Sawdust + IMO4 = A Pig Pen Nobody Cleans for 3 Years
Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang, Founder of Korean Natural Farming (Janong)
Master Cho spoke Korean, with an interpreter. We translated every Korean line again and checked it, so you read what he said, not only what the room heard.
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This part runs from 2:58:22 to 3:18:46 of the session video.
Fifteen more minutes of slides, now pigs. Cho shows the wing-curved roof, houses 2 m apart with perilla between, and the floor bed of logs, sawdust and IMO4 that lets one housewife keep 300 pigs with no cleaning for 3 years. Then free sow pens, a Chinese pen at minus 40, a fermented feed box, food scraps and pig dung turned into feed, piglets on the first nipple, and a stress-hormone slide. The session ends: 'that is love', and the rest tomorrow.
What he taught
How does Cho house and feed pigs so the pen needs no cleaning and one person can run 300 head?
The last 20 minutes of Friday evening. Swine slides: a curved metal roof, two houses with a gap, a floor being laid, a barn of 300 pigs (3:03:30), a sow house, a snowy pen in China, a feed box, food scraps, pig dung beside IMO4, visitors sitting in a pen, crated sows, and a KBS stress-hormone chart (10배, 6.5배).
- Pig-house floor bed — Wood logs on the bottom, sawdust on top, Microbes (IMO4) on the sawdust; the microbes spread through it all. Done before the pigs go in. Then no cleaning and no manure removal: 'not once in 3 years'.
- Fermented feed box — Layers of feed materials (Cho names corn silage and compound feed; the interpreter puts IMO4 at the bottom), fermented, then cut down through the layers to mix and fed.
- Food-scrap and dung feed — Restaurant scraps piled and fermented with IMO4 become high-grade pig feed; sawdust in the mix lowers the salt (interpreter). Pig dung with IMO4 ferments into feed in 5 to 10 hours.
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The pig-house roof curves like a chicken's wing
Sun heats the metal roof, the hot air goes out fast and fresh air comes in.
▶ 2:58:36 From the slides
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Space houses so the front one's shade never falls on the next: about 2 m
The 2 m is the interpreter's; Cho's number wasn't heard.
▶ 2:59:22 As spoken
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Plant perilla (들깨) in the gap
The wind brushes the perilla leaves on its way in; Cho ties it to omega-3 and very fresh air.
▶ 3:00:08 As spoken
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Floor bed: logs, then sawdust, then IMO4
Microbes spread through the whole bed.
▶ 3:01:19 From the slides
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Take the swine course before you start; Joe McGinn, Steve and Drake can guide you
Cho calls them CGNF researchers.
▶ 3:02:04 As spoken
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One housewife keeps 300 pigs alone
Fed once a day, no cleaning, no manure removal, not once in 3 years.
▶ 3:03:26 From the slides
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Sows run free in a pen with sun on one side and shade on the other
They choose where to lie. 'A completely free-range pig house.'
▶ 3:06:33 From the slides
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At minus 40 °C in China the pigs sleep comfortably on the fermenting floor
Sawdust with microbes ferments and gives heat; steam rises when they dig. Cool in summer, warm in winter.
▶ 3:07:31 From the slides
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Layer the feed, ferment, cut down through it to mix
The whole system can be seen at farms in Muju, North Jeolla Province.
▶ 3:09:45 From the slides
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Restaurant scraps fermented with IMO4 become high-grade pig feed
Cho suggests it for Hong Kong's apartment food waste.
▶ 3:10:54 As spoken
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Pig dung mixed with IMO4 ferments into pig feed in 5 to 10 hours
Slide: IMO4 on one side, dark dung on the other.
▶ 3:11:50 From the slides
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Pens clean enough to sit in: no smell, no complaints from neighbours
A visiting professor sat on the pen floor with the pigs.
▶ 3:12:25 From the slides
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Put the first-born, weakest piglet on the first nipple
Each piglet keeps its own nipple and never changes (interpreter).
▶ 3:15:01 As spoken
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Crated sows grow huge and weak and crush their piglets
No room to move, no muscle.
▶ 3:16:37 As spoken
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Stress-response hormone in NF pigs: 10, 6.5 and 7 times conventional
Slide panels show 10배 and 6.5배; the third is hidden by the interpreter. NF pigs come to the owner when he steps in.
▶ 3:17:18 From the slides
- The Korean pass breaks down after about 3:13:00, so Cho's own words for the last five minutes (piglets, crated sows, stress hormone) are mostly lost; only the interpreter's English is kept there.
- 'Not once in 3 years' is Cho's figure here; in Hawaiʻi in 2016 he said seven years, and his book says the bed comes out only for field use.
- The stress-hormone numbers come from a TV documentary slide; method not shown.
- Cho says the pigs on the fermenting floor don't get sick; no health data were shown.
- Space pig houses so they don't shade each other, and plant perilla in the gap.
- Lay logs, then sawdust, then IMO4 before the pigs go in; the bed assists the pigs and saves cleaning.
- Feed once a day and let the floor do the work.
- Ferment food scraps with IMO4 for pig feed; add sawdust to cut the salt.
- Take the swine course, or ask someone who has, before you start.
What the room didn't hear
Where the English in the room left out or changed what Master Cho said in Korean.
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▶ 3:04:09
The room heard You don't have to remove their waste about three years.
Cho said How long do you go without taking out the dung? Not once in 3 years.
'Not once' became 'about'.
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▶ 3:09:45
The room heard At the bottom they put IMO4 and then in the next layer, they used corn [silage].
Cho said Corn [silage] goes in, then [compound feed] and this and that; you ferment it and cut down through it.
Cho names compound feed; IMO4 at the bottom is the interpreter's.
Next to Master Cho's books
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Agrees
One housewife, 300 pigs, fed once a day, no cleaning Same claim in his 2017 Korea advanced course: one housewife can manage 300 pigs because they're fed once a day and the pen isn't cleaned.
2017/Advanced w: Cho/advanced fruit/IMG_3303 @ 0:59:54
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Agrees
Pig houses 2 m apart, perilla between Same shade rule and perilla in the gap in his 2017 Korea course; in 2018 he said at least 3 m.
2017/Advanced w: Cho/advanced fruit/IMG_3303 @ 0:53:36
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Differs
No manure removal: here, not once in 3 years His book says the bed needs no cleaning and is taken out only for field use. In the 2016 Hawaiʻi seminar the figure was seven years, not three.
Cho, Janong Natural Farming (2003), p. 194
“The husband mustn't take the money; he has to give it all to the wife.”
▶ 3:04:56
“When the owner goes in, they're glad to see him. That's love.”
▶ 3:18:11
“They are doing microorganism sauna.”
▶ 3:08:40
In this part
- 2:58:22Pig house: wing-curved roof, 2 m gaps, perilla
- 3:01:19The floor bed, and the swine course
- 3:03:26300 pigs, one housewife, no cleaning for 3 years
- 3:06:27Free sow pens; minus 40 in China
- 3:09:29Feed box, food scraps and pig dung as feed
- 3:12:19Clean pens, first nipples, crushed piglets
- 3:17:17Stress hormone in pigs: that is love
Transcript
English translation, checked against the Korean as spoken.
2:58:23 Master Cho: So this is the barn roof.
그래서 이것이 축사의 지붕이야.
2:58:25 Kim Chang (interpreter): This is the swine, uh, pig pen. So you can see the roundness.
2:58:36 Master Cho: The roof slopes like this — it's the same as the curve of a chicken's wing.
경사가 이렇게 되는 게, 이것이 닭 날개의 경사하고 똑같은 거예요.
2:58:46 Kim Chang (interpreter): That form is like a bird's or chicken's wing, like that roundness. They are the same as the airplane wing.
2:59:00 Master Cho: So when the sun heats [the roof], the air heats up, gets light and goes out fast…
그래서 햇볕이 [지붕을] 뜨겁게 하면, 공기가 뜨거워지니까 가벼워져서 빨리 빠져나가고…
2:59:10 Kim Chang (interpreter): Because like I said before, when the sun hits the roof, because we have a metal roof, the hot air goes out very fast and then the fresh air comes in.
2:59:21 Master Cho: So what this means is: the front house and the back house need a gap between them.
그래서 이것은 뭐냐 그러면, 앞의 계사하고 뒤의 계사하고 간격이 떠야지.
2:59:24 Kim Chang (interpreter): So, those swine pens are next to each other, but they need to have enough space, so the
2:59:31 Master Cho: The front house's shade must not fall on the house behind.
앞의 계사 그늘이 뒤의 계사에 영향을 주면 안 된다는 거예요.
2:59:46 Kim Chang (interpreter): other pen's shadow does not reach the other pen.
2:59:51 Master Cho: So the front house and the back house — the gap between them…
그래서 앞 계사, 뒤 계사, 그 간격이…
3:00:00 Kim Chang (interpreter): So that space in between the two pens, the length should be about two meters.
3:00:07 Master Cho: And in this space — egoma, perilla (deulkkae)
그리고 이 공간에는 에고마, 들깨
3:00:16 Kim Chang (interpreter): On that space, you should plant the wild sesame seeds.
3:00:24 Master Cho: When the wind comes in, it brushes past the perilla leaves on its way in.
바람이 들어갈 때 들깨의 잎을 스치고 들어가잖아요.
3:00:33 Kim Chang (interpreter): So when the wind blows, the wind touches the wild sesame seed leaves and then goes into the pig pen.
3:00:44 Master Cho: And omega-3… for [the pigs], the wind that comes in here becomes very fresh air.
그리고 오메가3를… [돼지들]에게는 이 안에 들어가는 바람이 아주 신선한 바람이 되는 거예요.
3:00:57 Kim Chang (interpreter): Because the wild sesame seed has omega-3. So you can have a very fresh air.
3:01:04 Master Cho: So when you lay out the barns, you lay them out like this.
그래서 축사를 배치할 때 이렇게 배치하는 겁니다.
3:01:11 Kim Chang (interpreter): So when you build a swine building, try to build this way. Next.
3:01:19 Master Cho: This is making the pig-house floor before you put the pigs in.
이것이 돼지를 넣기 전에 돈사 바닥을 만드는 것입니다.
That's the first few minutes. Members read all 181 lines, with the Korean as spoken, and watch along.
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