Newbie question about feeding piglets

[MikahMom]

My Yorkshire gilt, Blanche, had her first litter on June 17th We have 10 little beauties -- three pink and seven red with pink (our boar, Big Daddy, is a Duroc). She originally had 13 but two died shortly after birth and one died a few days later

Being new to this I was wondering when we should start giving them feed and when would be a good time to wean them. Storey's book suggests 35 days but I have read other posts on here and some wean as early as 10- 21 days. We have not given them any feed yet, they are just sucking off Momma (who is very, very good with them and with us as she had no trouble with our handling them when we clipped their wolf teeth on Monday).

We live in rural MS and we get our feed directly from the mill and they said that people around here just give the piglets the same feed as they do their grown pigs (just in smaller portions). So, should we start giving them the feed in their creep feeder now? Or should we just wire up the lids off Blanches' dual feeder and they can eat out of that? Will we need to show them where the feed is or....

Our other Yorkshire gilt, Rose, is due to have her litter in the next 3 weeks -- so many piggies!!!

Also, when would be a good time to breed back?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!

MikahMom

 

[dkluzier]

We start offering a pan of calf manna/creep feed which is milk based as early as 1 week for the piglets to nibble on, in an area that mama does not have access to. At 3-4 weeks we mix in the hog feed. Don't forget that if they are not on dirt they need to be supplemented with iron or throw a shovel full of dirt in for them to nibble on for the iron.

We open the farrowing hut up after 1 week and allow the pilgets to start on pasture in an area fenced separate from the other hogs.

We wean them at 5-6 weeks, after we are sure they are eating the feed, by returning mama hog to the main pasture.

www.furimmerfarm.com Large Black Hogs

Our sow had a litter December 20th and another June 7th, 24 weeks apart. At weaning we placed her separate from the boar and she rooted her way out of a shed and under a fence to breed 2 days later, LOL! We were going to wait another month but she bred 7 weeks after birthing the first litter on her own. The first litter we got 8, all survived, the second she had 10, 2 didn't survive the first night. We plan on breeding her back around 10 weeks.