Old Heads been busy - pig trough, automatic watering nipple and our sign

Old Head has been busy getting things together and I've been slacking on writing updates on his escapades.

When the piglets first moved in, Old Head needed something temporary to feed them in until he had a chance to make the trough. But as many people who own pigs know, you can't really just feed them in a bowl because pigs don't necessarily like to do things neatly. (probably where the expressions came from) So... he took a plastic bin that was shallow enough for them to eat out of and screwed it into the board on the side of the cage and for extra security, screwed a large zip tie around it to hold it tight. And it worked great and lasted for several days without breaking!

 Then he dug in and made a trough out of wood.

Since the food was taken care of - well at least he thought so (turns out he had to modify the front a little, it was a bit too high for the piglets, so he had to notch it out after this picture.) - it was time to turn his attention to water.

An automatic watering nipple ($4.55 at Tractor Supply. Side note: the same basic thing was at Petsmart, called a dog faucet waterer for $10.99). is a good constant water supply for animals and can be set up fairly easily. We had to run some pipe from the back of the house over to the pig pen so Old Head ran to Lowes and picked up some 1/2" pvc pipe and several connectors, elbows, a tee, ball valve and pvc glue.

He cut into an existing water line and hooked it up with a tee, then connected pieces and parts, running the line around the corner to the back of the house. 

And down across the back and dug a trench to bury the pipe across the walkway. We decided that putting the water near the feeding trough made sense so he dug a ditch across the side of the fence to meet up with the trough. I went to look up on the internet at what angle to position the nipple and found out that Iowa State University says that watering nipples should be placed in the "dunging" area. Sorry Old Head, could you come back about 8 feet from where you have dug that trench and start one over here instead?  :-)
So, he repositioned the trench to accommodate the new placement and installed the rest of the pipe, including a ball valve so the water pressure could be adjusted per the web site's instructions. Piglets their size (12 to 30 pounds) should be using a water that flows at a rate of 1 cup per minute.

Ta-Da!

So now, he needs to try and teach them to use the automatic watering nipple. So he very patiently, sat there at the edge of the fence, opening and closing the nipple, letting the water drip out so they would see where it was coming from. The only problem was that the pigs are still not quite used to Old Head (or anyone else for that matter) and they scatter every time someone walks by.

But, slowly, they began to peak their heads around to see what was going on.

Until, finally one of them (the "man" of the bunch) decided he would come up and investigate - check it out and make sure it was ok for the girls.

So, with those crises out of the way, Old Head was now able to turn his attention to our identity. The "Our Old Head's Aspirin Acres" sign.

Want more info? Click on the subscribe button on the right to be notified when new posts appear. Or add us to your RSS feeds.