misfitmorgan
Herd Master
It does suck when you get a nice friendly big boar and find he isnt doing his job, thats why ours went to freezer camp. He was a very nice boy, nice growth and size, long flat back, big plump hams, gentle and mild mannered but it is farming. We keep a mini boar at the farm as a pet, he does not alert us to them being in heat and he not needed for breeding or "making" them go into heat. Sows/gilts will cycle on their own every 21 days whether a male is there or not. It should be pretty obvious when they go into heat as their lady parts swell up a lot. All Sows/gilts kept in close quarters will cycle together naturally. So once you see them in heat count the days, you are looking for standing heat which can last 24-48hours. During standing heat you can breed them every 12hrs. To detect standing heat its pretty straight forward, you go in the pen with the sow/gilt and start petting their head(your females should be kept tame enough to do this) if she is receptive to being petted, start petting down her sides, reach around her sides so you hands are petting her belly and sides along the edges, then start petting the hams. If she is fine with all of this, stand behind her and grasp the flaps of skin right in front of her hams where it meets the belly and lift up on them in a sort of quick but not painful motion, again if she is fine place your hands on her rump and lean your weight down on her, if she locks up and stand fast bearing your weight lean your thighs into her while pushing down and she should lean back into you and hold your weight while standing still. Those last steps are all done standing behind her, she may or may not move her tail to the side to expose her vulva if she does it is also another good sign but the lack of tail movement is not bad sign. If she accepts all of those actions she is in standing heat and ready for AI. When we AI we AI two days in a row from the first detection of standing heat. So do heat check, if she is in standing heat AI...then repeat the next day at approx the same time after checking for standing heat. Boar semen for AI is viable for 7 days. There are many many videos online of detecting standing heat which you can watch if my directions dont make a lot of sense to you. Pigs are very easy to AI and are the first animal vets learn to AI. We use spirette breeding rods which i like fine but you can use any you like. These rods look like a corkscrew on the end and are inserted at an upward angle and then "screwed" into the sow/gilt counterclockwise, it is easily to tell if you are in the right location because the rod will be "locked" into the cervix. Then you open the semen contain and affix it ot the end of the rod sticking out still and slowly empty the contents into the sow/gilt. The sow/gilt may hump the air which is fine and they also may simply stand there. If you have backwash it should be less then half of the total amount of the semen container, if she is in very good standing heat she will typically draw the semen into herself and you will only have a few drops of back wash. After the semen tube is empty disconnect it, let some air into the container and then flush the rod with it, just until you do not see semen in the rod(this is inserted in the cervix and your not trying to blow them up like a ballon) then un-screw(if needed) and remove the rod. We find that sometimes the sow/gilt is relaxed enough there is no need to actually unscrew it before removal but this might be related to how far in the rod is placed. Your going directly into the cervix so make sure you keep things as clean as possible. The entire process for us to AI generally takes from 15-30 minutes depending on the sow. They do also sell a boar scent spray to help them come into a better standing heat. We often find our pigs will grunt and make lots of vocal noises when we are checking for standing heat but as long as they are not huffing(the angry huff) at us we proceed.
We use 18% as our main feed so can feed less. Separate pens are good we have our barn set up this way too. A sow/gilt pen on the left and right and a piglet pen in the middle. In case you did not know piglets from different liters can mingle as long as they are approximately the same size/age and the sows/gilts will nurse them all, this can greatly help when you have a lopsided set of litters as in one sow at 15 and one had 10. Splitting the milk demand off the heavy farrow can help with piglet weights, survival figures and keeping weight on lactating sows/gilts. A 8 week old piglet at 40-45lbs is quite good for sales and potential weight gain.
Corn prices are down here this year, we can buy $4/50's direct from the farm this year while last year it was $6/50lbs at this time and $5/50lbs towards spring. I believe we will see $3/50lbs in late winter this year...which wont effect us much since we share cropped with a farmer and have 6 tons of shell corn atm with more standing still and a few ton in crib corn.
Currently we average about $11 per piglet from farrow to wean at 8 weeks old.The first week they are not really eatting much of anything besides milk, just playing. Weeks 2-3 they average about 3/4lb a day and weeks 4-8 they average approx 2lbs a days. So at the end of 8 weeks they have consumed approx 80lbs of commercial feed. We also feed free choice shell corn and loose minerals. So on a litter of 10 piglets we average a cost of $110..we recently changed our feed practices so these are our new numbers. Spring piglets sell for $100 each so a 10 piglet litter gives us a total of $1,000 minues the piglets cost of food $110 and the sows cost of keep $169/6 months on average we get $721 profit per litter on average. If we AI we have to deduct those costs of approx $110-160 for AI but the AI piglets sell for $125 each so we make more over all on the litter of AI piglets. Each AI litter is approximately $1250 so we profit $811-861 on those litters. Those numbers are if all goes well...we do have litters like the last one with 4 piglets off the bad boar which throw the numbers off...4 piglets off a natural breeding in the fall will sell at butcher weight for approx $2/lb butcher weight for us is approx 250lbs. So the piglet at 250lbs return $500 but the feed cost will be approx $100 plus we have to minus the cost of the sow to feed for 6 months across all 4 piglets which would give a profit of $1431 for all 4 piglets at butcher weight. We sell spring weaned piglets from our spring litters and fall piglets (usually born sept-oct) are kept back for butcher pigs to sell in march/april which is NOT prime butcher pig season but we do ok as a second litter for the year. Ok so we have a profit of $721 on natural litters, a profit of $811-861 on AI litters, and a profit of $1431 for a small litter of butcher pigs. But what happens if we have a small litter in the spring and sell the piglets weaned. 4 piglets at $100 each costing $11 each for feed gives us $356 profit minus 6 months feed for the sow we get a profit of $187 for the whole litter. So large litters are good but we have to account for small litters eatting into profits as well. We have also not accounted for cost of hay, straw, electricity, water, fuel for the tractor for spreading manure from cleaning pens, the boars feed, young gilts feed, etc. Currently we are raising a new crop of breeders so we need to plan long term for that as well. How often will the boar or breeding sows be changed, how much food will the new group consume before we get a return. How long will we keep breeders for, etc ,etc. There is a lot to work out so expect a lot of trial and error even those who have raised pigs for years still have hitches in the plan that set them back.
You mentioned some place you didnt think it was right to charge so much for piglets because the kids wanted to do 4-H i can understand that, we had the same frame of mind but when you figure everything out long term on costs you will have a very slim margin of profit and a few bad litters will put you into the negative. One of the worse losses is a sow in farrow, that loss costs you the sow, the feed for the past 6 months, the bedding, the labor, etc plug the profit you would have had on the piglets. Sows can die without you ever expecting it and it sucks if it happens. Also make sure you figure in costs for wormer, iron, scalpels to castrate, etc.
If your looking to buy gilts in the auction barn, look for good teat count, nice hams, long flat back, proper pasturns and no problems with movement. For a breeder all of those things are important, a young pig showing poor quality or movement problems are going to get worse as she gains size and will be passed onto your piglets. Buy the best you can afford and breed up when possible.
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