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Mid MO | We had a small wooden farrowing building with crates used that during the winter/spring. Dad turned sows out twice a day to keep them clean and from getting too grumpy (fed and watered outside). Farrowed in home made skid buildings when the weather was good. They were on rough cut 2x12's so the piglets couldn't venture out until they were ready. Dad just skidded them when they needed cleaning and started on a fresh spot. Coyotes and feral dogs were always an issue. The coyotes mostly during hay season when the pups would drag down the mommas and make them desperately hungry. Dogs year round. Dad kept a 12 gauge in the truck and farrowed near the house. Weaned pigs went out in hollows. He rotated hollows to keep disease down and to keep them from creating a moonscape. We rung the sows. Our pens were all woven wire and the hogs would get out from time to time. (: Most every woodlot pen had a pond above it and a water line gravity fed to the pig pen. Dad drilled a 1/8 hole in a fitting, jammed it into the end of the line and bailing wired it to a hackberry tree (above the hogs' reach). Cheap year round water, fresh, and won't freeze. Put the self feeders on heavy wooden pallets so they wouldn't bog into the mud.
I've heard of folks taking 3 big tractor tires and stacking them (I haven't tried it). Driving steel posts and wiring them to secure it and fashioning a roof out of tin. Then cutting a door with a saws-all. Throw in a bale of straw and you have a home fit for a sow. The tire makes a bumper so the piglets don't get smashed. Kinda tacky but it would cash flow (:
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NON Confinment hog raisers
