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No-Smell Pig Floor, Farrowing Pen, Banana Stalk Feed

June 18, 2023 · by Drake Weinert

Drake opens with photos from his first IMO piles in June 2009, made with rice mill run and IMO3 on his family farm in Hilo, before he ever set foot in Korea. He walks through his old garden — taro, comfrey, squash, nasturtium, sweet potato, peanuts, broccoli, dill, lettuce, cilantro, bok choy, radish, peppers, leeks, and corn — grown after he started applying IMO, plus a biochar trial with Josiah Hunt of Pacific Biochar and a batch of fermented lychee juice made by crushing off-grade fruit with brown sugar.

From there he retraces his first trip to Korea in October 2009: mixing IMO3 into a machine at an apple orchard that used a Hanseo speed sprayer, a strawberry farm training runners over black plastic mounds, the Gokseong KNF Learning Center, a hydroponic pepper greenhouse, and a cucumber grower who left gang life to farm. He also revisits Ginger John's early IMO piles, noting they came out mostly actinobacteria from turning the pile too rarely and letting it overheat, though he says any biology beats dead soil.

The back half continues Master Cho's slide presentation on livestock. Pigs on a no-smell sawdust floor stay active, keep their tails undocked, and get about half their diet from banana stalk instead of grass; the composting floor makes enough heat that no heater is needed, even tested in Siberia. Drake covers his farrowing pen (12 by 14 feet), why crates aren't needed when sows have enough room, a one-week heat lamp for piglets in cold climates, separate feeding stalls for nursing mothers, and a comparison showing mechanical farrowing pens push far more antibiotics into pigs than natural farming does.

He also answers a question on signing up for the 7-day KNF certification, levels one through three, at knffarm.com, with classes running November 6-12, 2023 and January 13-19, 2024.

Questions answered

  • 13:13 How and where do you sign up for the KNF training? — Go to knffarm.com for the 7-day certification, levels 1 through 3, or email drake@pureknf.org.
  • 17:22 How did Drake get into Korean Natural Farming? — He started IMO piles on his family farm in Hilo in 2009, learning from Ginger John and Dr. Park before ever going to Korea.
  • 21:38 What did the biochar trial with Josiah Hunt show? — They mixed biochar from Pacific Biochar into beds under black plastic to kill grass, though Drake isn't sure if it was top-dressed or tilled in.
  • 23:51 How do you make fermented lychee juice from off-grade fruit? — Crush cracked, unsellable lychees with brown sugar to break the skins and pull the juice out.
  • 42:16 Why did Ginger John's early IMO come out mostly actinobacteria? — He wasn't turning the pile often enough and let the temperature climb too high, though it still beat having no biology at all.
  • 52:35 What does a KNF pig fattening pen actually look like? — A no-smell floor pen holding about 10 pigs in a 12 by 24 foot area, with long undocked tails because the pigs aren't stressed.
  • 53:55 How much of Drake's pig diet is banana stalk? — About half their diet is banana stalk instead of small grasses, and the pigs love it.
  • 54:36 Why do KNF pig pens use soft floors instead of concrete? — Pigs love to dig and bury their waste in a soft floor, which spares them the arthritis and stress that come with concrete.
  • 56:44 Do KNF pig pens need a heating system in cold weather? — No, the composting floor itself generates heat to keep pigs warm, a method Drake says has even worked in Siberia.
  • 57:22 Why don't KNF farms use farrowing crates? — The pen is big enough that sows won't crush their piglets, so a crate isn't needed; Drake calls crates the most cruel thing he's seen.
  • 1:01:00 How big should a farrowing pen be? — Drake's are 12 by 14 feet; too small an area and the sow will crush the baby piglets.
  • 1:02:26 How do you stop mama pigs from fighting at feeding time? — Give each mama pig her own stall to eat in during farrowing, otherwise they'll dominate each other.
  • 1:05:51 How much antibiotics does commercial pig farming use compared to natural farming? — Commercial Korean pork can carry roughly nine kilos of antibiotics per thousand kilos, while natural farming needs none.

Topics: imo, biochar, fermented plant juice, no-smell floor, farrowing pen, pig farming, knf training, korea knf farms, gokseong learning center, banana stalk feed, sow and piglet, antibiotics

KNF Office Hours is a free live Q&A every Sunday at 9 AM HST. Bring your question to pureknf.org/learn/questions or join live.

In this episode

  1. 0:00 Countdown
  2. 3:02 Intro, Welcome & Happy Father's Day
  3. 4:55 I Ching: Keeping Still as a Mountain
  4. 8:26 Order and Chaos
  5. 13:13 Signing Up for the 7-Day KNF Training in Hawaiʻi
  6. 17:22 Early Photos: Learning Natural Farming in Hawaiʻi and Korea
  7. 48:59 2009 Footage of Gokseong KNF Learning Center
  8. 51:39 Master Cho's Presentation: The Livestock Fattening Pen
  9. 55:04 Pig Nature: Why Pigs Need to Dig
  10. 57:18 The Sow and the Piglet
  11. 1:00:39 KNF Farrowing Pen vs. Conventional Crate
  12. 1:06:52 Principles of KNF Livestock
  13. 1:08:22 Thanks for Tuning In

Transcript

Auto-transcribed with Whisper. Click any timestamp to play from there.

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