All of ours have now gone.
A few points.
The legislation appears straightforward but interpretation of the rules is variable. SEERAD does the legislation, the State Veterinary Service does the advice and some inspections, council animal welfare officers do most of the enforcement and the rest of the inspections.
Each of those groups has varying interpretations as to how the legislation should be implemented, how the paperwork should be completed, how the specifics of the various regulations should be applied (the SVS has told us one thing in relation to transporting weaners, the animal welfare officer something different) and so on. An SVS officer told me that until there have been a few court cases to set out case law, then the situation will remain like that!
We had an AWO inspection recently and while the animal side was well above what is expected, our paperwork was not done to Aberdeenshire Council's specification. Our paperwork had all the relevant details, was in proper books and all the forms were filed, but not in the way the council wanted.
Needless to say, other councils want the paperwork done in different ways while SEERAD's advice (which I had filed and followed) is different again. So I'm presently rewriting three year's worth of forms and entries so that I'll have two copies of everything - one for the council to see, one for SEERAD and the SVS to see.
I'd strongly recommend getting your parish holding number and pig herd number first. It can take six to eight weeks and while you can get away with not applying until after you have pigs, the animal welfare officer made it clear that he has a very dim view of the practice and has been at Thainstone Mart checking people who buy pigs from the rare breeds sale.
Also, getting your holding number is straightforward if your land has been in agricultural use at some point in the last 30 years or so as it will already have a number. But if you're converting land to agricultural use, then it will take longer to have a number assigned and you may also have to talk with your council about planning permission for a change of use. (And horse activities on the land are not generally regarded as agricultural!)
As for space, I'd say 15m by 15m is okay for a pair of weaners from 10 weeks to 22-24 weeks from late spring through to early autumn. But, and this is very important, you'd have to rest the land in the following year and reseed it. You'd also have to have land that is well-drained and not prone to poaching.
If you want to keep a pair of pigs every year, then you need to at least double that space, preferably dividing it in two and resting the halves alternately.
If you want to over-winter weaners for spring slaughter, then you need to double again and make sure there are dry areas for their hut and for them to walk on. You also need a much warmer, draught-free hut or arc.
Pigs are intensive animals to have - even when kept outside as free-range animals. They need even more frequent checks than sheep or cattle, they're very sociable and appreciate human contact all the more when there are only two of them, and they can do a lot of damage in a very short space of time (which is one of the reasons you check them often).
Pigs drink a lot of water, especially in hot weather, and you have to ensure it is always available - don't just assume a trough with pipe feed is working. Check it at least twice a day as pigs will knock the pipes lose.
If you don't have water to your troughs, then you're going to be carry a lot of water. We don't have piped water to all our troughs so we carry 30 gallons of water out to the pigs at least three times a day. That's 90 gallons of water in two three-gallon buckets, up hill, in all weathers, through mud and snow.
Similarly, pigs should be fed at least twice a day as well as having grazing. It's much healthier and more efficient for them to have some feed passing through their system all day than to have them fill up in one go and overwhelm their digestive system, then having nothing in it for the rest of the day. (Weaners up to 14 weeks or so can be fed ad lib - just keep the feed trough full. After that though, it's best to restrict their intake or they'll get fat.)
Shade is very important in hot weather, as is a damp spot for a wallow.
Fencing needn't take too long IF you already have reasonable stock fences and/or dykes. Pigs will pull these apart fairly quickly, but what you do is run a couple of strands of temporary electric fence inside the existing fence or dyke. That gives you a double layer of security.
If you don't have good fences, then you need to erect strong, permanent fencing and include a couple of lines of electric in that. If you have access to a tractor and post knocker, it can be done fairly quickly although a professional job still takes time.
If, like us, you do everything manually then prepare yourself for years of hard slog! We started with one pen of 20m by 20m, then expanded from there, replacing boundary fences, adding more pens, adding temporary pens and so on. Strainer posts go into hand-dug holes 36in deep (crowbar and shovel), stobs have preliminary holes made with a crowbar and are then knocked in with a maul and hand post-knocker.
And finally, if I was going to recommend one book to would-be pig keepers, it would be Carol Harris's A Guide to Traditional Pig Keeping. I was given this recently and highly recommend it.
PS And a word to anyone considering pig keeping. Before calling breeders like us, please, please think it all through first, check with your spouse/other half/partner first, consider how you're going to set everything up, and have everything sorted.
I'm getting extremely irritated at spending an hour on the phone talking people through pigs and ours in particular, then spending another hour showing them around, then getting an agreement to buy a pair of weaners and then suddenly discover the buyer has disappeared into thin air, had second thoughts because their husband/wife has come home, decided they want to pay less because they've seen some cruddy crossbreed for a fiver in the local paper etc.
And if one more person dreamily says they want pigs like Gordon Ramsay's....
sounds like release bearing to me 