A couple of years ago we had a visit from a government agricultural official who was “here to help us”. She was of the know it all type which made for some interesting bloopers on her part. I was showing her around the farm. We went over to the winter breeding corral for the pigs and she said “My, that is a very big sow!” She was looking at a side view of our boar Archimedes and all of his equipment was on display in all of its glory. Okay, I thought to myself, she’s a little sheltered… but I won’t embarrass her by correcting her… On we went. Later she said she had cattle and bragged about knowing all about breeding livestock. I bit my tongue.
So, in order to educate everyone so none of us make this same mistake I present you today with the essential difference between a boar and a sow. Consider it a bit of piggy porn. (Wow, that is going to mess up google.)
The photo above shows a nice young sow on the left and a handsom young boar on the right. Just below the gilt’s tail is her anus and just below that is her vulva with her “little pointy thing” as Archie calls it. Archie, the pig farmer from whom we got our boar Archimedes, says that when a sow gets pregnant the “pointy thing” points up and he is right. I suspect that this is caused by the uterus becoming heavy with the growing fetal piglets which then hangs lower pulling on the vagina and indirectly on the vulva. By the way, the difference between a gilt and a sow is the sow has farrowed (birthed) while the gilt may be pregnant or not but she has not yet had piglets.
On the boar, below his tail and anus, there is a large sack containing his testicles. This can be easily seen from the side or back. For those of you who have dealt with cattle and sheep you can see that banding boar balls is not a possible castration technique since they are held up close to the body and there is no slack. This means that castration requires cutting – hence the term “a cut piglet”. This is not a pleasant task for the young boar piglet who is soon to be a barrow, the person holding or the person cutting. I’ve written before about how castration may not be necessary and boar meat, at least with our pigs, seems fine with no traces of boar taint. By the way, the difference between a boar and a barrow is all in the balls – the latter lacks ‘em.
Just to complete your pig spotting education here’s a side perspective view of a sow:
and a side view of a boar:
and a side perspective view of a boar:
For a photo of two little boars and a big boar see tomorrow’s post.
So remember, the government may claim to be here to help us but they don’t necessarily know all the answers…
77째F/69째F Sunny, Spot of Morning Rain.
Walter……Thanks for the refresher course on Pig anatomy 101…….Back in ’83 and ’84 i raised a few pigs and when the Sow had her piglets in the spring i was enlisted by my neighbor to be the “holder”. I wince at the sight of someone getting an injection and was not at all prepared for what transpired to those little piggys. No laughing gas or novacaine for those boys. The sight of them wobbling off after the “removal” was a humbling experience. Ouch!!!…..AnonyI
Well, if ya’ wana’ farm – guess ya’ godda lern deese tings some where.
Thanks for the lesson my friend, suppose I ought to know the full measure of what it is I aspire to!
Walter you crack me up!!!!!! Piggy porn!!!!!!
you need a big warning sign on your blog. you are too funny. now i have to clean my keyboard. again!
This is what I love about your blog, you really give us a glimps into farm life and all it’s wonders.
I cannot believe that the government lady couldn’t tell the difference between a gilt/sow and boar! Although since she worked for the government it hardly surprises me!
I have been wondering Walter, I know you raise animals but what about veggies? I can only imagine the sort of garden you must have!
Thanks-Brandy
B, we have a fair bit of gardens – maybe a third of an acre. Mostly for our own consumption although I have been experimenting with growing some animal feed too. We don’t sell veggies.
Each year we expand our gardening spaces a bit more as I terrace new areas of the hill sides and the animals fertilize and till the soil. Low maintenance is key – no time for lots of weeding. :)
This year we lost most of our corn crop and even the re-plantings. It was just too wet and cool this spring so the seed rotted in the soil. The small amount of pre-sprouted corn we replanted in one of those areas did survive although it is not doing well with the drowning it got later. We replanted to brassica and some other fast growing crops to try and salvage the short season. Cucumbers and melons also did poorly this year succumbing to damp off.
On a positive note the potatoes, tomatoes, tomillos, lettuce, broccoli, sunflowers, pumpkins, squash, radishes, peas, beans, carrots, garlic and onions are all doing very nicely. Maybe we’ll get lucky and have a warm fall and other veggies will make up for it.
Each year’s a little different. The last two years were fantastic cucumber years.
I was just reading your blog and it reminded me that I’ve always
wanted to do a luau pig. Have you done one? If so how big was the
pig and how long did it take?
art
I was just reading your blog and it reminded me that I’ve always
wanted to do a luau pig. Have you done one? If so how big was the
pig and how long did it take?
art
My, my, what you can learn online these days. Now, I thought I knew everything there is to know about livestock, having read all of James Herriot’s books – twice, mind you. Never heard the terms gilt or barrow before. Thank you for the lesson, Walter!
Art, I haven’t done it luau style. My father has done many pit roasts which are somewhat similar smoking of various meats and I have helped with that. I have read about luaus on some web sites – do a Google. Here is a search.
I have done three pig roasts above a fire on a spit. Small pigs cook much faster than big pigs. There is a lot of meat on a small 50 lb pig. 50 lbs live weight yeilds about 35 lbs carcass weight for cooking which gives about 25 lbs of meat. Figure 1/3 lb of meat per person (I assume you are serving other food besides just pork) so that would do 75 people theoretically if you could carve it such as to get all the meat. Realistically that is about 50 people I think.
Have fun and let me know how it goes if you do one!
Cheers,
-Walter
So this the reason the gov cant simply provide us with good information to make our own decisions??? They are incompitent?
Walter… you simply must know that the government deals in generalities. A pig is a pig is a pig, one method of educating fits all, of course we will pay you for not planting those crops, etc. In the government’s mind we are all one and the same.
You and I are simply delving too deep into the details (gilt/sow & boar/barrow) while the government math program sums it up with this (giltsowboarbarrow = pig).
Just my 2 pennies worth :)
Speaking of government imcompetence…when I was in my teens, a person from the USDA Dept. came around with the “pretense” of HELPING the poor dumb farmers understand their animals and crops. So this woman proceeded to tell my mother all about goats and their milk. Well, we happened to have goats, and my mother knew full well what goats milk consisted of and how to harvest and can veggies and fruits. Anyway, this all-knowledgable USDA-ster explained to my mom, in very simple english in case she couldn’t understand, that goats milk NEVER had cream, because nature had naturally homoginized it. My mom listened patiently then walked into the house and brought out a small pkt. of butter. She told the woman that she was gifting her with a pkt. of homemade butter from the nonexistent cream on her goats milk. I do not think that woman ever really understood what my mom was telling her, but I could tell by my mom’s smug look that she was quite happy with the results. These people like this woman was sent out to teach the dumb and illiterate farmers how to survive, and they really made no bones about how dumb they thought the farmers really were. I guess they got a lot of flack, because that program didn’t seem to last very long!
we just butchered our 4 yesterday am. A little early but worked out best for us now. Looking forward to our great meat to eat! thanks for the pig info… but i knew this just by being alive, can’t understand why this inspector didnt?
Ok, I have the basics down on anatomy and even tried my hand at artificial insemination on my show hog last month. Here is the question being a novice and not wanting to declare success to early. What are the sign of a pregnant gilt? I have not paid enough attention to which way it points and am relatively sure she missed this month because the last two months were very obvious. I am hoping for some way to comfirm because I don’t want a suprise and four months. Besides, I don’t want people to talk because I keep looking at her butt. Thanks for the help.
The first thing I notice is either a rounding of the belly or her clitoral hood changing from pointing down to pointing up – probably due to the weight pulling on her uterus and then out to her genitals. Archie, who let us some boars when we were getting started, keyed me into that – he would say “her ‘pointy thing’ starts pointing up when she’s pregnant.”
Next her nipples will enlarge a bit, not a lot and the curve between her hind leg and belly vanishes as her belly expands.
Gestation is three months, three weeks, three days according to the old saying. Or about four months. Towards the end of the third month her nipples will get significantly larger and her belly should be hanging. You should be able to feel the growing fetus piglets insider her and maybe even see their kicking on the outside of her belly when she is laying down. Her breathing may be a bit labored and she may have a hard time sleeping on her belly.
In the last three weeks or so she’ll typically get engorgement of the breasts as they prepare to produce food for her babies.
In the last week or so the ligiments in her back loosen and she may look a bit sway backed. Her hood will point way up. Her vulva may start to puff and redden a little.
A day or two before she is ready to farrow, give birth, her vulva will become very red and puffy. She’ll start gathering sticks and grasses from the field to build a nest, often off along a far edge of the pasture. If you have her in a stall or corral, give her plenty of hay or straw to use for bedding.
hello folks.. i have a pig question.. i have dairy goats and that’s kind of a no-no.. but i’ve been told it’s ok with pigs.. the plan is to raise them through the winter .. allow him to breed her.. then butcher him.. i read your article on boar taint and thought i’d seperate him after the deed and then butcher him.. what do you think ??
thanks so much.. great site.. very inspirational..
Hi Michael,
Yes, you can breed a sister and brother. Breeding and then butchering him is done by many people. Ideally they would be about 7 months old and in fine condition and she would have gone through a couple of heats before first breeding. That means keeping them separate from about 4 months to 7 months – or you can just not worry about it and she’ll get bred a little early. Theoretically that results in slightly smaller (~-1 piglets) litter sizes. I would probably do that if I were you as it is much easier to manage.
I would not slaughter him until you are _sure_ she is pregnant just incase you want to rebreed on the next cycle. Leave them together at that point and he’ll take care of the job.
Cull against defects and generally be careful not to continue this inbreeding for successive generations. E.g., don’t keep any from her litter for breeding that show any problems – safest is just to consider all the litter as for eating and not breeding. Studies on inbreeding do show a reduction in vigor and litter size in addition to the usual accumulation of undesirable traits that can occur with inbreeding.
Lastly, note that not all gilts or boars are actually fertile. The industry average is only about 75% for the gilts (females). If you had two boars and several gilts your odds of success would be better – but you could well get lucky. We find the fertility rate in our gilts to be over 96% so it can be better than the industry average.
On the issue of boar taint, we have not had any problem even leaving the boars with the herd. But people who have had and issue with that generally report that if they separate the boar from the females for a month the meat is fine. I hear that the darker breeds have more of an issue with boar taint than the lighter breeds. What breed are your pigs? We have Yorkshire with a bit of other mixed in.
Hi Walter, My name is Joshua from Nigeria. I was doing some research and updating my knowledge when I stumbled on your site. Going through you documents leaves me without any doubt that we’ve got somethings in common that we could share. I wanna hear from you so that we could communicate our ideas with each other and better our individual farms and profits. my mail address is jossezua@yahoo.com.
Walter,
Once a long time ago it was told to me “Those that can’t … teach.”
Also thanks for answering the question are pigs tails straight or curly.
I used this picture for my facebook profile pic (and gave you credit). It is a great match for my sense of humor today. My mind has been on pigs as I research in preparation for having a few to till and enrich our clearcut land and seal our new ponds, so it is a good fit.
hi
can any body tell me when my gilt will farrow shes had milk in all her teats
sence last nite at 9:30 no it is 8:00 the following nite she is not in any pain that i can see
thank you deb
Usually they let down milk the day or so before farrowing but sometimes it can be a week. Is she doing nest building? Off her food? Puffy vulva? Sagging lower back? All additional signs of impending farrowing… Sounds like she’ll go any day.
I just wanted to thank you for the info on how to tell if the sow is pregnant! It was super helpful for us. I appericate all the info.
This really cracked me up!