sawfish99
Loving the herd life
I have a deal worked out to trade a trailer (that I was planning to sell in the spring for $400-500) for a bred sow. The sow is a Berkshire, Hamshire, Landrace mix. She is bred to a pure Berkshire. The pigs are pastured and boars and sows run together. He estimates the sow will have her litter in 2-4 weeks.
Stats - 3 year old sow. This will be her 4th litter. Last litter was 11. She has 16 teats. He pastures and hasn't had any problems with her crushing babies. His pigs eat off the pasture when available, hay, nuts, whey, and non-medicated feed.
I have never raised pigs, but we have been discussing it for the past year. Since goat breeding season is over, I will move the 2 bucks into a single pen and put the sow into a 40'x80' pen that is hard fenced with 4" square field fencing. I already have an electric charger so I can run electric around the inside. We already use a lot of electronet on the property, so I can easily condition to electric and use that to rotate the pigs around some various portions of the property.
I also have a local grocery store will to give me barrels full of fruit and vegetable scraps for feed.
I am basically re-reading all the posts in the pig sections, but have a few specific questions I would like some input on.
1. What size shelter would you put in for a single sow expecting a litter?
2. What is the usable lifetime (number of litters) for a sow?
3. How frequently do you re-breed sows? I know a few other farms within 15 miles that have boars, so I can probably work out re-breeding.
Stats - 3 year old sow. This will be her 4th litter. Last litter was 11. She has 16 teats. He pastures and hasn't had any problems with her crushing babies. His pigs eat off the pasture when available, hay, nuts, whey, and non-medicated feed.
I have never raised pigs, but we have been discussing it for the past year. Since goat breeding season is over, I will move the 2 bucks into a single pen and put the sow into a 40'x80' pen that is hard fenced with 4" square field fencing. I already have an electric charger so I can run electric around the inside. We already use a lot of electronet on the property, so I can easily condition to electric and use that to rotate the pigs around some various portions of the property.
I also have a local grocery store will to give me barrels full of fruit and vegetable scraps for feed.
I am basically re-reading all the posts in the pig sections, but have a few specific questions I would like some input on.
1. What size shelter would you put in for a single sow expecting a litter?
2. What is the usable lifetime (number of litters) for a sow?
3. How frequently do you re-breed sows? I know a few other farms within 15 miles that have boars, so I can probably work out re-breeding.