Homemade Mobile Pastured-Pig Shelter
To get Sunnyside Farm's cut-flower beds ready for planting, Dru Peters uses the pigs in her Homemade Mobile Pastured-Pig Shelter to till and fertilize the beds. So completely do they prepare the ground inside the pen that she often has to move it more than once a day. The shelter consists of two 10-foot and two 5-foot pressure-treated 2- by 6-inch boards corner-fastened to each other at ground level, with hog panels attached to them and bent to form the sidewalls and roof, being wired together at the top then covered in tough canvas. Wheels are mounted to T-fittings connected to other T's on a pipe axle that runs through the two longer boards about two-thirds back from the front. Six-foot pipes are attached to the axle on both sides, with T's bent to near-vertical position. To move the pen, a rope attached to another set of T's near the top of the two pipes is pulled downward angling them to a horizontal position; this raises the pen up on its wheels so it can be rolled forward to the next 10 feet of untilled ground. After the beds are prepared, the shelter is relocated to rid her fencerows of grass and weeds.
Cost range: See below
Limitations Addressed by Product: Lower extremity, Upper extremity, Strength/endurance, Back
Source | Adapted from Farm Show Magazine, Vol. 43, No. 5 Dru Peters Sunnyside Farm |
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sunnysidedru@gmail.com | |
Est. Cost | $300 plus labor |
Last updated: Oct 16, 2020