Well, can you?
You bet your boot-scootin’-booty you can keep pigs and chickens together!
When we were getting ready to bring our pigs home, we thought a lot about where to keep them and how they’d work on our homestead. It made sense to us to keep them with our chickens. Having them together would make chores more efficient. Pigs like to root and chickens like to scratch. They can work together. And like they say - “integrate rather than separate” (permaculture principle #8).
What's the catch?
Many people have concerns with pigs eating chickens. A chicken-eating-pig is a symptom. If the pigs are bored, hungry, or angry, well…chickens solve all those problems. So be nice to your pigs, and they’ll be nice to your chickens. If a chicken gets eaten, separate them before you loose your whole flock, then sit your butt down and ponder every life choice you’ve ever made.
Just kidding. That’s terrible advice.
Make sure they all have room to do their thing. Pigs are smart, chickens are dumb, so of course…accidents happen.
Moving on!
Our Experience
We picked our pigs up in the spring when they were 6 weeks old. Our chickens were still in their winter pen, but we were preparing to move them into the chicken tractor, and out to grass.
The piglets joined our chickens right away, in the solid wood fence. No one escapes that place unless they get reeeeal fancy. The pig’s food and water was put out in rubber feed pans. The chickens helped themselves, and we didn’t care. The pig’s also helped themselves to the chicken’s food, and we still didn’t care. The piglets were too small to reach the nesting boxes, so egg production was still a GO. They were only together at this time for a few days.
Then the chickens got sent out to work around the yard, while the pigs stayed in the “wood pen”, to til up the winter bedding.
Fast forward a few weeks, and we’re finally ready to get everybody back together to work up the storage garden. This garden is so overgrown with quackgrass, so we want the pigs and chickens to spend the rest of the summer destroying it.
The storage garden is located just on the other side of the wood pen. So, once we got our electric fence in place (around the garden), all we had to do was roll in the chicken tractor, and open the gate for the pigs.
The chickens moved in first, then the pigs. Everyone survived.
As always, the animals were so excited to have a new spot to explore. The pigs ate up all the chicken food, sniffed every chicken, tried to climb into the chicken tractor, and tried to electrocute themselves. They had it all figured out in the first five minutes. The chickens just ran away from……life. But they had a sweet dust bath.
Anyways! No one died. But we do need to work on our feeding arrangement. Since the garden area is right beside the winter coop, we decided to move the hens out of the tractor and back into the coop. The nesting boxes are better too. This is where we are keeping their food. It was all good, until the little bacon seeds decided to stuff themselves through the chicken door, and bust it up on the way out (we did not think they’d fit). We’re working on it.
(the temporary fix for the broken door)
Water is still available for everyone from the rubber feed pans. We’re still waiting for a part to finish off the rainwater fed nipple watering system for the pigs.
The only challenge we’ve faced with keeping our pigs and chickens together, is separating their food. But, there are plenty of creative solutions we could try.
A Few More Positives to Keeping Pigs and Chickens Together
It’s diverse. If nature doesn’t keep them separated, why should we?
Pests are managed better. The pigs root up the soil and then the chickens can dust bathe to keep the pests off. The chickens also eat the flies and larvae that can bother the pigs.
There is less food waste, as the chickens can clean up anything the pigs missed.
The chickens are safer from predators with the pigs around.
There’s adventure and excitement. Chicken’s are fun. Pigs are fun. But chickens AND pigs are funner.
Come watch us on Youtube!
In this video, the pigs and chickens get together again, and we do some gardening!
Do you keep your pigs and chickens together? What creative solutions do you use to keep their feed separated?