We’ve got this chicken-secure stall in the barn that we’ve been referring to as our “Chicken Prison.” That stall is where we put any chicken that is suspected of doing something bad (eating eggs, laying in the haybales) or is otherwise sick and in need of isolation. It’s come in very handy for the chickens and turkeys this year.
With all the goings on with pigs this fall, it was high time we built a pig prison.
So there it is, the new pig prison. It’s got two “cells” that each have a separate indoor and outdoor area. The outdoor run can then open to the rest of the paddock if the pigs are ready to be let out.
We made it out of a lot of scraped-together materials: recycled dog-kennel gates, livestock panels.
Right now, we’ve got the feeder pigs in one side, and Harry in the other.
Harry needed a nice place to cool his heels for a week while he adjusts to life on our farm. He’s coming along pretty well, and by Tuesday he’ll be ready to come out and play nice with our fences.
After Harry’s done his time I’ll add a bit of electric fence wire to make the cell a “training pen” for any new pigs on our farm. A training pen is where a new animal is “trained” to avoid electric fence wire. Just place pigs or cows in a securely-fenced area with a little bit of electric fence. In a few days they all know to stay the heck away from that little grey wire. That thing hurts!
Once they’ve been trained to electric fence, they can be let out on pasture.
Harry would love to be out on pasture, but he has a few more days left on his sentence.
Till then he’ll just hunker down and wait it out.
