I can see why a lot of people here are upset about this site becoming less and less tech oriented. At some point this site is going to be reddit without the images.
Everyone used to raise hogs (2016)
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: Everyone used to raise hogs (2016)
#22There's a reason we all don't all raise hogs now. A lot of my family in the Philippines have pigs in their back yard. It's not a set-and-forget affair. You like cleaning up kitty litter? Times the cleanup job by about a million, with a hose, and gumboots.
Our next door neighbour (in a semi-rural area in Kent in the UK) is raising two pigs right now. They have an enclosure 10m x 10m, and they only poop in one corner. They have done a great job of turning the earth over though.
We're also lucky in that our village butchers also has an abattoir round the back so they only need to be taken two miles away to be killed.
Re: Everyone used to raise hogs (2016)
#23Everyone used to be at risk of trichinosis as well, from feeding their hogs shit and garbage.
Re: Everyone used to raise hogs (2016)
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I grew up we raised a few pigs each year until I was 14. I don’t recall the cleaning being too demanding at all, and it was done by my siblings and I after school. What I remember as a distinct challenge is the horrible experience of killing them and then butchering them. That was the worst “clean up”. Pigs are really wonderful animals when given the right treatment and environment. They’re very sweet, excitable…
When I was a kid we had one that loved to roll on its back and get a tummy scratch. That one had a distinct personality. We were all very sad when it was time to butcher it. Then there are all the anecdotes every year when the pig would run away and my father or uncle would chase it with the hammer or axe to knock it out. Around here all the slaughters traditionally happened in a few days in November so the whole vil…
Wow... It's so weird to read "we were all very sad when it was time to butcher it." I've raised three pigs. One of them passed, due to a fatal illness that was likely a genetic defect. All of them have personalities and their interpersonal engagements are fascinating. I had to put down an aggressive rooster and it had me in tears. I can't imagine how disturbing it would be to put down a pig (I still feel sad about the one who passed. she was incredible). Do you still eat pork?
Re: Everyone used to raise hogs (2016)
#25There's a reason we all don't all raise hogs now. A lot of my family in the Philippines have pigs in their back yard. It's not a set-and-forget affair. You like cleaning up kitty litter? Times the cleanup job by about a million, with a hose, and gumboots.
It depends on how intensive the setup is. My grandparents had about 3 pigs, 2 cows and one horse in a common animal yard, covered in large, raised river stone, and a yard within the yard just for the pigs. The pigs also had a separate stable room for sleeping (really dirty indeed) and the cows and horse would sleep together in the same stable room (even though they had available individual rooms, I guess the horse di…
My pigs do a decent job of mowing parts of the back acreage. They prefer to hang near the house for shade (still need to finish building the stalls in th barn). We give them pig feed and fresh fruits/vegetables but they're purpose built eaters, so they just graze and graze. Keeping them warm in the TX freeze last year took aot of work but that was a freak incident (for now). Access to fresh water (dog pools) and lots of grassy acreage means they can pretty well take care of themselves.
Re: Everyone used to raise hogs (2016)
#26There's a reason we all don't all raise hogs now. A lot of my family in the Philippines have pigs in their back yard. It's not a set-and-forget affair. You like cleaning up kitty litter? Times the cleanup job by about a million, with a hose, and gumboots.
Yeah, this is a really high-maintenance animal. Besides the fact that you’d have to kill it at some point of its life for meat. I think that a goat might be a better idea. I love goat milk products, so no killing is necessary to make keeping them worthwhile. They are also cute!
You don't have to kill them. They're great pets. With a decent sized yard, the mess is minimal. We periodically scoop where the kids play but that's it. My ground is more fertile for it.
Re: Everyone used to raise hogs (2016)
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was a kid we had one that loved to roll on its back and get a tummy scratch. That one had a distinct personality. We were all very sad when it was time to butcher it. Then there are all the anecdotes every year when the pig would run away and my father or uncle would chase it with the hammer or axe to knock it out. Around here all the slaughters traditionally happened in a few days in November so the whole vil…
Wow... It's so weird to read "we were all very sad when it was time to butcher it." I've raised three pigs. One of them passed, due to a fatal illness that was likely a genetic defect. All of them have personalities and their interpersonal engagements are fascinating. I had to put down an aggressive rooster and it had me in tears. I can't imagine how disturbing it would be to put down a pig (I still feel sad about th…
I don't eat meat except for fish, but my family still does very much so. It's just not economically sound to keep the animal if you don't intend to kill it for meat. Especially for older generations here who grew up in poverty and experienced real hunger.
Re: Everyone used to raise hogs (2016)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah exactly. Cycads for example are a very poisonous plant. Yet there's an entire island in Japan where people use cycads for everything from flour to alcoholic beverages Maize is another good example of this. When white people took corn with them and forced parts of Africa to grow it from them, they didn't take along with them the knowledge of the complex process of nixtamalization. That's the way native peoples pr…
To be clear, corn is not toxic when untreated, unless it's infected with some fungus. Regular yellow cornmeal isn't nixtamalized and is safe to eat. It just leaves you with vitamin deficiency if you don't have another appropriate source of vitamin B3.
And you can’t make a dough from it - it just crumbles.