Farrowing sisters together?

[Jayzandra]

Here's the first one.

 

[Jayzandra]

Same one..

 

[Jayzandra]

Here's the other

 

[Jayzandra]

And here's all 3 of them together. All these pics were taken today.

 

[farmerjan]

I would say they both look bred, the first one definitely ahead of the other. The other may be even further behind. Is there a good reason for you to keep the boar? Is there anyone else around with hogs that you can share a boar back and forth? Let's face it, you are feeding him for 8-10 months that you have no use for him. He also looks like he is getting some size and you will not want to keep him forever. I really mean it about trying to find another person or two that you can switch him back and forth with. He really does need to be out of there and you are going to have to get aggressive with the hot wire if you can't keep him in another pen. He will often try to kill the pigs and they don't have near enough room to have their own space. Nice looking hogs though. Where did you get them? Maybe they would be able to help you find a home to share part-time. You can't justify the feed costs of a boar for only 2 females unless you are trying to breed purebreds of some kind. Try a bulletin board in the feed store, the stockyards may know of someone. Maybe just sell him and find another younger boar to use for a little bit and then get rid of him too. Are you planning on 2 litters per year out of each sow? If so you will be breeding them back when the pigs are in the 6 week range, then he will be idle for another 5 months....

 

[Jayzandra]

He is huge. I personally was wanting to eat him and get a younger boar to breed to them when it came time again. Then eat him too. And just keep doing that. I had read that you can test for taint with a biopsy, but that didn't go too well for us. Couldn't get the biopsy.

I also heard that you could breed a smaller pig like maybe Kune Kune so you wouldn't have to feed such a large animal, but wouldn't that just lead to smaller offspring?

We got the gilts from a friend of a friend. We usually raise them for slaughter, but another friend knew a guy getting rid of all his pigs and we got a good deal on the boar. So we thought, hey, why not breed instead of buying every 6 months?

 

[farmerjan]

I can understand not wanting to buy pigs all the time, but you will have alot of feed money in the sows by the time you get these pigs on the ground.And especially the boar. I would not eat him as he is big enough that the meat will definitely have a "boar taint" to it. I don't know anything about using any of the other rare or smaller breeds so won't say anything on that, except that I would think it will produce pigs that will be smaller. I would really get rid of him and see if you like raising brood sows before re-breeding them and then find another boar. We used to rent ours out after we got up to 6 sows, and it worked pretty good. He would be gone for no more than 6 weeks and usually only for a month. If a sow doesn't settle on one breeding, she usually isn't worth keeping.
You will have to keep the pigs until they are at least 6 weeks, and then you will recoup a nice amount if there is a market for feeders in your area. Alot of people do not want small pigs in the fall winter so that is another consideration.

 

[Jayzandra]

Thank you for the advice.

 

[farmerjan]

Sure hope I helped you a bit. I am not trying to discourage you from raising your own pigs, H*** I loved my hogs. I bought a pregnant sow at the pig sale 35 years ago, had no experience with a brood sow, just raising some feeders to eat. She was a mediocre mother, kept 1 gilt out of her that was belted like a hamp, the rest were white and nothing special. Daffy, the hamp, became my "herd sow" and i had her great-granddaughters as brood sows before I moved and had to give them up. But they are alot of work and they do eat alot and the whole boar issue was a pain til we had enough sows to justify keeping our own. Letting him out to service a few other people's sows helped to save on the feed bill and made it easier to shuffle them around when space was tight. And when he came home he went in a separate pen so didn't expect that he could go where he wanted. Had one that got mean and he couldn't leave fast enough; and full size boars just don't bring much at the market.
When i got to 12 sows, i tried to breed them to have pigs to sell most months, except here the pig market was bad in august/sept. and the best months were in mar/april. But that meant having pigs in winter/of course the coldest months to deal with babies here in Va. So I did alot of figuring when to breed them and have pigs to sell at the best times. Usually had 4 to pig in Jan/Feb and the pigs would be ready to sell in April. Good thing was, after a couple of years I was selling most of them direct and not through the sale as people knew I had them. The biggest down side was when hogs, 225 killing size, dropped to $.10 a lb and feed was still necessary to feed them and you lost a ton of money. Pigs could be bought for $5 when you could find a buyer, after selling them for $40 a year before. It was some rough lean times. As long as you figure what you want to do, maybe 1 litter a year to help pay your feed expenses will be all you want to do and keep a couple for your own freezer. If there is a big enough market there you might want to raise a couple of litters a year and make it a nice side income.

 

[misfitmorgan]

I can understand not wanting to buy pigs all the time, but you will have alot of feed money in the sows by the time you get these pigs on the ground.And especially the boar. I would not eat him as he is big enough that the meat will definitely have a "boar taint" to it. I don't know anything about using any of the other rare or smaller breeds so won't say anything on that, except that I would think it will produce pigs that will be smaller. I would really get rid of him and see if you like raising brood sows before re-breeding them and then find another boar. We used to rent ours out after we got up to 6 sows, and it worked pretty good. He would be gone for no more than 6 weeks and usually only for a month. If a sow doesn't settle on one breeding, she usually isn't worth keeping.
You will have to keep the pigs until they are at least 6 weeks, and then you will recoup a nice amount if there is a market for feeders in your area. Alot of people do not want small pigs in the fall winter so that is another consideration.

The pigs size does not denote whether they have boar taint or not..that is silly. True boar taint is a gene and hereditary so you can actually breed for no true taint and 80% of boars do not have this type of taint which is called Androstenone and caused by a hormone. The more commonly seen "taint" is not genetic or hereditary and comes from keeping boars in a small pen with low amounts of feed aka confinement raised which causes them to root around in and eat their own poop which cause "taint" that's called Skatole...FYI if your boar has Skatole taint so do your gilts/sows. If you have York, Hamp, or any other light colored pigs (landrace, chesterwhite, etc) your likelihood of Androstenone taint is even lower then 20%. If you raise on pasture instead of confinement your chances of having Skatole taint are pretty much 0% as long as the pasture is big enough for the number of pigs on it or they are rotated. If your likely to confinement raise stay away from Duroc they have the highest instance of Androstenone taint. If your sensitive to taint you should be able to smell it on the large adult boars before even slaughtering them as the hormone is released in their saliva when they are tainted.

As far as breeding a smaller breed to your gilts....yes you will end up with smaller and smaller pigs. As you cross them more and more with small pig breeds the offspring with get smaller and smaller....with the caveat that they should get no smaller then the smallest parent. Your not going to breed a full size gilt to a kune kune and end up with a mini pig..but breeding over generations you will end up with all your breeders the size of a kune kune.