October 17 2010

Winter Hog Shelter

Yep, it’s that time again. Time to get the old farm ready for the snow and ice. Part of that is to figure out where all of those hogs are going to spend the winter.

After driving to Home Depot and pricing all of the pressure treated lumber we would need to build sheds for all of the new hogs we bought this year, and freaking out at each 4×8 shelter costing over $200 just in lumber, we decided to go with hoop houses again. We’ve overwintered our mature hogs for the last two winters in these and most of the hoops are still standing (the ones that aren’t fell victim to little goats thinking they were mountains needing to be climbed…).

If you don’t know what hoop houses are, here is a good site with photos and instructions. They work very well for yearling and older hogs during the coldest of nights as long as there is lots of hay inside. However, we keep our piglets and their sows in smaller huts with heat lamps.

Anyway, here is the website. We add a tarp to cover the back of ours.