Transcript
JAY: Today wasn’t as bad as yesterday, but, we went out early this morning to get some of the pipe laid out so we could get another field irrigated, and I told them I wanted to leave by noon.
MOLLY: Yeah.
JAY: ‘Cause I had other stuff to do, but also because that way we can get in the air conditioning for once.
MOLLY: Right? Ultimately, to sustain human life, you gotta not spend too long in the heat.
JAY: Absolutely, and it catches up quicker than the older you get apparently.
MOLLY: Yeah. Are the pigs in shade today? You talked a while ago about a pig shade option.
JAY: Yeah. You know, they’re not yet. Well, I mean, there’s some little trees out where they’re at, we’ve been adding extra water…
MOLLY: Mm-hmm
JAY: ...the spot where they’re at right now, there’s... they’ve wallowed it out a bunch, so we just go fill in some holes with water on these hot days like this. Um, hopefully, we have a spot for them now that does have a permanent, um, shade for them, which would be a lot easier, and it would save us work of having to go pour a bunch of water out on the ground and make a muddy mess for them. But, that’s what we’re doing right now ‘cause that’s the easiest and, that’s just what works at the moment.
MOLLY: In the meantime, it’s the basic version of the splash pad at the water park. Just some…
JAY: Exactly.
MOLLY: …muddy holes?
JAY: ... Yep. That’s about right. we have a spot, for them that is connected to a field, so we will be able to have them in a permanent, kind of a hoop house.
MOLLY: Uh-huh.
JAY: And then there’s also a field right there, so we can just fence off sections of the field so they can go in and out. They also have permanent water there. So it solves a lot of the logistical issues that were, proving to be a little bit more challenging than we had hoped about just putting them out on a pasture, like a completely pasture out by itself with no infrastructure there.
MOLLY: Right. So they would spend time on pasture, but just in this one pasture that’s relatively close to the hoop house?
JAY: Yeah, at least for this year. For the remainder of the year until we figure something else out, it would be cool to be able to rotate them around. But also, this pasture is big enough, maybe we end up just calling this the pig pasture…
MOLLY: Right
JAY: .. and we just section that one off and use, different portions of that each year. I don’t know. We’ll see how that kind of all evolves, that’s kind of the thinking, at least to get through this year so we can get them on some good green pasture again, ‘cause they eat it down pretty good and then it rains, and then we get some growth coming back. On these hot days, the big thing is just getting them under a more permanent shelter so that, it’s just easier on them, and, easier on us too.
MOLLY: Yeah, ultimately, the equation about how to do this in the regenerative way, has to take into account the human labor required.
JAY: Exactly.
MOLLY: I mean, on paper, it would look great to have them, I imagine, the pigs rotating amongst pastures. But the reality is you want them also to have access to shade for their well-being, for the, humane treatment of the animals, too. Not every place that they could be has access to shade on a hot day.
JAY: Yeah, basically none of them do as far as the actual fields. Because, all the other years they’re fields, you know? And they’re either getting grazed with cows, and we have a big shade structure for the cows but those are very, very expensive, And pigs are notoriously hard on things. Like, cows, I mean, they might rub against it a little bit, but pigs would figure some way to eat the tires off or something. They are really hard on things. So to spend the kind of money it would take to buy a nice structure like that, it just may not be the best money spent on something like that.
MOLLY: Yeah, yeah.
JAY: Yeah. So that’s one of the things we’ve been thinking about, but that we haven’t quite got done. Today we did get, um, another field under irrigation again.
MOLLY: Great. Thank you, and thanks for your time.
JAY: Yep, have a good day.
MOLLY: Stay cool.
JAY: Thank you.
MOLLY: Bye.
