HELP!! My pig pens smell awful?

Question

I have a really foul odor coming from my pig pens. They do eat a lot of scraps from the local market but I still have the smell even when I feed them grain. They have a mud hole section in there pen and a automatic watering system. Any ideas on how to keep the smell down?

Answer 1

Welcome to owning pigs... they really smell horrible!  This is the main reason I haven't expanded our farm to include them.

Ever notice how even spotlessly clean pens at fair stink?  Those hogs are even bedded on concrete and pine shavings.

Do you have them on concrete at all, or just dirt?  Concrete can be hosed down.  You can also "rinse" their mud wallow regularly, which they love.  But the main cause of that nasty smell is their f***s - and well, pigs c**p.  Alot.  

The best (and probably the only) way to keep the smell down is to make their pen and housing mobile.  Pigs root and wallow and are great at tearing up ground (as I'm sure you've noticed).  Most people I know raising hogs will move them regularly - and the pigs are also used to turn ground for planting.  Once the animals have sufficiently rooted up the ground, they're rotated to the next section and their previous pen is allowed to dry out before its planted.  Cheaper than tilling and plowing for sure - and they've already added lots of free fertilizer.

I wouldn't recommend adding lime or any chemical, because I don't know what kind of effect that would have on the animals.  But if you need to keep flies down, you can add food-grade DE (diamotous earth) to their pens and their feed.  DE is a natural way to eliminate flies safely.