Chiyanjano Cooperative Sustainable Pig Farm
A "circularly- integrated" pig farm to support an agriculture cooperative. This group of farmers wanted to cut out the middle man by starting a pig farm in order to transform local crop waste into high value meat products.
The piggery is constructed with locally made bricks, and can house approximately 30 pigs. It utilizes a deep-litter system, with a meter of dry carbonaceous material as the flooring. This style of pig rearing is more conducive to pig health, and greatly reduces the risk of environmental contamination from pig waste. After a year of use, the bedding will be swapped for new material, and the resulting composted manure from the piggery will be broadcast on the nearby fields and gardens.
The piggery incorporates a small solar-powered water tower in the corner, supplying the pigs with ample drinking water through nipple drinkers and providing irrigation to the nearby gardens.
The pigs are "Large White" breed, and are fed a mixture of locally produced crop byproducts, mostly maize bran and sunflower cake, waste materials from grain/seed processing.
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Biosecurity measures, including a handwashing and foot sanitizing station, help to ensure the pigs don't contract any diseases from other livestock.
Extensive trainings were conducted to teach the group how to successfully raise, breed, and sell meat pigs. When my expertise ran out, we called upon William Creighton (pictured in the center of the group photo below), an experienced Irish pig farmer from Good Nature Agro, to assist us.
By collaborating with nearby farms to maintain genetic diversity, Chiyanjano is using a linebreeding system to ensure the health and quality of the pigs they produce.
After a few incidents with theft during construction, we decided to add security lights, a *definitely not fake* camera, a jagged broken-glass perimeter to the structure, and to conceal the location of the well. There has yet to be a subsequent issue.
The farm has removable walls to separate the boar from the sows, and to erect a farrowing pen for isolating a sow and her piglets from the rest of the animals after having given birth.
The farrowing pen has a removable hide box for the piglets. It's important for the pigs to have an enclosed place to escape from their mother, as she can fail to keep them warm at night, or accidentally crush them.