$5 Pig Waterer

If you've ever had pigs, you know how hard it can be to keep their water trough clean.  Heck, even if you've never had pigs I'm sure you know how much they love mud.  Pigs + water = mud!   I started out with a few shallow water pans for the pigs, and I'd have to fill them several times a day.  As soon as I'd fill them, the pigs would flop over on them.

I got tired of having to refill them all the time, so we made a pig waterer.   It cost us $5, since all it took was a barrel and a nipple.   We already had the barrel (it was our chicken cooling barrel when we raised meat chickens).  It was simple to make, we just cut a hole in the barrel and used Q-Bond (a heavy duty super-glue like material) to glue the nipple in place.  It has held up beautifully. 























Then we set the waterer outside of the pig pen and put the nipple through the fence. We elevated it so the nipple is almost a foot off the ground.  
















It took them a while to use it, so I left the old water pans in there for a few weeks.  They weren't figuring out how to use it, so when I was home all day one weekend I took their water pans out and used marshmallows to entice them to bite the nipple.

















After about 20 minutes and 10 marshmallows (stuck on the end of the nipple), they finally figured it out.  Actually, it was the littlest piglet who figured it out first.  Once he got it, the others copied him.  Now they always have fresh clean water, and I don't have to refill it multiple times a day!

I do still give them a mud hole though.  You can't have pigs in these hot summers without giving them a wallow!

Purl & June Happenings

This is an order of soap going out to a local produce market, Mason's Heritage.  Stop by and see what other local produce and goods they have!

And here's the new business card!  They're should be at my door this afternoon, hot off the press!

And if you're local (or want to travel), Purl & June will be at the Art of the Deals craft show in Centreville, MD this Saturday June 16th from 9-1pm.   Come one out and see us, and support other local artists!

Big Pig

Here is an updated picture of the big pig.  She probably weighs around 150ish pounds by now.  We're planning on having a whole-hog BBQ at the end of the month.  I'll be a little sad to see her go, but I think I'll be ready.  We'll keep the 2 smaller pigs to raise up for the freezer.  Hopefully they'll be ready come fall. 

Buford is some sort of terrier mix, and his shaggy hair tends to pick up ticks.  Now that we don't have guineas anymore, I've definitely noticed more ticks.  I'm not sure I'm ready to get more guineas again, so I decided to give Buford a trim so he hopefully won't be such a tick magnet.  You can click on this post to see his "before" look. 

And here's his after. I really like it!
















I left a his shaggy eyebrows and beard though, since he's so cute with those. I think he looks better this way, and this will be his new summer haircut from now on!

While I was taking photos, I decided to get one of both dogs.  Elmer likes to look for birds.

I love this pic below.  I asked the dogs "Who is it?!" and they both snapped to attention. 

It's great to have dogs, isn't it?