We are a small, family owned and operated farm in the mountains of Vermont. We breed and raise pigs all naturally on pasture and hay plus dairy to produce our high quality pork as well as live piglets for people who would like to raise their own.
Piglets: Reserve piglets early as they sell fast in the spring’s high demand season. Note that these are farm pigs, not pet pigs. See Piglets for details.
Roasters: Reserve roaster pigs a month or more in advance of your event date. All sizes available from suckling up to very larger roasters. See Roasters for details.
Direct Sales: We offer direct sales of our pork through our meat CSA and through sales at the gate. See Products for details.
Retail: Stores and Restaurants throughout Vermont offer our high quality pork. See Retail for details.
Tusks: We offer skulls and tusks from small to large sizes. See Tusks for details.
We have two breeding herds of pigs with approximately forty sows and four boars. Our pigs are a cross of several heritage breeds – predominantly Yorkshire with some Berkshire, Large Black, Glouster Old Spot, Tamworth and Hampshire. Good Old American Pigs (GOAPs). We have been selectively breeding them for over twelve pig generations between our two herds. With each generation we breed the best of the best and eat the rest. Gradually over time this results in the improvement of the herd, stronger animals adapted to our climate, better meat flavor, marbling, length, temperament, mother and pasture grazing ability to name a few of the traits we select for.
We raise our pigs free-ranging on pasture. Yes, pigs really do eat grass – they thrive on it. We do not buy commercial hog feed.
Pasture is low in lysine (an amino acid – building block of proteins) and calories so we supplement with dairy including whey, milk, cream, butter, yogurt and cheese. On pure pasture pigs grow a couple of months slower and are leaner – we’ve raised three experimental groups just on pasture and it is do-able. With the addition of dairy to provide lysine and calories they grow faster, about the same speed that pigs do on grain or commercial hog feeds – roughly six months to finish in the warm season and slightly longer in the cold months. Both pasture/hay (~90% of the their diet) and dairy (~7%) are freely available to the pigs at all times. In the winter we replace the pasture with hay – storing summer for the winter. The remaining ~3% of the pig’s diet consists of pumpkins, beets, turnips, kale, apples, sunflowers and other vegetables we grow as well as a little bit of boiled barley from a local brew pub and occasional treats of bread from a local bakery. Recently we’ve sometimes gotten vegetables and fruit from local stores. This is not a fixed day-to-day regime but varies with the season and availability, changing over time. Variety is the spice of life. To learn more about what we feed our animals see these articles. See these links to learn more about raising pigs on pasture, feeding hay, managed rotational grazing and alternative feeds.
Our breeding herds of pigs are divided into two groups, the north herd and the south herd each of which runs with mixed ages. Having two groups gives us more control over the genetics and more parallel generations per year. There are a total of approximately forty sows plus four boars and about 150 to 300 pigs at any time depending on season and who’s had piglets recently. Often times the sows will cluster with many of them birthing (farrowing) at the same time or close together so numbers can jump considerably week to week.
“You guys must spend a lot of time working with your pigs. I can tell because they are so calm and easy to handle.” -David the Knocker
With each generation we breed the best of the best and eat the rest. This results in the improvement of our herds as we select for ideal characteristics such as marbling, flavor, temperament, length, pasture-ability, mothering, growth and other traits. We run a closed herd farm. We breed, farrowed (birth) and raise animals here on our farm. We purchased our original breeder stock back in early 2003 and have only occasionally brought in new animals over the years to expand our genetics as we selectively breed the best of the best. We’re not serving you culls from the factory farms of the mid-west or Canada. In addition to knowing the genetics of our own animals this also helps with bio-security. What this means for you is that you know that our pigs are real Vermonters, raised on pasture, who have been here for many, many generations rather than animals imported from Canada or the mid-west and then passed off as local.
Sugar Mountain Farm products are all naturally grown and our all natural hot dogs and sausage are nitrates and nitrites free. Just the good stuff! We are a NoWeirdStuff.org farm. We do not use gestation or farrowing crates, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotic feeds, hormones at our farm.
What we produce is good wholesome food to feed our family. We share this bounty with you.
They are nice looking
They are nice looking.
Hi = fantastic web site and useful info. thanks! I was wondering, how do you deal with the effects of the pigs on the land? I raise 3 pigs every year and am trying to figure out the right amount of space they need so that they do not completely ruin the land. Thanks – Ale
Hi Ale, See this article about pigs and land. If you do rotational grazing they are not going to ‘ruin’ the land. In fact, you’ll improve the land, enriching the soil. Our pigs graze rather than root. Together with the sheep and chickens they’re a great combination. We also have ducks and geese in the mix, each animal grazing different things. As a very basic rule of thumb for a maximum is about 10 pigs per acre but that greatly depends on a lot of factors. Do check out the article I liked to above.
Thank you for being here!!
We just moved to Hanover from Bloomington, IN and we miss our neighbors who raised truly free range, pasture pigs, turkeys and chickens. I will now definitely ask for Sugar Mountain pork at Dan and Whit’s and WRJ coop…. where do you sell your chickens and turkeys? Maybe I haven’t read far enough. THANK YOU!!!!
Hi Kirsten,
Welcome to the area. We don’t sell chickens or turkeys but my brother and his wife do. They are at Sidetrack Farm on in Hartland. They’re also working on developing goats milk products.
The other outlet right now near you is the Killdeer Farm Stand in Norwich. They also carry our pastured pork and sausage.
Cheers,
-Walter
I would love to see a “characters” type of page somewhere on your site. Here you could introduce some of the animals, such as the head Boar, some of your sows and geese, the dogs, etc. Then readers could get to know them as the individuals they are!
Interesting idea. I’ve done posts sort of like this but they’re spread out through the various categories (e.g., pigs, dogs, sheep, geese, etc). See this one for a goose example. I’ll have to think of how to do that. Perhaps as avatar pictures in each animal section that lead to posts about that individual.
Walter,
I could have sworn that I had seen a page on your site about what you get when you buy half a hog. I am trying to advise friends what to think about when buying that much pork and would rather not start from scratch when you have done it already.
Am I wrong or has it moved?
Thanks for the great blog we enjoy it a great deal.
Mary
Haskins Family Farm
Middletown, VA
Mary, see “What is a Half Pig Share” which includes the pork cut chart. Cheers, -Walter
hi walter i just love what you and your family do! i have pig breeding question i have 2 old gloucestershire pigs both 13 months old gilt still is not bred boar has not bred her yet .i took them both to vet she said all checks out good.she suggested to seperate them so i did for 7 weeks they been thirty miles apart. yesterday i took her to him put them in his house he was very excited he sniffed nudged her side grunted only after about 20 min he tried a little to mount her but stopped she seems to stand for him but he just doesnt finish she goes into cycle like clock work every 21 days. and he has never been exposed to any other gilts or sows . so if you have any suggestions it would be very helpfull
thank you
jim stockton
monroe tn
Hmm… I’m dubious about the separation idea. This isn’t an emotional issue. When their bodies cycle and produce the hormones they generate the phermones that instigate the mating response from the boar and the hormones cause the gilt to be interested in sex. Her regular cycling is a good sign however not all gilts are fertile and neither are all boars. She could have the normal hormonal cycling but have blocked fallopian tubes, a closed cervix or something else. He could be shooting blanks. With neither one of them proven before it is hard to tell but the odds are one or the other is infertile for some reason. By 13 months of age I would expect a gilt to be heavily in pig (pregnant) or to have farrowed by then.
Ours generally farrow around one year of age for the first time. Last week we took one to market who was 12 months old and still open – she was a beautiful gilt who I had hoped to have as a breeder but she never got pregnant.
I was interested to see that your sausages contain no nitrates/nitrites. Would that be saltpeter (or equivalent) that keeps the ‘pink’ colour? We have only processed one of our pigs and I couldn’t get what I believed was ‘mandatory saltpeter’ so we managed without. Our sausages are grand but the hams just don’t look quite so appetising. How do you handle that aspect?
Nitrates/Nitrites/Saltpeter make the meat pinker. We don’t use them in the sausage or hot dogs but the only USDA approved formula the smokehouse has for bacon and hams does have them so we have to have them in bacon/hams for now. When we have our own smokehouse we’ll have more control over this. For more in the nitrates and such see NoWeirdStuff down at the bottom in the questions and answers.
Walter- Hi-what kind of shelters do you use for your hogs? I am not good at construction, but trying to find something for farrowing sows and for providing winter shelter for growing pigs. Love your site-aways interesting!
We have many different winter housing solutions. Check out the Animal Housing tag in the tag cloud in the right column. This year we made a fairly large hoop greenhouse that we really like. We had been planning to make several more of them but winter is here and construction is winding down. I’ll post more details about that one soon.
We raise Berkshire pigs (pastured) and I’m trying to find out if it is okay for brothers and sisters to breed. I can’t seem to find much info as to whether this is a “no-no” genetically or not. The litters would be for meat production. Since the pigs are pastured it’s hard to keep them apart. They are young still but I’d like to know if I have to move them before it’s too late.
Yes, you can breed brothers and sisters. Doing it for terminal generations, for meat, is not likely to be an issue. If your pigs have negative recessive traits then those characteristics may show up. Cull them to meat, of course. Breeding related pigs and keeping track of what you get is a way of finding out what the parent pigs carry for genes and then through careful breeding you can improve your herds. Inbreeding is the random or non-intentional process of breeding too closely. Line-breeding is when you do it carefully with purpose to improve your breed.
Hi Walter!
My husband and I are about to embark on our second round of raising pigs and we’ve been looking into the best and fastest crops to plant behind the pigs for their feed. What do you think of rutabagas? My brother says they grow fast but I wasn’t sure about if the pigs would really go for them. Also, would sunchokes keep coming back every year or do the pigs pretty much clear them out? What other crops would you suggest? Where do you get your seeds from for this? I was looking into High Mowing Seeds since they’re just down the road but I’m not sure if it is the most economical option.
Thanks for your wealth of knowledge and this wonderful blog!
-Melissa
Sunchokes are really good because the pigs help replant them. I don’t have a clear answer for you on “best” but would rather suggest variety. We plant a mix of pumpkins & squash (winter paddocks), sunchokes, sunflowers, turnips (rutabagas is another name I think), beets, kale, rape, etc. Basically I look for protein, deep roots, lysine, calories, fast growth (for quickie areas), ease of planting (scatter seeds) and what does well in our climate and soil. I’m not very successful with corn – we had a string of years with failed crops after several with good crops so I don’t do a lot of it. A big failure is too much. It’s too finicky for our location. You’re similar to us I would hazard.
High mow is an excellent seed source – we’ve gotten from them in the past as well as Johnny’s and others. Ask about last years seeds. Lower germination rate but they may have a great deal. Generally the germination rate goes down about 10% a year or so.
Hi Walter!
I tried your link: http://flashweb.com/blog/tag/animal-housing
and got a message that the page no longer exists. I’m a student at Sterling College (in Craftsbury Cmn) and am working on intensively rotating pigs on one of our lesser quality pastures, with the intent of reseeding it. The farm manager and I are looking into building 2 movable houses for the pigs, one for the sows and another for the piglets (who will be slaughtered throughout the summer and fall, thus the house will ideally never be too small for all of them). The shelters would be 6×6′ and 6×8′ and 3 sided with cedar split down half as runners. Other ideas include a tarp configuration, or using palettes for the shelter siding. The thing is that we’ll be moving them daily, with man-power only so as to not compact the soil and b/c the tractors/horses can’t be easily scheduled on a daily basis. Any tips/ideas would be much appreciated!!
Thanks,
Eliza
The link got changed to http://flashweb.com/blog/tag/housing where did you find the old link?
For renovating the pastures, do a slower rotation than for grazing so that the pigs will root more. It is handy if it rains more. Smaller areas for the paddocks helps. Then seed after it is rooted up well and then move the pigs. Seeding before the pigs move means they’ll trample seed into the ground. Alternatively a heavy rain storm right after seeding will drive the seed into the soil. A matter of timing. If the pigs have brush then housing is not necessary in the warm months – now through October.
An alternative to moving the housing would be to set it in the middle of the field in a home base and set the paddocks up in a tic-tac-toe arrangement around the housing. Food, water, house would then be in the central home square. Pigs would be rotated out to each of the grazing squares as needed. Next year the home square will be a great garden. Keep it smaller than the other paddocks – minimal size is all that is needed.
Great, thanks for all the input. We’ll definitely consider it!
I found the link on this blog, on a January 13th, 2011 posting of yours.
Was wondering how you “catch” your piglets to sell as you do not have a barn type confinement. Our gilt will farrow the end of August, we don’t have a barn, just a hoop house/Aframe in the middle of our pasture and were wondering how we will go about catching the squirming bundles of joy for expecting folks. Thanks for all the many questions you’ve answered in our new ventures.
The easiest way is to wean them off to a to a tightly fenced paddock and then at feeding time pick the ones I want. They’re very focussed on the food and I can generally simply pickup the ones I want and pass them to someone with a carrier.
Hello Walter~
Wondering if you might share your thoughts/experiences on the business and financial potential of pasturing pigs. I am interested in hearing how your efforts and your farm grew, such that you are now both paying the mortgage and have a living wage.
Do you see pasturing pigs as “needing” a certain scale for a fair and decent return? Do you find your work load and your family life balance well enough throughout the year?
What might you recommend to a person wondering about scaling up, hoping to do that as one component of a farm income…. But hoping for more than “just” breaking even.
We are into our fourth year with pasturing pigs and are wondering about potentials. Any insights or advice, any guidelines on realistic expectations would be greatly appreciated.
I do hope my questions have not been too “scripted”, am really looking for some financial realities/potentials – or whatever you might be willing to share!
thank you – we do really appreciate your work on the ground, and the fact you post it to the web for us to browse.
~Chris
Hmm… That’s a whole post, or book, in and of itself. In fact, I was just asked to write a book on that very topic. But, here’s a short answer:
We grew our farm slowly and gradually. We practiced in small ways, adding to our skills along the way. This is how I do things rather than jumping in fast. It may look otherwise to an outsider but we’ve done a lot of practice steps along the way that are often not visible. For example, in building the butcher shop it is based on a great deal of how we built our cottage which is based on how we built a test dog house which was based on how we built some animal shelters which were based on how we built a bunch of table top scale models. Baby steps.
At four years with your pastured pigs you’re along a similar journey. We tried out other things, such as sheep and meat poultry for example. I like sheep but they don’t pay the mortgage. Right now we’re sheepless but will get sheep again as they are a great co-grazer for the pigs and when we have our own processing capacity they’ll be more profitable. Besides – I love lamb. The birds were even worse. With the pigs we find they are better for us in many ways including financially. Might or might not work for someone else, of course. To many variables to list them all here.
As to scale, we find that three to four pigs a week on average works out well for us. We take pigs to the butcher every week, delivering to stores and restaurants who have standing orders. Additionally we sell some roasters through the warm months, some whole and half pigs to individuals and weaner piglets in the spring. The killer is the processing costs which eats up a third to half of our gross sales income. This is a major reason for us building our own on-farm meat processing facility.
As to a living wage, I don’t believe in such a thing. The “Living Wage” mantra is a fallacy made up by theorists who spend too little time actually living on a minimalist budget. What I consider a good living they call poverty. The things they list as necessities I call luxuries. Two totally different world views. What is important is we earn enough to buy the things we need and pay our taxes. Everything else is gravy. I do like gravy but I don’t confuse it with the meat and potatoes. Fortunately we’ll never starve nor lack for a place to live – the nice thing about having land.
I would strongly suggest using a spreadsheet to model your numbers and writing up a business plan – just like with any venture. It will be wrong, of course, but it gives you an idea of things and you can keep updating it as you learn. In time the model and plan improve. This helps steer your course.
Walter,
Yes, the financials and the business growth process could easily fill a book, and more! The “go slow, grow slow” is a theme I hear from many successful famers.
I’m sitting the fence right now, in a tricky spot – wondering if too many of our farm endeavors are “too small to be big, too big to be small”. I’m trying to find a way through the overhead and the labor…. to a decent cash flow….
What do you do once you’ve found mites on your pigs? What do you do to keep mites off your pigs?
I’ve found mites on our boar, who is in thick brush, heavy shade. Haven’t found them on the herd, who are on more open ground, sandier, drier.
thank you! ~chris
On the business stuff, start with making a business plan. Do one out for each aspect of your endeavors – e.g., pigs vs chickens vs cattle…
On the mites, I’ve never seen them on our pigs. I’ve looked for them but we don’t seem to get them. Knock-on-wood. I have read about smothering them with oil. I would use vegetable oil although some people talk of motor oil. I have also read that Ivermec works. No experience though.
Hey, i enjoy looking at your website! A question on feeding pigs whey, I have 5 berkshire/tamworth crosses that are fed a combination of grain, apples, small pasture and whey. Just wondering about how much whey I should be feeding them? not sure if if feed too much it will put extra fat on them? they were born in jun and july and are quite big at least 150-200 for larger two. thanks for any info you could give me!
Whey is low in calories so it isn’t going to make the pigs fat. We feed the whey for the lysine, a protein. If you are also getting some milk, cream or cheese that will add calories. We free feed – that is the pigs can eat as much as they want when they want. We feed almost totally pasture/hay and dairy. See the pigs page for details on our pig’s diet. On that diet we get about 3/4″ of back fat. I do know of someone who, using our same genetics since he buys piglets from us, feeding Jersey cow whole milk gets about 4″ of back fat. So calories in the diet matter.
We are getting two pigs (2months) next Saturday. We will be getting 60gallons of milk each week. How much grain and hay will they need? Also, I ferment the feed for our 700 (not a typo) chickens and give them kombucha tea as well as raw acv. Theh also get milk daily. Ive cornish rocks that are 20 weeks old and weigh about 15lbs. They fly,forage…its beautiful. Anyways, Ill also be sprouting for the chickens so…what do you think about doing the same for the pigs?
Also someone told me you can feed them all milk….is that true? Do you know how much they’d need? ive only found info over grains…
Thanks!
~Honey
They don’t have to have grain. We’ve raised pigs for years without grain. If you can get grain inexpensively then it is a good addition to their diet. Many grains benefit from cooking or soaking before feeding to the pigs to make the grains more digestible. We free feed pasture/hay and dairy. At one point I figured out that our pigs were eating about 400 lbs of hay over the course of a winter when snows have us locked in (~5 months). That’s about 2.6 lbs of hay a day. I also figured out during that time that they were drinking about three gallons or so of dairy per hundred weight per day.
I would not suggest feeding all milk. They also need some roughage in their diet which ours get from the pasture in the warm months and the hay in the winter. The pasture/hay also provide other nutrients, vitamins and minerals. In the winter we give them dirt too.
Many forms of fermenting make the food more digestible and that’s good. It also helps with gut bacteria. We add yogurt to our dairy for this reason. If you have it go for a trial with the pigs too.
I have great respect for you with the Cornish Rocks. I’ve tried them three times with no success.
Hi my name joe.
first i must say i love all the info you provide for free.
thank you so much. It has really helped me an my family !!
For my question it sats you have 40 sows an 4 boars for breeding is that in each herd or all together? Also does it work to keep boars together with sows do the boars fight are must the boars grown up together as babys? Also do you recomend only 10 sows per boar or is 15 a good number?
Those numbers are dynamic, sometimes we’re higher, sometimes lower. Right now we have two big boars plus several up and coming boars whom I’ll select from. Generally I like a boar per 10 to 15 sows and I like to have boars of a variety of sizes and ages so there are replacements in the wings. Growing up together is ideal. Introducing a new boar would be tricky. It might be better to get rid of the old boars and introduce new boars all at once. Having lots of room for them helps.
I would like to request a small piglet for $100 dollars. I have been looking for a pig for about 5 years and no one would give me a runt for 100. I hope you will be generous and help me out. Thank you
Elle, you can find the piglet pricing and details on the Piglets page. We don’t sell runts and even a ‘runt’ will grow to 600 to 1,000 lbs – not a small pig at all. Realize that these are farm pigs, bred to be large. I think you want to look for a Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig. I have seen them selling in pet stores for around $400. From what I read they grow to just 200 or 300 lbs at full size and will eat far less than a farm pig. For more about pet pigs see these posts
Hello,
I love your website and how you raise your animals. We have 8 acres of pasture and have not yet decides what to raise. i have been reading about pigs, and cows. So that is what we are going to do. But I think the pigs will be first. We have a neighbor that is interested in pigs as well. Do you have any suggestions on the breed? And can you tell me when to get them and at what age? We live in North West Ga.
Thanks Again
Deborah
On breed, start with anything you can get. Look around now for breeders because in the spring the demand is high and it will be hard to find piglets then. When you find someone, put down a deposit to secure your piglets. It is best to do this with someone who has more than one sow farrowing. At this early stage of the game I wouldn’t worry about specific breeds too much but more about learning how to raise them.
As a first animal I tend to recommend chickens to people. They are so easy. Next comes pigs.
Have fun!
Thanks so much for your response. And my husband and I agree that we are going to do chickens first and then pigs. We have a person that we have know for about 2 yrs that have pigs and raises them and they said they would sell us pigs when we are ready.
Thanks Again
Deborah
Thanks for all of the info on your website, it is nice to see farming being done right. I had a question about piglet fertility. I would like to keep all of my pigs together, boars, gilts, sows, piglets etc… however I have read all over that piglets can an do become fertile as early as four weeks old, both sexes. Have you found this to be true? If so do you seperate your pigs at all? Thanks!
No, I think there is a bit of confusion there – months vs weeks. Gilt (young female) pigs generally become fertile at about eight months and then have their first litter at about one year but can become fertile as young as six months, at least in the breeds I’ve dealt with. Pigs become sexually active as young four months but I have never seen them get pregnant until six to eight months. The males have a similar range. They’re not shooting full loads until about eight or even ten months.
We keep our pigs non-sex-segregated. That is the young boars and gilts are together. It is not a problem since they go to market around six months of age. We segregate by age in the cold months. If we were going to do more subdivisions of our herd then I would start segregating the males from the females at about four months simply to keep the groups under fifty pigs each. Right now we have about ten winter divisions. To do the sex-segregation would me we would have to work harder to take care of them and it isn’t necessary.
hi walter!
i am planning to raise my pigs on corn sprouts fodder alone. can they thrive on that alone?
nbo
I wouldn’t feed just that. It will be low in protein among other things. Variety is the spice of life.
corn is 15% crude protein, mine is free range so they can eat other grass, legumes etc. however, i just got this idea from this site check this out: http://www.foddersolutions.org/_webapp_1489819/Traditional_pigs_thrive_on_sprout_diet
15% protein in corn is very good. I don’t do corn since it doesn’t grow well here so I can’t comment directly but my understanding from reading is that corn lacks some specific amino-acids that the pigs need and these become growth limiting. Specifically lysine is an issue. There are some new genetically modified (GMO) corns that are supposed to be higher in protein and lysine however I’m very leery of those for all sorts of reasons so we just won’t go there. What variety of corn are you using and what are its amino-acid profiles?
Looking at the story you linked too I may have found the answer to the issue. They say:
“Slow growing pigs and fast feed has proved a successful combination for Todd and Georgina Guy who run a small mixed farming enterprise near Nobby on the Darling Downs.”
Note my underlined emphasis. Large Blacks aren’t particularly slow growing. But if you feed them a lysine limited diet they, or any other pig, will grow more slowly. This suggests to me that they’re confusing the effects of the diet with what they thing of as a characteristic of the pig. The pigs are normal but on a limited diet they grow more slowly.
This raises another important issue. It is not speed to market (growth rate) that matters as much as quality to market, humane raising, sustainability and low input costs. All too often I hear people focus on how fast they can grow the pig and ignore that it is costing them too much to do it so they’re not making a profit. The old, “lose $5 a pig but make it up in volume” theory of business. It doesn’t work, it’s not sustainable and puts the farmer in debt and out of business.
So, the Guy’s may be producing slower growing hogs but if they’re producing top quality meat humanely, sustainably and profitably it doesn’t matter that it is taking a little longer. It works. If the diet is deficient in lysine or another limiting amino-acid they may be able to speed up growth rates and improve muscling by balancing the diet more. This also helps to reduce the wastes that are coming out the back end.
In our case we primarily use dairy for our source of lysine as well as getting protein from pasture from legumes such as alfalfa, clovers and such. Over seeding brings up the mix in time.
that article about the fodder sprouts is really an advertisement for a highly intensive food production system. they arent pasturing theyre feeding a processed corn diet. nothing wrong with that if that is what you want to do but they shouldnt call it pastured. the pigs are getting their food from a highly mechanized source that involves a lot of energy to prodce. it is just like feeding any other commercial swine feed.
Correct. So really it should be viewed as a supplement to pasture much like feeding a commercial hog feed in addition to pasture. When feeding such things I would recommend feeding the supplement late in the day so that the pigs spend their days grazing to maximize their pasture intake rather than filling up on the supplement. This is especially true if you are free feeding the supplementary food. There is nothing wrong with good supplementary foods and variety is the spice of life.
Hello,
I have a York sow @ about 500 lbs and a Texas Waddle Boar @ about 300 lbs. Neither has bred. When I put them in together they push and crowd each other and the sow sits on her bum. They go at this for quite some time until the boar is so tired he gives up. at the end of the visit I separate them as they mark each other and I am worried about one hurting or killing the other. Is this normal for first time breeding’s? Should I just put them in together and let them go to the end? Will they hurt each other? Is there any other way to introduce them that I don’t know of? I have only dealt with pigs that have breeding for quite sometime at my parents. My partent are gone now and I am not sure where to get info on this. Thank You
If she has never farrowed a litter then she’s a gilt, not a sow – just a bit of terminology. What I have read is that if a gilt has not had a litter by her second year then she loses her fertility. If she is sitting on her bum then she’s saying “Not tonight, Dear.” She might not be in heat. Have you seen signs of heating? Vulva swelling and pinking? They normally heat every 21 days or so. I would leave them together. If they have not bred within three more months then I do not think she is fertile. Good luck!
She does go through a swelling and a pinkening of the vulva and goes off her feed for a couple days. I have marked it on the calender and it is running 17 to 21 days. If she has gone sterile do I have an immediate time line I need to get another Gilt or Sow for the Boar?
No rush, other than this is the ideal time to breed for summer piglets.
hi walter!
how many sows with piglets can we put in 1 hectare?
Check out the article “How much land per pig“. This is with managed rotational grazing. The general rule of thumb is 10 pigs per acre max. A hectacre is about 2.5 acres so about 25 pigs. However, there are many variables such as climate, soil, pasture quality, management, etc. Check out that article and it will give you some insights.
hi walter,
are your boars mix together with the sows in your farm? do you isolate the sows when they are pregnant? or they are still free range ? where do they give birth ?
We keep our boars and sows together in a mixed sex breeding herd. The boars are very good at detecting heat, when a sow is ready to breed. If we kept them apart it would be far more difficult – they would challenge the fences to get together. We do not isolate, crate or cage them. During the warm months, the golden months from about May through October, the sows find a private place out in the margins of the pastures, build a nest and farrow their litter’s of piglets there. In a week or so they return to the herd with piglets trailing behind them. During the depth of winter we use sow huts, greenhouses, winter dens, nurseries and other things to give the sows privacy that they can more easily protect yet still socialize with the other pigs. This is an evolving thing on our farm. Winter is by far the hardest time of the year. I recommend farrowing only in the golden months if you can.
Your doing a great job. This is how pigs should be ethically raised.
Hi Walter, Great website! Just a quick question, we have a female tamworth that is do to farrow (crossed with large black/berkshire) in a few weeks with her first litter, she currently is in part of our cow barn sectioned off with round pen panels. The inside portion is fairly small, maybe 6 ft by 20 feet and has a dirt floor, where she sleeps and has a nest of hay. Just wondering if that would be ok for her to give birth in there or should i make some sort of platform out of plywood inside the barn? Its fairly rough inside since she has been rooting up the dirt floor. Thanks ryan
During the golden months, the warm months, they require nothing of us for farrowing. Here are some articles about farrowing, piglets, sows, etc.
Also look in the right sidebar in the tag cloud for piglets.
There is little to nothing that you need to do. If the pigs are penned like in your barn then she needs privacy from other pigs. All alone there she should be fine. Out on pasture our sows seek out the margins of the fields, build nests and farrow all without assistance. In the winter we provide nurseries they can get the privacy they need but go in and out of. With this warm weather she should be fine if she has plenty of space in the barn or outdoors.
Critically Important: Do not add hay or straw to her nest. Let her do it. People don’t chew the straw or hay up properly or pack it right. She should know how to do it by instinct. If you add loose bedding to the nest piglets may get embedded and crushed.
Hi, Walter – What do you do for parasites? Have you found the right mineral and herbal solutions to avoid using meds, or do you need to use things like Safeguard and Ivermectin?
Our primary management of parasites is managed rotational grazing. Winter also helps greatly. We also keep a lot of free ranging chickens who are a natural organic pest and parasite control. See this article about Worms Au Natural.