Anyone have experience with Berkshires?

[Royd Wood]

Thank you for the kind words Royd!!!

I actually was looking into the Large Blacks, and they were my first choice. The reason I was steering away from them is because I have read they can get up to 1200 pounds and I just didn't think we had the room for such large pigs... would a 75' x 75' pen be big enough for a couple of these? I could probably do a small adjacent pen to keep a couple of the babies for meat.

We don't have any pasture on our 10 acres, just individual pens. And we don't have grass or any other forage. Most of Southern California is dry lots.

Will you be selling some of your babies? Are they shippable to California?

My LB boar is 750 lb at 3 years but my buddys Birkshires are only a tad smaller so dont let that put you off. 75 x 75 is fine for 2 LBs. Will you have any hay for them or more to the point what will you be feeding, veg and dairy products work well.
Cornish Heritage will be able to tell you locations in the US for LBs - just pm her as she is very busy at the moment.
For us we just sell accross Canada at the moment which avoids quarantene issues and cost but it could be done.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Good to know, thank you!

I heard Berks only got to 300 pounds, so I must have read some incorrect info! I guess it doesn't matter then!

Yes we will be feeding organic alfalfa, probably a very small amount of organic commercial pig feed (http://www.modestomilling.com/livestock.html) and we have lots of fruit trees as well as some nut trees and also dairy goats.