Do-it-yourself pigsty: construction, device

It is better to raise pigs in a specially designated room for this, and not together with other cattle. You can build a pigsty with your own hands from any inexpensive material in your area. It is important to know the features, correctly calculate the dimensions and proportions. 

Dimensions and layout

The size of the pigsty depends on the livestock that you plan to keep. The footage for pigs at different ages is different, as is the number of animals that can live in one pen. To make it easier to navigate, the data is summarized in a table.

Based on these dimensions, it is necessary to plan a pigsty. It makes no sense to make many pens of different sizes, therefore they basically make two sizes of 3 * 4 m – for sows with piglets and keeping the rest of the livestock and 4 * 4 meters – fattening machines.

If the width of the building allows, the machines (cages, corrals) are located on both sides of the central aisle. For convenient maintenance, the width of the passage is at least 1,5 meters. The total width of the pigsty is about 10 meters. The length depends on the planned livestock. An example of a two-row arrangement of machines is in the photo below.

If the building is not wide, the corrals are made on one side, it is not recommended to make a passage already, it is inconvenient to work. If necessary, it is better to make the machines less deep or slightly smaller than the norm.

In addition, it is necessary to provide for the presence of a paddock – a summer playground with a canopy. In warm weather, pigs spend most of their time outdoors. This has a good effect on the rate of mass gain. Also at this time, you can close the barn for repairs.

A good pigsty design – with a fenced-off range for each of the machines (see photo).

If necessary, you can make the pigsty wider, with a passage from the back of the machines – for convenient maintenance. A similar option is in the following photos. Entrance to the pigsty on one side, paddocks on the other.

Foundation

Under pigsties, strip foundations are most often made. Other types of bases are rarely set. Sometimes you can see a pile or columnar, usually with a grillage.

The foundation tape is made shallow (60-70 cm deep) and, basically, only along the perimeter, since the common space is partitioned off only by low – a meter high – partitions. If they make a separate room, then they fence it off with very light walls, more often from boards (usually this is a utility room for storing inventory). Under such partitions, the base is not required, enough support in the floor.

If you decide to build a pigsty with your own hands, the question may arise: pour a monolithic tape or make a prefabricated strip foundation from ready-made concrete blocks. A monolithic one will cost less, but a block one is built faster.

For the normal keeping of pigs, the room must be dry. Therefore, when building a foundation, do not forget about waterproofing. It eliminates the suction of moisture from the soil. It is laid between the foundation and the walls. It is advisable to coat the foundation with liquid waterproofing (bituminous mastic, for example), and lay a waterproofing or other similar material on it.

If the walls are made of foam concrete of another hygroscopic material, it is advisable to make a plinth from a material that does not absorb moisture. Most often, two or three rows of bricks are laid on the foundation, on top of the waterproofing, waterproofing again (with coating), and only then they continue to fold the walls. This is especially true when the groundwater level is high.

What and how to make walls

The walls of the pigsty are best made of light and warm material. This category includes all blocks of lightweight concrete (foam concrete, expanded clay concrete, aerated concrete, etc.). They have one drawback – they absorb water, therefore, immediately after construction, such buildings must be plastered inside and out. But it is easy to build such pigsties on your own – the blocks are large and light, the buildings are warm and relatively inexpensive.

There is another material that fits into this category, but is not yet very used – wood concrete. It is made from a mixture of wood chips in a form and cement with water. Perfectly keeps heat, strong and strong, can be made independently.

In some regions, pigsties are built from shell rock. An excellent natural building material, it is a pity that it is not available everywhere. Brick is rarely used. Firstly, it is expensive, and secondly, it is cold and the walls definitely require insulation.

Often they build pigsties from timber and even sleepers. They are warm and light enough. In order not to blow out of the cracks, they are caulked like a regular log house, and they are sheathed on the outside with sheet material (moisture-resistant plywood, OSB) and painted on top. In general, wood is considered not the best material for a pigsty – pigs can gnaw it perfectly, but if there is nothing to catch on, the surface is flat, then the walls will be intact.

Wall height

The pigsty should be warm in winter, cool in summer, it should have good ventilation, which will provide fresh air and normal humidity. In this regard, very low ceilings should not be made – with small volumes, you will often have to ventilate, which will negate the benefits of heating. Too high walls – high heating costs, which is also not good. The best option is a ceiling of 2,3-2,5 m.

Sometimes they make the ceiling sloping, without an attic. It is still practically not used in any way, since there is high humidity. In this case, the walls are low – 1,7-1,9 m, and in the center the ceiling is raised to 2,5-2,8 m. This allows you to minimize the cost of walls, but increases the cost of roofing.

Interior finish

The walls inside the pigsty are best plastered, then whitewashed or painted. Whitewashing is disinfection and a good appearance, but as long as the wall is not spattered. Then the view is not the most attractive – until the next whitewash. To prevent dirt from sticking to the walls, they are smeared with resin diluted in gasoline. The height of such processing is about 1 meter. Dirt flies off such a wall. It looks a bit gloomy, but washes easily.

Another option is to beat the entire machine with boards around the perimeter, as in the next photo. It is easy to clean and animals do not lean against cold walls in winter.

Roof and ceiling

It is more profitable to make roofs of a pigsty single-pitched – less costs. With a large width, buildings are made gable, since with a span of more than 8 meters, the cost of a shed roof is almost the same as that of a gable roof.

Regardless of the type of roofing, an attic is rarely done. If they do, they don’t use it. The roof is insulated, as usual, with mineral wool. From the side of the room, a vapor barrier membrane is stuffed, from the side of the roofing material it is covered with a waterproofing vapor-permeable film.

Roofing material – any, the most affordable in the region. Usually it is slate, soft roof or corrugated board. The ceiling is hemmed from the inside with a board, plastic or plywood, OSB.

Sex in the pigsty

The most difficult and controversial question is how to make a floor in a pigsty. Opinions are different. Here are the most common methods with their advantages and disadvantages:

• Wooden flooring. They are made from edged boards 50 mm thick, nailed close or with a very small gap. Advantages – the floor is non-slip, warm. Disadvantages – it absorbs urine and odors, swells from high humidity, quickly collapses. Disinfection is possible, but it is difficult to carry out, cleaning is not the easiest.
  

• Concrete floors. With a high grade of concrete, the surface is smooth, almost does not absorb water and odors, it is easy to clean, it lasts a long time, it is not afraid of high humidity. The disadvantage is that the concrete is cold, but there are several options for eliminating this minus:
  • In winter, shields knocked down from boards are thrown on the floor.
  • They make a heated floor – heated from water heating or electric cables.
  • When constructing a concrete floor, it is made multi-layered, with heat-insulating layers.
• Asphalt pavement. Non-slip, warm enough and reliable, but porous, hard to wash, particles remain in the pores, it is problematic to wash them even with Karcher. Over time, acids and alkalis corrode the surface, it becomes sticky.
• Earth floor. Of the advantages – only cheapness. Everything else is a complete disadvantage: cold, absorbs urine, mixes with manure, it is difficult to clean, the smell is permanent. Another disadvantage is that pigs love to dig the ground, and they may well dig under the wall and run away. One can only imagine how it all ends. So the dirt floor in the pigsty can only be used as a temporary option. Please note that when installing another floor, a decent layer of soil will have to be removed, otherwise the amber will be indestructible.
  

• Brick, filled with concrete. On the compacted soil, tightly to each other, bricks are laid in a herringbone pattern. The gaps between them are filled with concrete. Such a floor is warmer than concrete, but has all its advantages. The only negative is the rather high price (unless you use a used brick).

When building a pigsty with their own hands, each owner usually chooses from these options the one that seems preferable to him.

Slatted floor device

A few words about the diversion of urine and the removal of manure. Despite the widespread belief that pigs are unclean, they quickly get used to defecate in one place (there are exceptions, but infrequently). Therefore, many people prefer to make double floors – at the bottom they make something like a trough with a slope towards the ditch, and slatted floors are laid on top. Slots may not be over the entire area, but only in a certain area. It is here that “decent” pigs go to defecate.

Slotted floors are concrete, metal and plastic. Plastic and metal are used for small piglets – the flooring surface is made a little ribbed and rough, the gaps are very small.

Concrete slatted floors are mass-produced. They have small holes and wide jumpers. This is done to minimize injury. In general, the design of the slatted floor greatly facilitates the work, it is easier to keep clean in the pigsty.

In order to save money, a slatted floor is sometimes made of thick boards. But this is not the best idea – pigs can catch on the cracks and twist the boards.

How to make a solid

In order to make it easier to clean the solid floor, a ditch is made along the machines, and the floor has a slope towards this ditch (2-5%). The ditch is most often laid out of brick and plastered. Then it goes into the storage tank; for a normal outflow, it must also have a slope.

The collected masses are either taken out by special vehicles or pumped into pits for decay and fermentation – for fertilizers. By the way, the lower part of the slotted pilaf is made according to the same scheme, only the ditch is located under the upper flooring, and not in the passage.

Insulated concrete floor

Whatever they say, but the most practical, relatively inexpensive and reliable floor for a pigsty is concrete. In fact, it has two serious drawbacks. One thing has already been said – in winter it is cold. The second – it takes a long period of time for its final hardening (28 days from the moment of pouring). If you flood the floor while the livestock lives in the summer pen, there is nowhere to hurry, and you can fight the cold. For example, make it insulated.

To equip an insulated concrete floor in a pigsty, the soil is taken out to a depth of 40 cm. The bottom of the pit is leveled and rammed. About 10 cm of crushed stone is poured, it is also well rammed (it is better to pour and tamp two layers of 5 cm separately – there will be no cracks). 5 cm of sand is poured onto the compacted rubble, spilled, rammed so that no footprint remains. Waterproofing is placed on top (a thick polyethylene film is possible), insulation is poured – expanded clay or granulated foam glass. Expanded clay is cheaper, but foam glass in granules is better (it is 3 times warmer and does not absorb moisture, which is very important). The insulation is rammed, but not as seriously as a pillow of rubble and sand. It is poured with concrete grade B 20 (1 parts of sand and 2 parts of crushed stone are taken for 4 part of cement). The minimum layer thickness is 3 cm; during pouring, the required slope is formed towards the ditch.

If you do this, then the floor will not be so cold, you will have to heat less.

Cleaning frequency

The need for cleaning is determined by the design of the floor. If this is a regular sloping floor, you have to remove manure every feeding – three times a day. Slotted floors are generally washed once a day. Additional cleaning may be required if there are undisciplined animals – then they take a broom or a shovel and take out the manure that is on the floor. But it takes much less time than when cleaning a conventional floor.

You can wash the floor in a pigsty not just with a hose. Much faster and better is obtained from Karcher. At first, animals may be afraid, then they themselves climb under the stream. They must be washed from a decent distance, otherwise there may be injuries.

Windows in the barn

Pigs can do without daylight, but then you need to turn on the lighting, and with ever-increasing tariffs, this is an unjustified expense that greatly reduces profitability. Therefore, windows are made large enough, but their total area should not be larger than the floor area – excessively bright lighting makes animals aggressive. The best lighting for them is subdued light.

Windows are installed at a height of 1,5-1,7 meters, at least half of them should open. This is necessary for ventilation – for normal weight gain, optimal humidity and fresh air are necessary. And without ventilation, this cannot be achieved. And although there should be good ventilation in the pigsty, there should be no drafts – animals get sick because of it. Therefore, they either make double glazing in wooden frames, or put plastic ones. With them, there is generally little trouble – they are convenient to use, easy to clean.

Ventilation

As has been repeatedly said, there must be ventilation in the pigsty. The most primitive way is to make exhaust pipes that start almost under the ceiling and make air inlets. Install adjustable dampers on the supply pipes, and a damper on the exhaust pipes (for stove type, discs that can rotate opening / closing the pipe clearance). With their help, you can adjust the intensity of air exchange.

Often the role of supply channels is performed by windows. This is not a very good solution – they are located high in the pigsty, in which case a stagnant zone forms below, namely, the pigs are located below. Therefore, it is better to equip the air inlets by 20 centimeters above the floor, pick them up with metal bars. Such ventilation works on the principles of natural air movement – warm air rises, cold comes in its place and all this is whipped up by the wind outside. But there is a complete calm, and usually in the very heat, which the pigs endure already badly. For such situations, fans are placed in the supply openings. They are rarely included in the work, but they save the situation if there is no walking.

What to make machines for pigs

When they build a pigsty with their own hands, they usually block the room on the machines using two materials:

• edged board 50 mm thick and timber for racks;
• metal pipes, sheet, corners.

The choice is really simple: what is cheaper, what you know how to work better with, or what you think is more reliable. In principle, both options are not bad, they are widely used.

The height of the partitions is about 1 meter; a separate entrance is made to each paddock. The gates should be well locked, and simple bolts are unreliable, they are hooked with snouts and open the doors.