Farm Progress: The Farrowing Huts are Finished

We finished building the new farrowing huts with virtually no time to spare.  So far the design of the huts seems to be working well.  We have been busy, busy with taking turns checking on sows and gilts pigging around the clock.  All the hard work pays off though when we see those healthy, cute baby pigs thriving!!

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Most of the huts now have the doors shut since there are sows with litters in them. I didn’t think to take a picture when we finished up the huts. As you can see, the doors on the east end don’t seal shut so at some point we will build new doors to replace them.

We intentionally do not bed the center aisle so that the sows will pick a hut to farrow (have baby pigs) rather than farrowing in the aisle.  This is also where we feed and water them.  Each of the huts are 6’x8′ with an area in the back designed for the baby pigs to be under the heat lamp.

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This is looking into the door of one of the huts.

 

Faithful Homestead hereford pigs
This is our first litter of Hereford being born

We also got the new doors built and installed on the west side of the farrowing barn.  We purchased some used metal for the doors.  The door kit we purchased made building the doors go fairly quickly.  Hanging them was a little bit challenging but with the help of the older kids we got them up.

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Blessings,
Jennifer

 

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1 Comment

  1. Great sight, and interesting. Did you say Hereford hogs. That is a new one on me, but then I am from the ole’ school. lp

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