Pig/Worm Hoop House
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Making Swine Production User Friendly
The rebar/wood model pictured below is being replaced by a model that is made entirely of hog panel and cattle panel. (See photos above and drawings below.)
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Feed Storage/
Worms On Left |
Pen for 8 Pigs
On Right |
Swine production does not have to smell.
6 Modules House 48 Pigs for
One Backyard Agriculture Family Cooperative
These modules can be built one at a time and arranged on the ground to take advantage terrain features relative to the draining away of liquids.
All of the solid wastes are turned into fertilizer by the worms. Some of the urine, mixed with water, can be applied directly to fields as liquid fertilizer.
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| Every 24 Hours all solid waste is converted to
rich
fertilizer by worms in an adjacent worm bed. When the farm manager feeds
the pigs, he feeds today's waste materials to the worms. |
The worms live in the top 3 inches of the pig manure. Periodically the worms are moved off the top to disclose the clean, ready-to-bag worm castings that are under the layer containing the worms. |
| In order for the worms to convert the pig manure most effectively, the pig manure must contain a prescribed amount of water. |
Every day the solid wastes are mixed with water in the "pig swamp" before being pushed under the center wall into the worm bed. The worms convert the manure to fertilizer every 24 hours, dramatically reducing the smells associated with pig pens. The Vinyl
floor pictured is from an early prototype. The floor must be made from concrete or specially treated wood. 
The concrete pad has a worm bed on the left and pig bath on the right. Note: the Pig bath has an overflow seen in the upper center of this
picture. |
| The amount of water in the pig swamp is controlled by a simple gate. |
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The worm bed activities are
benefiting from the engineering expertise of Mark Rice at North Carolina State
University and from Tom Christenberry,
Vermicycle. Inc.
A technical paper describing the technology is being prepared
as efforts continue to build a prototype Pig/Worm Hoop House in San Cristobal de
les Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.
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Gary Sheets from Whitmel, Virginia with his Pig/Worm house. |
