# How to build a pig pen?



## wildhorse

Dad is wanting to sell me a piglet....I know nothing about pigs...I need to know the best and quickest way to build a pig pen.


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## luvrulz

Easiest quickest way is to go buy some hog panels and put them together. We have a shady wooded area with lots of trees and we've put this 16' panels in amonst the trees and used cable ties and landscape timbers to put them together on the corners. You can even use fence staples and nail them into the trees for a more permanent structure. We wanted something more movable..... If they're piglets, this would be great and easy. Buy four panels and you're good to go!


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## Beeman

Hog panels and T-posts is the quickest way, will cost you though as they aren't cheap.

This isn't the best way to get into pig or any other animal raising. it's better if all of the housing and feeding needs are met before you get the animal.


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## pointer_hunter

I ran a hot wire about 4 to 6 inches off the ground, put in the pigs and plugged in the charger. I watched them get popped a few times and then that was it. They have gotten big enough now to just step over the wire but they haven't. I just went out yesterday and raised it up a few inches to get it out of the snow. That was a pretty cheap, quick and easy way to do it.


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## FarmerCop

I used pallets it worked and it was free


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## How Do I

If I had to do it all over again (which I plan to this coming Spring), I'd have gone with the hog panels. Think I priced them at around $25.00 a piece at Tractor Supply in Elizabethtown. We used cheap garden fencing and the the pig was constantly pulling up the fencing and making his way out of the pen. After they get a little older, they can't make it under the fence any more. Thank goodness! There are some good books at the library on *raising pigs*. Wish I would have thought about that before the pig arrived. Beeman does make a good point, but ours was a take it or leave it sort of thing.


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## Kmac15

we used wooden fence posts (traded for labor) lined with roofing tin (blew off a shed in a storm) and scrap lumber for a shelter. Total cost was $16 for strong hinges for the gate.


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## james dilley

I have used Cattle Panels for hogs just put the T posts 8' O C and they'll hold. When I used Old Pallets, I would dig A trench 8" deep and set the Skids into the trench. . That made it hard for them to try and bull their way out!


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## CGUARDSMAN

mine last summer.


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## highlands

If you want to easily enclose a larger area for grazing which you can move about for rotation use electrified poultry netting. Clip the bottom couple of leads on the end posts to minimize grounding. Pallets make great housing. Rotate around the pallet point.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org


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## Beeman

How Do I said:


> If I had to do it all over again (which I plan to this coming Spring), I'd have gone with the hog panels. Think I priced them at around $25.00 a piece at Tractor Supply in Elizabethtown. We used cheap garden fencing and the the pig was constantly pulling up the fencing and making his way out of the pen. After they get a little older, they can't make it under the fence any more. Thank goodness! There are some good books at the library on *raising pigs*. Wish I would have thought about that before the pig arrived. Beeman does make a good point, but ours was a take it or leave it sort of thing.



I used hog panels and T-posts, didn't take long before I had to run a hot wire inside the panels. Penned up pigs are rambunctious. They will root to China and flip a hog panel out in no time and they're like a bulldozer that can tunnel. This year I'm going to expand the pen and use electric inside of that plastic construction fence.


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## christij

What is the rule for how far off the ground the electric needs to be vs the size of the pig?


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## nathan104

This probably fits here in this post. 

Using the hog panels as suggested, what size area would be needed for two hogs? We are thinking of using the hog panels and T-post dea temporaily over the area of pasture we are planing to put a garden. That way over the next few weeks before planting time, they can eat all the grass and roots and till the area while fertilizing it as well.


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## Jcran

Not sure who recommended electric web fencing, but boy howdy, is that the best thing we've used on all our critters. You can get the temporary (moveable) webbed electric fencing from Premier Fencing company. Its expensive but lasts and you can graze your animals all around your property. Right now we're using one length to have weanling boer goats clean up the invasive acacia around our giant redwood stump. Goatios sleep inside the stump at night, eat the sprouting acacia during the day. The super overgrown garden beds at the back of the house have 10 chickens living inside the perimeter of the other length of webbed electric. The grass is gone, the garden is getting fertilized, and we've had ZERO predation from our plethora of foxes and skunks. The only thing you have to remember is to turn the darned wire on when you are not in the pen. Had three goats out last night at 10 p.m. running around the front yard, and my husband realized the wire had been left off after collecting eggs.


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## highlands

We use the poultry netting. There are several heights. If you use the shorter 32" netting you can hop right over without even having to turn off the netting when going in and out. The small pigs right up through finishers don't jump that height although I have had a nursing 600 lb sow pop over the fence without even brushing a single teat. For them string a hot wire above the fence.

I would suggest getting the netting that has the smaller holes, at least at the bottom, so that small pigs don't stick their heads through and get stuck.

We clip the leads to the bottom two horizontal hot wires so they don't ground out. 

The netting is very useful for weaning too.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org


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## Jcran

highlands said:


> We use the poultry netting.


The poultry netting is what we use as well. I've still got some of the other electric e'stop fencing that I started the goats with; however, the poultry fencing's smaller holes seems to be safer for every critter on the place. It's worth every penny.


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## Brother Jay

This discussion is VERY helpful. Thank you. I'll be getting a breeding pair of Large Blacks in September (2013) and I'm in the process of putting together the hog pasture. I envision an area roughly larger than 1 acre and split up into 4 to 6 paddocks. It sounds like the hog panels (Combo panels are what I think I prefer) plus 4x4 posts might work? What do you all think?


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## M88A1

Hogs will rub on everything you have to scratch an itch. Bad point about 4x4 is once they become wobly its a ton of work to pull one out and put it back in. T-posts work good and can be relocated easy. We had 2 Duroc and a Red Wattle in a hog panel/T-post enclosure and it worked great.


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## bigmudder77

train them on electric first before just letting them run free in it we had some when we first did that and they got shocked on one end and turned and ran right through the other end we just had electric though not anything else 

and make sure you put a T post where then pannels meet and tie them good they like to root them up and they get big enough they just bend them and there out


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