September 11, 2024

Bloody Knuckles & Pig Pens

Finito! After a few days of work we’ve finally finished our new pig pen at Hacienda Dominguez & Chelenzo Farms, replete with luxurious sleeping quarters under a new tin roof and a holding-transitional pen where we we will place a mud bath. We’ve got an old green bath tub we can sink into the ground, which hopefully will keep our forthcoming swine happy.

We still have to install a 55 galllon barrel for water and find a reliable source of food to serve as the primary basis for slop, because we’ll need 5 lbs a day per pig!

Although we’re getting a pair of piglets, they grow fast and within six months they will weigh in at 150-175 lbs and be ready for slaughter.

That all said, we visited a local pig farm last weekend and we’ve been warned…don’t expect anything pretty to last very long. They said, “Sure, you can sink a few hundred bucks into building a pig palace and find you’ll have to continually repair the castle, or you can simply cut and paste a hodgepodge of recycled materials together. You’ll have to take ten minutes every once in a while to reinforce your ramshackle shanty pig town, but best to not worry so much about the inevitable destruction.”

Pictured here is a documentary of the pen construction, along with the bloody knuckle that is par for the course of farm work.