What's up modern stethers today I'm gonna share with you the top seven things I wish I knew Well the first time I brought home our piglet the first one is right here these cattle panels These are cattle panels not hog panels our stud didn't have hog panels when we went and bought these at the local supply store And what the difference is is These squares are bigger right here on a hog panel than more of this size So now piglets when we first got them they were small enough we put them down in here and Right through the hole they went Luckily we caught them and we didn't have an issue we put them back in And I turned the electric fence on and I put poultry netting on the outside and turned that on too So once they got bigger this fence was more than handy enough to keep them in So the first one is make sure You have hog panels and not cattle panel or your pen is small enough holes in between the gaps So you piglets can't get through you might think they're pretty big, but they can dart through and get through some pretty Small opening the other one I wish we had an automatic pig water pig drink a lot of water and they like to play in it So we used to have a Rubber bowl we put fill it up with about five gallons of water They drink out of it five ten minutes later you'd look over they're playing in it They got the end always under it and they're flipping it over dumping it out You have a bigger pool like a little kids pool or tross like that They got a drink out of it then they're gonna go rolling it and lying it make a mess go to the bathroom in it You're just constantly cleaning and lugging water so we got this 55 gallon food grade drum with a water nipple on it I'll go ahead and I'll link the video right here showing you how we made it. I fill it up with water once a week And it lasts all week It probably lasts a month for our two pigs most of the time But I like to make sure the water is fresh so I fill it up every week One that I just learned this year from our pig farmer that we're gonna be getting our piglets from is if you raise your pigs on Pasture you can feed them 16% feed you don't need to give them pig feed The only difference is is pig feed has vitamins and minerals which the pigs need if they're raised inside In a barn and they don't have access to dirt and grass If they have access to the dirt and the grass they're gonna be getting the vitamins and the minerals they need from that He also said they've a newer smells better because they don't have all the excess vitamins and minerals in the manure So that should be a win win biggest reason for it is all of them the smell is you're gonna save Between a dollar and two dollars on a bag of feed Because they have to add the vitamins and minerals to it so it costs more money on average You're gonna be feeding a pig around 20 bags of feed so if you're gonna be saving anywhere from 20 to 40 bucks per pig That's some pretty good savings you can keep in your pocket Last year we found out that our local feed start has a customer appreciation day And they'll take off two dollars per bag of grain you can buy it as much as you want take advantage of it We went and we bought a whole ton of grain and that's enough to finish out our two pigs You're gonna need 20 bags per pig So let's 40 bags and get 40 bags to a ton so if your local feed start doesn't do a customer appreciation day They might do a bulk buy discount and if you can go ahead and buy as many bags as you're gonna need to finish your pig You're gonna need at least 20 bags of grain per pig so you can figure it out that way You don't want to make sure you have good flat access to your gate When you go to load them up into the trailer you're taking them to a butcher shop If you have to come up an incline like we did you get more of a hill and the pigs don't like to step up And if you make a ramp it's slippery and it takes a lot longer to load your pigs when you're planning the layout of your pig pen Keep in mind that you're gonna need to load these pigs up to take them to the butcher shop when they're grown Then make sure you have a good solid rugged gate That's a physical barrier for a pig you have an electric fence for a gate That's a mental barrier for a pig and when you take that fence down This is still not gonna want to cross that opening you have a physical gate You open it up and they're more apt to walk right out of it for you When you get your piglets try to figure out how fast they're gonna grow and kind of have in mind when you plan on bringing them to the butcher We got ours in April last year So we were able to bring them to the butcher come September we'll be getting them in May this year So we'll be bringing them in October what might be a little bit more of a hassle for us because a lot of the butcher's up here I'm gonna be cutting up wild games. They're gonna be busy So I'm gonna have to make sure I call the butcher in advance and set up butchering date So that way I know I can get my pigs butchered when they're ready I don't want to have to feed them extra feed and be putting on more fat on the pig when you're paying a butcher The harvest and butcher the meat for you you're paying by hanging weight So that goes by how much fat is on the pig too? You don't get to eat that fat So it's a lot of waste of money wasted money you're paying to the butcher or the weight and it's a waste of feed Because they're not putting on as much meat. I hope these tips were helpful If you have any other questions go ahead leave them in the comments below and I'd love to hear some mistakes You made the first time you raised some pigs on your property. Thanks for watching If you liked the video give it a thumbs up share the video it really helps and don't get to subscribe to the channel And we'll see you right back here next time. I'm an agar You