regular blue-collar neighborhood with houses practically side by side. It was huge but friendly and would come up to the fence to be petted and for treats.
Granddaughter had a miniature pig for a while. It and a pony she had at the time became big buddies and anywhere one was the other was always by it's side or very close by. They slept, played, ate together and watched out for each other.
I met some people many years ago that had some type of miniature pig that they kept in the house. It pooped in a box like a cat.
I don't know what kind the neighbor has. They're mostly black with some white. But they're definitely not miniature.
The operation I worked at had V boars that were all North of 700 lbs. The breeding boars were on a diet and mostly didn't get much past 650. The state fair biggest boar is usually 1100ish. I don't think any of the sows hit 600.
Back in the early '70s there used to be a family in a nearby town of 25,000+ that kept a full grown pig as a pet in their chain link fenced backyard. They lived in a regular blue-collar neighborhood with houses practically side by side. It was huge but friendly and would come up to the fence to be petted and for treats.
Granddaughter had a miniature pig for a while. It and a pony she had at the time became big buddies and anywhere one was the other was always by it's side or very close by. They slept, played, ate together and watched out for each other.
I met some people many years ago that had some type of miniature pig that they kept in the house. It pooped in a box like a cat.
I don't know what kind the neighbor has. They're mostly black with some white. But they're definitely not miniature.
They sound like Hamps (Hampshires). Dad used to keep a few in the hog lot north of the house. They did a fine job keeping the brush down in the woods there. Good eatin'!
My nextdoor neighbor bought his wife a pot-bellied pig for their 26th anniversary (25 years Golden, 26 Pork?). Cute little critter, but then they decided she needed a pal and got another. They’re housetrained, and hang out with the dogs. They do get a bit rowdy when they don’t get their way. Anyway, the charm must be wearing off a bit as they just fenced the backyard and tossed the little squealers out there, during the day at least. The first one looks to weigh about 60 pounds now. Still cute, but kinda Adele cute, if you get my drift. I honestly don’t mind them at all, never had any sensory evidence that they’re there.
Not for me, but then I won’t have an indoor cat, and doubt I’ll get another dog. Our three goldfish are the only domestic beasts we need.
If you haven't ever been aroundt mature hogs, keep an eye on them. Most folk don't have a clue how big a hog can get. Today's meat hogs get whacked at under 300# and just a few months. That's under half grown. They will go broke feeding 3-4000lbs of hungry hog.
Watch for the Humane Society raid. That's where this usually goes. They get too big, too expensive... End up neglected and malnourished.
Old friend told a story of him buying a young pig to raise for meat once. Said he thought all was gong well until one day he saw it piss in two different directions at the same time... Turned out the pig he bought was a hermaphrodite. Said there was no way in H-E-L-L he was going to eat any meat from a " 'morfidite " hog and got rid of it.
If you haven't ever been aroundt mature hogs, keep an eye on them. Most folk don't have a clue how big a hog can get. Today's meat hogs get whacked at under 300# and just a few months. That's under half grown. They will go broke feeding 3-4000lbs of hungry hog.
Watch for the Humane Society raid. That's where this usually goes. They get too big, too expensive... End up neglected and malnourished.
The people seem like reasonable folks. They worked hard putting up a fence to pen them in,,..and the pigs are getting plenty to eat. They also have 2 big donkeys, 3 dogs, and they had 3 horses and a pony. I haven't seen the horses and the pony lately.
Like I said, they don't bother anything. I wouldn't know that they're back there if I didn't go look. I saw the wife hauling a muck bucket of feed to them one day at it was about all she could carry. That's when I started wondering how much they have to be fed.
Friend dated a woman with a pet pig. Pig hated him with the fire of 100000000000000000000000000000 suns. Hated anyone that had to do with him. She eventually became his fiance. Pig would bite the $ hit out of any person that had anything to do with my buddy. It came down to moving in with each other and he gave her the ultimatum. Pig or me cause he wasnt living in the same house as the pig. She relented and decided to give up the pig. My friend found a friend to take the pig and "take care of it". Now that buddy is divorced he loves to talk about the first breakfast at the pig caretakers house before fishing and how damn good the bacon was.
Neighbor had a pot-bellied pig that got up to about 150 lbs. Called me one day and asked if I needed any coyote bait. I thought he might have killed a goat (he raises and sells goats), so I said sure.
"Drop by and I'll load you up" he said. "Ok"
When I got there, he had shot the pig, said it was costing too much to feed it and it had gotten to big to be in the house.
I don't understand unusual pets. Dogs? OK, they socialize and regard you as the leader of the pack. Horses and ponies/? Ok, you can ride them. Cas? They catch rodents. But pigs, snakes, lizards, alligators? Yecch!
Reminds me of the lady who had a cute pet [bleep]. It grew up and bit her friend's face off. This got a lot of press coverage beause it was the first face transplant ever done by the Cleveland Clinic. The result looked awful and I wonder how the civil suit turned out.
I worked at a hog farm in the summer as a teenager. I took some runts they were going to kill and bottle fed them, 1 out of the 3 lived. The pig lived in a dog kennel and I would let it out in the yard and it was similar to a dog. It was playful and kids loved to play with it. When it got to market size it decided to come out and play on it's own and ripped the gate off a couple of times. Dad took it to the slaughter house. Best pork ever. It was a fun pet for a while and then it was supper and breakfast the way farm animals are supposed to be.
I caught a small, as in still nursing, Russian boar in the mountains one time and raised it up to about 100 lbs or so. Damn that was one mean sob... had to put 6 hog rings in it’s snout to keep it from rooting out of the dog lot. When it finally did get out I just put a 22mag pill between the eyes and skinned it out. It made For a couple of good Party’s! Rip Buffy!
We have a local animal rescue outfit named Brother Wolf. They are a good group, in fact, we got our beagle from them last year.
But, two years ago the director of Brother Wolf, a female, decided she had to rescue ALL animals of the world. She bought some expensive land outside of town, maybe 50 acres, and she began to rescue farm animals. She is going to put herself in the middle of the massive farm-and-meat industry. She was going to rescue cows and pigs that farmers were raising for meat. In six months she had 5 cows and 12 pigs. As y'all have been saying, very expensive to house and feed these big animals. She spent over $500,000 on her "farm rescue" project. Brother Wolf went broke. The Board of Directors fired this gal and was trying to give away 5 cows and 12 pigs "to a good home." Brother Wolf was begging for donations so they could stay in business.
They best not accidentally cut themselves and get in the pen with those hogs. There has been more than one pig farmer who has been devoured by hogs that got the taste of blood.
Check out this article about Brother Wolf attempting to rescue the farm cows and hogs. Pretty interesting from the Asheville newspaper. Radical vegans at Brother Wolf going wild, and stupid.
I don't understand unusual pets. Dogs? OK, they socialize and regard you as the leader of the pack. Horses and ponies/? Ok, you can ride them. Cas? They catch rodents. But pigs, snakes, lizards, alligators? Yecch!
Reminds me of the lady who had a cute pet [bleep]. It grew up and bit her friend's face off. This got a lot of press coverage beause it was the first face transplant ever done by the Cleveland Clinic. The result looked awful and I wonder how the civil suit turned out.
A while back we were visiting our son in Seattle. One evening we went for a walk. We went through an area of apartment buildings where the fronts of the buildings were right at the sidewalk. One apartment had a large livingroom window and the curtains were open so we could see everything in the room. Sitting on the back of the couch next to the window was a duck and a goose. I don't know if you're familiar with the bathroom habits of waterfowl but I can just imagine what it would be like inside that livingroom.
Most all of my older family and local acquaintances raised hogs for meat at one time or another and all I ever saw them feed their hogs was whole ear corn and what they called "slop" which was basically a mix of table scraps, leftover skimmed milk from churning butter, and anything that possibly could be edible by hogs... and hogs will eat pretty much anything. I've even watched them chow down on lumps of coal. If any ever fed special commercial hog feed I never saw or heard them say they did.
I had an Asian neighbor with 2, about 250lbs a piece, he walked them like dogs. Animal control was parked in front of my house one day and had his pigs in their truck, my neighbor was crying like a baby. I never saw those pigs again.
I have been upset ever since my B-I-Law sold all of his hogs. It was always comforting since I had a cute daughter. Now it's the grand daughters. Anyone in NW misery have hogs in an out of the way place? Be Well, RZ.
On a non-commercial level, you can't come out ahead by feeding commercial feeds. They're just too expensive. Grocery store meat will cost you less. My wife's home grown eggs are great but they probably cost us $5/doz.
I have been upset ever since my B-I-Law sold all of his hogs. It was always comforting since I had a cute daughter. Now it's the grand daughters. Anyone in NW misery have hogs in an out of the way place? Be Well, RZ.
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