Autumn Acres Mini Pet Pigs

Episode: 51 /Season 2 / December 5, 2023

Keeping Our Outside Pig Happy And Healthy This Winter

When it comes to keeping a pet pig, many times it’s not ideal in a family’s circumstances to keep a pig in the house. Or you have a pig that was raised in the house but they moved themselves outside, they like to be outside and that is where they want to stay permanently. How do I feel about this? I’m cool with it because a pig’s natural habitat is outside. I have several outside pigs. They each have a fenced in area for them and they each have shelter and a buddy. It works very well. They are happy and they enjoy their lives. When it comes to outside pigs, sometimes they can be an even better pet than an inside pig. Inside pigs are the ones that can have behavioral challenges. But when we move a pig outside or have a pig that’s a pet outside, they generally don’t have behavioral problems at all. Instead of viewing us as members of their herd, they kind of view us as neighbors with benefits because we bring them their food, interact with them and give them scratches and cuddles and yet they are able to have their own space and be territorial over that. There usually aren’t issues with company and strangers with outside pigs. I think that having outside pigs make really great pets. Since pigs are social animals, it is best if your outside pig has a companion unless you interact with them a lot.

One challenge this time of year is keeping our pig warm. How can we keep them warm and safe in the wintertime? We need to make sure that we are able to provide winter weather proof housing. This needs to be completely draft free. Somewhere they can escape from the elements to sleep. At the very least it has to be weatherproof. A small building or one of those prefabricated sheds as housing can work very well. If you have a barn with an extra stall that can be a great spot for the pig to hang out. Once you have housing for your pig, the next step is to make sure all the windows and doors are covered when the weather is bad. Blankets are not ideal for an outside pig because they absorb moisture and freeze in the winter. Straw is my preferred bedding. Straw is bedding and hay is food. Straw is insulating so it keeps a pigs heat next to them when they get down in it and it helps keep them warm. If the weather is 25 degrees or above our pigs do fine outside because they have a hut or barn or housing they can get into that is packed full of straw bedding. We have a small barn building for our pigs so I bought a garage door heater that is hung on the wall and it heats the building. If the weather goes below 20 degrees and especially around 0 we bring all of the animals in and they do really well. They mostly just sleep in the cold weather. If you have an area that is safe for a heater thats a great way to keep your pig warm. We don’t have to have the building in the 80’s, even if we can raise the temperature 10 or 20 degrees it will keep them warm. Other heat options are infrared heaters because they don’t heat the room but they heat the object in front of them. So if you have a smaller building with a small roof you can mount that to the ceiling and they are safe to use in a dusty environment. This is not my advice but options that you can research and decide which is best for your particular circumstances and your pig’s housing that you have. I’m not a huge fan of heat lamps in a dusty environment because of the fire risk.

One other thing we do to protect our pigs feet in the winter time is we shovel a path from the door of their housing to their potty area so they can get to it. If a pig is going to have to walk through deep snow on a very cold day they are not going to want to go to their potty area and will go inside their house and we don’t want them to do that. If you are able to cover an area of their path so you don’t have to shovel snow multiple times a day it is helpful. For our pigs, if the weather isn’t excruciatingly cold, I still feed my pigs outside of the barn so they are always motivated to go outside. There are two things that are extremely important for our pigs in the wintertime. Water. In any extreme temperature water is very important for our pigs body. So we need to make sure that our pigs’ water is not frozen. Check their water several times a day to make sure they have fresh water. The second thing that is important is body condition. Because their body is working so hard to keep them warm and healthy in the winter, we need to make sure we increase their food if they are losing weight. Every one of my pigs lose weight in the winter and need their food increased by at least 25%. I also like to deworm all of them in the fall before winter comes and in the spring. It is very common for outside pigs to get worms because of eating dirt and bugs or dead mice or moles. We don’t want our pigs’ bodies to have to work more competing with parasites for their food. So it’s nice to start the winter parasite free so their body has a good chance to keep themselves warm and healthy this winter.

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