Pig In A Hole

[jaideeguy]

The wife just told me that her father in Issan is involved in a new gov program for raising pigs. The concept sounds good to me.

You simply dig a hole a meter deep and throw in some klab [rice hulls] and then throw in a pig, then throw in some food and pig gets fat and you end up with some rich fertilizer. The best part is that the gov digs the hole, provides the pig, feed and buys the pig back after 4 months. Sounds too good to be true.....

anyone else heard about this plan???

[jerrylee]

The wife just told me that her father in Issan is involved in a new gov program for raising pigs. The concept sounds good to me.

You simply dig a hole a meter deep and throw in some klab [rice hulls] and then throw in a pig, then throw in some food and pig gets fat and you end up with some rich fertilizer. The best part is that the gov digs the hole, provides the pig, feed and buys the pig back after 4 months. Sounds too good to be true.....

anyone else heard about this plan???

If its been raining a lot you'll have pork soup?!

Gov looks after rice as well, how come the american Jazz-mon yields 4 times more than thailand's?

[rfukata]

The wife just told me that her father in Issan is involved in a new gov program for raising pigs. The concept sounds good to me.

You simply dig a hole a meter deep and throw in some klab [rice hulls] and then throw in a pig, then throw in some food and pig gets fat and you end up with some rich fertilizer. The best part is that the gov digs the hole, provides the pig, feed and buys the pig back after 4 months. Sounds too good to be true.....

anyone else heard about this plan???

I live in Issan and just asked my wife if she heard of any thing like this, apparently she has not heard of this pig raising scheme.

agree, The concept sounds good. Maybe it is something conducted at the very local village level and not subsidized by the central govt.

[WatersEdge]

The method works beautifully.

I've seen it in action on two different farms,

regrettably not on my own farm just yet

Imagine pigs that don't stink,

and an absorbent mass of rice hull which retains the urine fertilizer value as well as the manure.

It's one part of a program of intensive natural farming developed by a Korean

If the book given to me is the right guy,

it is Cho Han Kyu's Natural Farming by Janong Natural Farming Institute.

http://janonglove.com/janongusa/intro03.html

I'm not to this level, but even half heartedly it works.

Other vegetation matter works as well as rice hull,

I run coarse Vetiver and Napier grass through the silage chopper,

spread it out on a concrete floor under roof cover,

and daily throw the dry hay to the pigs,

who eat what they want

and then we rake the coarse inedibles into the manure corner.

Even on this limited scale it wipes out the smell of the hog barn.

A quick sideline...

Pigs on a high fiber diet,

eating a lot of corn forage, silage, and grass

have manure that doesn't stink as bad from the beginning.

Don't let the animal feed salesman tell you that pigs can't eat much fiber.

Given free 24 hour choice of

bagged concentrate,

bulk water soaked whole grain corn,

corn chopped green forage,

corn forage silage, and

coarse worthless grass,

a pig will do very nicely and eat a lot of everything.

I don't have a meter of depth to work with in my barn,

it was built before I arrived

so we dig it all out periodically and throw it straight to the field

but the more coarse bulk fibrous useless stuff you can add to hog manure the better.

The hogs actually root through the mixture because they like the smell of it.

They most definitely do not root through straight manure.

My next move is to house hogs in a hoop greenhouse

with a high roof / large air expanse under dry cover that is cheap.

Shadecloth outside over the clear plastic,

or use opaque white plastic from the beginning.

Plastic cover lasts around 4 years.

and the deep mat of vegetation method in the corrals,

with corrals divided by rows of round concrete rings,

doubling as silage bunkers

The rings consume a bit of barn floor space,

but consider the advantage of your feed storage built into the corral walls.

And consider the ability to walk on top of your hog corral walls by throwing a plank over the top

Lining the concrete rings with plastic also makes them suitable storage for dry grain.

and if you can seal dry grain you can also drop an Aluminum Phosphide tablet into it to fumigate all pests.

The greenhouse structure can be sealed or open air walls,

flaps rolled up or down as desired.

and if sealed, the typical hog barn fans can pull fresh air end to end,

with fog sprinklers high overhead as evaporative coolers

Once you see that a greenhouse is not just for plants any more,

it's easy to imagine all sorts of uses for cheap quick dry cover.

grain drying

poultry

cattle & goats

a friend uses it as a fish hatchery processing / shipping shed

Even as worker quarters on the farm....they can live on the fresh air end upstairs

[jaideeguy]

Actually, pig farming has never appealed to me....tried it once in the normal way on concrete and decided against doing it ever again, but this way sounds a lot cleaner and less mess, less smell and less noise with them down in the hole. will grill the wife for more info. she says that is an old technique used by the hill tribe people and it is being revived by the gov.

We have a shallow water table up here in CM riceland, and can see the hole filling with water, but you could pump.

Does anyone know what this method is called?/ I've googled 'pigs in a hole' and didn't find anything.

[WatersEdge]

The key buzzword that always accompanies this method is,

"Happy Pigs"

Everywhere I've seen it in action, or heard it described,

the person talking always gets around to saying, "Happy Pigs"

The second thing that always accompanies it is "Korea Ajahn"

It is clearly attributed to the Korean Teacher even if they don't know his name.

There is a Thai gentleman at Wiang Pa Pao, south of Chiang Rai headed toward Chiang Mai.

His name is Dr. Chokchai Sarakit. I did a bit of google search on his name...

A brief bio on him, http://echoevents.echotech.org/index.php?o...mid=40#chokchai

===========================================

Chokchai Sarakit, having extensive experience related to transformational ministry, worked previously with the Highland Development Project as well as World Vision Foundation Thailand. In recent years, Mr. Chokchai has served through the Northern Sustainable Development Learning Center which promotes Thai Natural Farming. This farm in Chiang Rai province has become a major destination for farmers and technicians seeking to gain skills related to natural farming methods.

============================================

And a piece written by Dr Chokchai himself,

http://janonglove.com/janong/bbs/board.php...d=25&page=5

============================================

After the last visited of Dr. Cho in Thailand at Phrae , the principle of

Knfa is spread out every where in our country , because the crisises of

economy are most problem . The NF center at Phrae trained the famers who are

the leader famers groups by Maejo team under of Prof. They also trained for the other

universities .

At my center Northern Sustainable Development Learning Center , we have

trained about 12,000 famers from every parts of Thailand since the year 2002

, some came from neigbour country Lao , Cambodia. You can search oyr website

www.thainaturalfarming.com , I will prepare CD for you next time.

We are trying to introduce NF to farmers in our country before the

government did not accept , but now is OK ...the came and learn

The universities and Agri.official have NF demonstration and support the

poor farmers to run on Natural farming .

God bless you all.

Chokchai Sarakit====================================

You can house the pigs above ground level...the rice hulls can be contained in a wall with the pigs on top of it.

That's what my friend in Mae Rim north of Chiang Mai does.

The concrete "floor floor" of the barn is ground level,

while the pig foot floor is a meter elevated on rice hull.

He will hire a tractor to empty the entire barn when the right time comes.

The pigs I have seen raised this way are not actually in a hole.

I have seen a pit excavated and filled with rice hull to ground level,

as well as the high wall filled a meter, with pigs mid level

It is more than a manure disposal system.

The inexpensive feed method goes along with it,

fermented banana stalk as the main ingredient

So I think it merits detailed inspection,

particularly for the farmers already headed toward organic.