Learn the details of how to build a pig fence and keep your hogs hemmed in with our clever and effective pig fencing ideas.
“Pigs are out!”
These are the words no farmer ever wants to hear. Escaped pigs are fast, ornery, and destructive. A couple of pigs rooting around in your garden can do catastrophic damage in no time, turning up entire rows of vegetables or trampling small trees and bushes. There’s no guarantee a loose pig will take the bribes you offer to lure them back into their enclosure. Worse still, once a pig has figured out how to escape a fencing system, it’ll keep repeating its escapes.
Adequate pig fencing is critical to successful pig farming. Without proper fences, keeping pigs contained is an endless headache that’ll have you throwing up your hands in frustration. Here are a few options for keeping those troublesome porkers within their perimeters.
Hog Panels and Welded Wire
Since they’re called “hog panels,” you might assume these large squares of welded wire, approximately 8 feet long and 4 feet high, are the best way to keep a pig enclosed. Hog panels or other welded wire, such as “no-climb” fencing, are secured in place using T-posts driven into the ground or larger cedar posts buried in the dirt. You can even secure them to plastic fence posts that just press into the earth, but such a system won’t hold pigs for long.
Because pigs are constantly rooting, they can loosen and escape through hog-panel fencing. They’ll root and dig around the panels, sometimes uprooting fence posts or just using their weight to press out the panels. While you can bury welded wire for reinforcement, a pig’s snout can dig down 2 feet (or more), so burying fence lines isn’t always a suitable solution. It’s because of their rooting that chain link and even barbed wire alone can also fail at fencing in pigs.
Welded-wire fencing is often a great choice for piglets, who aren’t going to be as strong in their rooting as adult pigs and may not be old enough to understand the shock of electric wire. For adult pigs, hog panels can contain them, but use additional fencing to create a more secure hog pasture.
Electric Netting and Electric Wire
One of the best options for fencing pigs is straightforward electric fencing. You can set up a whole pasture with welded wires, wood panels, barbed wire, or chain link, and it won’t contain pigs as well as an electric fence will.
The earlier you start using electric fencing for your piglets, the quicker they’ll understand what it does. Confine piglets to a small area, where they’re more likely to get bored and explore the fencing. They’ll get a shock and valuable lesson simultaneously. A single strand of polywire around the perimeter, backed by a solid fence – pallets work well – will be sufficient.
Once a pig understands the concept of electric fencing, even a 900-pound mature adult can be contained by only one or two strands of polywire. Make sure the fence is always working, with no shorts and a proper ground. As with most farm livestock, pigs will occasionally test the fence, and if it’s not on, they’ll quickly realize they can get through it. Make the single-strand polywire more noticeable to poor-sighted pigs by attaching colorful plastic ribbons. Place a strand of wire at 6 inches high and another around 12 inches to ensure your pig sees the wire and gets shocked regardless of how they approach the fence. You can add a third line if you’re concerned about pigs jumping over the fence – something that’s rare but does happen.
You can also opt to use electric-net fencing. A pig can more easily see that type of fencing, and you can also handily pick up and move the fencing if you’re doing rotational grazing.
When confining pigs, make sure your fence is carrying at least 3,000 volts. You can achieve this voltage with a good solar charger in full sun or by using an energizer box. For rotational grazing, solar chargers are simple to move with the fence to the next pasture. Energizer boxes best serve more permanent pasture lines or winter areas.
If you’re using electric fencing in winter, dig out the netting and clear it of ice and snow after a storm. Ice damages polywire, so scrape it off the wire to keep the fencing functional.
Combine Fencing Options
Sometimes, the best fencing option is a combination of setups, such as some electric wiring in front of welded-wire panels. The welded wire can contain the pigs if the electric netting is down, and the netting will help prevent the pigs from testing the wire barrier. This is often the best policy for meat piglets or when overwintering pigs, situations where you may have them in one area for several months.
Rotational Grazing
Pigs are nature’s rototillers, making them incredibly effective rotational grazers. They’ll root up vegetation and turn over the land, leaving raw dirt. They can take out invasive species this way or remove persistent brush that other animals may eat back annually but never remove.
When trained on electric netting, pigs can easily rotate through pastures. Use a few lines of polywire or spare netting to set up a small, temporary area for them while you move their main fencing. Then, lay out the new line and set up the netting. Make sure there are no shorts in the line and the charger is grounded before introducing the pigs to the area.
Just two pigs can clear up approximately 1/5 of an acre within 7 to 10 days. A smaller space or more pigs will get the job done quicker.
When doing rotational grazing, watch out for potential hazards to your pigs. They may root up old barbed-wire fence lines, which can injure them. Keep an eye out for plants that are poisonous to pigs: jimsonweed (also known as “stinkweed” or “devil’s trumpet”), deadly nightshade, rhododendron, foxglove, and hemlock, among others. Most of these plants are only lethal if large quantities are consumed. While pigs will generally avoid them, checking your pastures can prevent illness among livestock.
Happy Homestead, Happy Pigs
When our first piglets arrived, we had our share of escapes before they settled in. First, they learned and tested the electric fencing, challenging the pallets behind them whenever they’d surge forward after getting shocked. Next, they’d root underneath welded-wire lines, pushing out hog panels with their massive, curious noses. Finally, they’d escape during winter months when snow and ice buried their electric lines.
Today, our pigs are used to the hum of their electric netting and won’t challenge the lines. They still root around hog panels, but they don’t get close enough to uproot them, thanks to some polywire in front of the panels. All of this helps give us peace of mind, knowing the pigs are hard at work in their pasture area and not uprooting the lawn or breaking into the neighbor’s for snacks.
Kirsten Lie-Nielsen is a freelance writer focused on climate change, sustainability, modern agriculture, and rural lifestyles. She’s the author of two books on homesteading and lives in rural Maine with her husband and many animals on a restored farm. Find more of her work at www.HostileValleyLiving.com and Instagram @HostileValleyLiving.
