Project - Pig Self-Watering System

After two sets of pigs, boy have we learned a lot! In the spirit of the old David Letterman Top 10 Lists, here are the top 10 things we have learned about pigs:

1. Pigs are friendly
2. Pigs are mean
3. Pigs will eat just about anything
4. Pigs don't like salad as much as we thought
5. Pigs LOVE water
6. Pigs seem to HATE water (why would you sit in a water bowl if you loved it so much...don't they know it is gross??)
7. Pigs are smarter than we thought
8. Pigs are dumber than we thought
9. Pigs are cleaner than we thought
10. Pigs are even dirtier than we thought

Funny list right? Here is the deal, pigs are fun but a little scary at the same time. They are walking, chubby contradictions.

So now that we are on year three, we realized that we love raising pigs and will keep going but a few things had to change.

Not only did we get self feeders (see image), finally, we built (thank you DIYers on YouTube) some self-watering barrels.  

Here is how we did it.

We found some food grade 55 gallon barrels on OfferUp (or maybe it was FB marketplace or Craigslist...who actually know) and sliced off the top with a plain old circular saw.  The barrels were sealed with two screw off caps only (I think they stored hydrogen peroxide before) but sure you can fill that up, but how would you then empty, rinse, or even do the next step, which was adding the drip system?

After we cut off the top, we gave it a good rinse and drilled a 1/2 inch whole about 9 or so inches from the bottom. We bought a "bulkhead" that allowed us to screw, with washer, one side to a "female" that was threaded on the outside to screw in the "nipple system" we found on the Amazon. With a little plumbing tape, we cinched it down and were up and running in no time!  The little piggies will simply self water themselves (we even saw it in action at the local fair the other day), with there snouts or mouths to get water on demand! We can fill up 55 gallons of water (2 tanks) and they can drink whenever they want and as much as they want without Dominica fearing loss of life going in to the pen to manually fill a water bowl, or have them bang or knock it over by running around, playing, or even laying in it!

This was a DIY, farmstead improvement!