Organic pig farm denied permit

[belarus]

A proposed livestock operation in Georgia was given permission to continue for everything except the pigs according to this article.

http://www.ellinghuysen.com/news/articles/110903.shtml

[suey1973]

The comments made about the hogs were absolutely riddiculous!   You can't keep pigs in a pen!!   If you know how to build a fence they'll stay in.    I've been told that goats are hard to fence in.  I think that a cow could do more damage to a cemetery. 

And then they'll become feral hogs????        Is the place populated with Muslims and Jews?    My question is:   our they talking a total of 80 hogs,  or 80 sows?   Would make some difference.    

[wt510151]

If we can't keep our kids from vandalizing cementaries, what does that say about us? It looks like the area is more city oriented, given their approval for a pet crematorium. Bad fences will not contain any animal. Bad fences equal bad neighbors. The article doesn't say whether these applicants have had any loose animals in the past.

[hardnox604008 · Accepted solution]

FWIW,

More than 20 years ago I had a bunch of overrun sows farrowing in pasture huts about a hundred yards from the highway.

It tickled me to death, seemed like most every day there would be folks pulled off watching the sows and pigs, taking pictures etc. Lots of women in foreign luxury sedans.

I think people would actaully get a kick out of them if it was accurately presented.

[belarus]

That is exactly what will happen.  We have all kinds of people stopping to look at the sows and pigs.  The only that we have that gets more lookers and is a bigger draw is a field with 2000 turkeys.

Now that doesn't mean that pigs that get out can't be destructive.  Little pigs still on the sow can slip through pretty small holes and if the ground is wet they can do a number on a yard in a hurry.  I would have recommended a secondary containment fence , at least one of them 48" woven wire, and the woven wire makes a lane all the way around the outside of the pigs pasture just so they never had issues.  2 legged predators in high human areas could be a serious issue for them and a secondary fence with proper electric fence on one can do a lot to control that.

[hardnox604008]

or maybe helped them, I don't know. But all we used to hear about was how we had to have uniform, lean pork to ship to Japan.

I'd had a bunch of sows running out on fenced stalk field in late winter- there was a fair amount of ear drop all I'd do I'd throw a pound of cubes/head over the fence every day. These were probably 5th or better parity sows and they did get huge. Having walked the field for a couple of months they were fine to farrow but they really did look like 1940s cob rollers with bellies almost in the mud.

Anyway, it was close to farrowing date and we were loading them on a trailer at a gate on the highway. Darned if I don't look up and there's a bus pulled over and a whole load of Japanese tourists are lining the road, with the requisite multiple cameras strung around their necks and just smiling and taking picures like crazy.

I've always figured that somebody in Japan probably showed one of those pictures to a salesman from the NPPC and made him have a stroke.

But you know, might have sold more pork than they might have thought.

[belarus]

Maybe it was investors in Delphi?  And they are still wondering why they never seen that pork in Japan?