I haven't given up on pigs yet. A lot of the problems I've had with this first 3 were as much me as them. They haven't been aggressive at all, in fact when they were slipping out the electric fence they would follow us back into.the pen, it just took some patience, pigs have to be convinced they want to go where you want them.
Our perimeter fencing wasn't ready and is nowhere near pig proof so I was relying on the hotwire to be able to rotate them through the pasture. It worked for a little while but, once they figured out how to ground it out or slip under, they did what they wanted. Half the time, they'd walk up to the house to see what we were up to.
The smell is really a problem of overcrowding or not rotating them frequently enough. I had none when I could move them with the hotwire. The last 2 months I've had to keep them in a real pen and while it's large for 2 pigs, it is starting to have some odor on hot days. They've also rooted it badly. Once they're gone, I'm going to disc and rake it to level it out again. It'll be a great garden plot next year.
When I get pigs again, which will probably be a year or so, I'm getting them smaller and making sure they get properly trained to the hotwire. We have a 5 acre pasture that we're going to divide into 10 1/2 acre paddocks with hotwire. We'll rotate them into a new paddock every 3-4 weeks with a central wallow, food, water and shelter area. We'll have a couple of breeder sows that we'll AI and farrow our own replacement pigs so I don't have to worry about them having learned bad habits before I got them. I'm looking to get into high end restaurants but, we'll likely start with Farmer's Markets.
This first 3 was a good learning experience, I've made changes to the master plan based on them.
The new little guy, on the other hand, is going to be raised like a dog. He'll have the life of Oscar, no responsibility except to attract attention. He's already doing a good job of that!
