We have 3 litters of pigs due in the next few weeks. Polly
is first-due any day now as you can see.
Thor (below) is the sire. Becky (not shown) is due in a few weeks. We are interested in seeing the coloring in the offspring. Often the boar's coloring will dominate, but sometimes you can get red piglets with the white stripe. We will know in a few days.
Sam (right) is due 26 April. The sire is Red who we sold
some weeks ago. This will be the last litter Sam gives us as she isn’t that
great of a mother. She drops 10-12 piglets consistently, but only weans ½ dozen.
Oremus pro invicem!
2 comments:
I have 3 new sows or Gilts in bacon right now. I expect my first litter from Pearl in May followed by Minnie and Winnie in June. This will be my first foray into dropping litters and I was curious if you let them drop in pasture or always kept them up in a pen? I am tempted to let drop out in the pasture. It is early winter here and it does not get that cold here so I am thinking they may be alright. Any ideas here? I do have two pens and I am sure they should each be separated so I will need to build another pen. I put concrete in my pens except the roofed section because the soil here is so soft that they just dig under what ever I have and make deep pits that become pools of mud and after a while the whole pen is a mud pool with the pig standing belly deep in the pool. So I had to bite the bullet and put in concrete. Jim
Jim,
I have heard people let sows farrow on pasture without a problem. As you know, with my limited land, I have pens. I like to have a shelter for the sow to farrow in case of rain, etc. MOST use the shelter, which I put hay or straw as bedding. I do put a beam about 6 inches off the ground around the inside of the shelter to help piglets get out of the way of a clumsy mom.
Cold isn't usually a problem. (We had a sow successfully farrow in teen weather outside a few years ago.)
Let me know how it turns out. Good luck.
God bless the Dorchaks!
Jim
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