Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I remember seeing a thing on TV many years ago about pigs, maybe in a zoo somewhere and they were exhibiting signs of boredom.
Their caretaker came up with the idea of a ball with food inside it.
As they nuzzled it around, scraps of food fell out of it.
On Demand Foraging Simulator - for pigs

Wonder if it's on youtube...

So when's he going on the spit...

ive just made some very nice plum sauce to go with it mmmmmmmmm

We had pork ribs in plum sauce the other day, I must admit I did feel a little guilty. We saw a spit at the kitchen shoptoday, and stopped and had a litle gigggle, but geez you'd have to do it soon, it wasn't very big and cause I am sure he will grow pretty quick.

I think you can buy a device like that for cats. We had a home made air compressor tank about the size of a 4.5 kg lpg bottle that we would put dried cat food in for our pig (we liked the idea of a pet with a toy cannon ball), but he never really took to it. He was a big pig, and I think the rate the food came out just wasn't worth it when he could always eat grass, roots and bark, but it might work for a smaller pig, or get a bigger cannon ball

Which remind me. Pigs can strip trees of bark, so if there are any trees you care about in the pen, it might be worth wrapping them in chicken wire, or at least keeping an eye on them. It tended to be the loose barked trees that (I think) may have held grubs. smooth bark didnt seem to hold any interest for piggy.

I toyed with the idea of building a few things for piggy that I think he would have really enjoyed...

1. a step that if he stood on would deliver a mist of water. I was thinking of a plank of wood attached to a manual pump so that he would get just one dose when he stood on it. If it was a tap attached to the water supply, he just would have slept on the thing and drained our rainwater tank.

2. a device where he had to step on a plank, and it would pull a string, and dump some food a few feet away, and then he would have to go back to press the lever again to get more feed. The plan was to gradually increase the distance between the two so that eventually he would get a decent workout running between the two stations. Originally he was to be kept in a smaller space, but eventually got the run of 30 acres, so it wasn't needed.

3. a device to take a core of earth (I was going to call this sophisticated device a "Length of plumbing pipe with a core release broom stick inside") so that a peanut could be dropped into the hole to make him dig over our garden. Turned out he didn't need any encouragement

BTW every time I've mentioned peanuts in this thread for training or whatever, I mean peanuts in the shell, eaten shell and all.

Brad was offered peanuts in their shell but wasn't the slightest bit interested.. He's spoiled with fish pellets as treats.. Doesn't even want to eat tomatoes or pig pellets?

Are you feeding him growers pelllets? We were feeding miss piggy growers pellets but they were making her fat (maybe something to do with the wine and beer as well) So we changed to alpaca mix, which she loves and is also losing the excess weight


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I was once young and stupid, i'm not so young now

He is a little piglet, and a fussy one at that. The food that he came with is like a bran/ crumble. He does love the fish food and it is easy to handle, not the nicest to carry in your pocket though. Tried him on the cherry tomatoes and peanuts, Joker ate the nuts, maybe that is why he has a tummy ache now.
Brad is not interested in the grower pellets yet, but he is porking out.
Any idea how I can teach him to sit, when I push on his back end he squeals and fights with me? This little piglet has attitude
This morning the dogs were freaking out with the thunder and lightening and Brad just took himself to bed and had a sleep in until around 8.45, not a care for the bang that came when a transformer was struck at the top of the street by lightening and then started a bush fire.
He just kept on sleeping until it was time to go to work.

"Any idea how I can teach him to sit, when I push on his back end he squeals and fights with me? This little piglet has attitude"


We had trouble getting miss piggy to sit as well, almost impossible to force their bottom down by pushing from above. So i tried grabbing her back legs at the knees while holding a treat in front of her and saying sit, it worked straight away and after just a couple of repeats she did it on command (only if she can see the treat tho ). And yes they have attitude of a teenager


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I was once young and stupid, i'm not so young now

pigs will drop their bums to tilt back their head so try offering the treat above and a little behind their reach while you push down and say sit.

It wont work, but you can try

We gave up

I'm pretty sure bran is bad for pigs. I'll check with the sleeping mrs bullwinkle in the morning.

The only time our pig ever refused food of any kind was when he broke into his feed bin and ate it all. It must have been expanding in his stomach as it was slowly flowing out of the corner of his mouth as he rested after his upsized mega meal. I offered him a banana skin (something he always enjoyed) and he refused it.

Mrs Bullwinkle says pollard as the base of their feed, and bran is bad except for pregnant females.

And no I didn't wake her up to ask

Thankyou to you and Mrs Bullwinkle for the helpful info. I think Seamungus (Like dynamic lifter) is probably also bad for pigs as he did have an upset tummy for couple of days after rooting around in the vegetable garden.

Can you strap a webcam to brad so Mrs. Bullwinkle can have a virtual pig

Is she getting clucky for one...