Terms of the pig and Frequently Asked Questions…
- Gilt – A female pig who has not yet had piglets. Not all pigs are fertile, just like with other species, so even an older female pig may be a gilt. A gilt may start heating around five months but generally does not come into true fertile heat cycles (21 days) until about eight months with her first litter occurring at about one year. Some will have their first litters as early as ten months – we call these Lolitas – and they do fine. Mouse, who is over six years old and 800 lbs and has had many litters, was a Lolita. Gilts grow the slowest and have the highest amount of fat on them. If you are looking for maximum lard on a pig then get a gilt piglet and feed it a high calorie diet in the warm months of summer.
- Barrow – A male pig who has been castrated. We do not castrated pigs as it is not necessary because we do not have boar taint in our herds through genetics, feed and management. Barrows grow about 10% slower than boars but about 10% faster than gilts and are fattier like gilts.
- Boar – A male pig who still has the family jewels – e.g., he has not been castrated. Boars can breed and generally start showing some sexual activity around four months although not strongly until closer to six months. At ten months they generally start to hit their reproductive stride. Boars grow the fastest, about 10% faster than barrows who are faster than gilts. We breed for good temperament in all of our pigs – an important factor no matter what the sex of the animal.
- Boar Taint – The much feared and discussed but rarely ever found bad smell that is in some breeds and lines of pigs. Boar taint is actually quite rare as scientific studies have shown. In the few breeds of pigs have it boar taint can generally be controlled through better management such as pasturing, rotational grazing, feeding fiber (e.g., grass & hay) as well as milk, selective breeding, separation from females and other methods rather than castration. Interesting facts:
- 25% of people can’t smell or taste boar taint;
- sows have boar taint in some breeds; and
- boar taint is caused by two chemicals, skatole and androstenone. Skatole is formed in the intestines and androstenone is formed in the gonads and the adrenal glands so castration is no protection against boar taint.
- Castration – The practice of cutting off the testicles of a pig, or other male animal. This is generally done without anesthesia and may result in complications or even the death of the animal. Many countries are now outlawing castration as inhumane. See boar taint. Castration is not necessary. We do not do it. If you buy piglets and want them castrated we recommend you take it to a vet.
- Sow – A female pig who has farrowed.
- Farrow – To give birth to a litter of piglets.
- Litter – A litter is a group of piglets born together from one farrowing of a sow. An average litter size is a little more than eight with some extra-ordinary sows like Big Pig, Flip, Flop, Flo, Petra and Blackie’s line regularly having litters of 14 to even 19 piglets. This is why teats on a sow count. Teats on a boar count because how many teats a boar has is an indicator for how many his daughters will have. More fully developed teats means more milk available and more, larger, healthier weaned piglets per litter. Typically pigs have eight to 12 teats. All of our sows have at least 14 teats and some have 16 teats. Teat count is a selectable characteristic that can be bred for.
- Sound – A group of piglets that may consist of more than one litter. As they move across the pasture they make a sound of piglets.
- Herd – A group of pigs of any age.
- Weaning – Removing piglets from the mother so they stop nursing and she can dry up. There comes a time in the sow’s life when she wants to be free of the piglets but they won’t leave her alone. She will lay flat on her teats for hours to protect herself, unable to getup to go pee, eat or drink. This is why we wean piglets off of sows. Years ago we experimented with letting the piglets naturally wean and it didn’t work. The sows became nursed down. Beyond about eight weeks they get no benefit from continued nursing and can hurt the health of the sow. If left on a sow too long the piglets can suck the sows condition down. We generally wean in batches between four and eight weeks – a point at which the piglets have long been eating pasture, hay, whey, cheese and other good foods.
- Piglet – Newborn to about 4 to 6 weeks of age. Piglets are not pets. (Note that these age terms, times, ages and weights are approximations, there is no absolute cut off and in some cases, especially the weaner ages, many people use differing terms and definitions.)
- Suckling – A piglet still nursing, recently weaned and still on a dairy diet such as weaner. People looking for the milk fed are looking for that special flavor and tenderness in the meat. Since our pigs are dairy fed the suckling roaster stage is extended up through the weaner age.
- Weaner – Young weaning pig. 4 to 8 weeks of age and 20 to 40 lbs hanging weight which corresponds to anywhere from 20 to 50 lbs live weight. The term weaner has more to do with the act of weaning than the actual age since weaning happens at different ages depending on the season. In the spring piglets can be weaned earlier but in the cold of the fall it is good to let them nurse longer. In August we let them nurse longer simply as a way of managing the sow’s heat since she’s less likely to rebreed while nursing. Weaners are kept in tightly fenced pastures as a group, often with a few older grower or shoat piglets to show them the ropes.
- Weiner – A sausage. Sometimes people write wiener when they mean weaner. See Weaner above.
- Shoat – Young weaned pig. 2 to 3 months of age and 40 to 60 lbs hanging. Once the piglet is fully weaned it moves into this next grouping and may join a herd as part of a cohort.
- Grower – 3 to 4 months of age and 60 to 90 lbs hanging. Often used for small pig roasts. Small roasters take less time to cook than big roasters and are an especially good choice if it is your first time doing a pig roast.
- Feeder – A pig that is intended for raising to feed out as a finisher pig for slaughter as opposed to a pig that is being raised for breeding. Some people incorrectly use the term feeder to refer to a grower pig. Feeder is a determination of purpose, not size although it is colloquial.
- Roaster – 4 to 5 months of age and 90 to 150 lbs hanging. Often used for pig roasts, thus the term. Small roasters take less time to cook than big roasters and are an especially good choice if it is your first time doing a pig roast. The term roaster is a bit vague because it you can roast a pig of any size from a suckling piglet all the way up to a 1,000 lb boar or beyond. However the typical roaster that most people are looking for events is about 75 to 150 lbs hanging weight.
- Finisher – 5 to 6 months of age and 200 to 250 lbs live weight yielding a top weight of 180 lbs hanging. These are pigs in their last month or so before going to the butcher. The last 30 days or so is when the flavor is put into the fat and meat. This is the size pig generally used for slaughter in the United States because the growth curve starts to flatten out and it becomes more expensive to gain more weight beyond this point.
- Market Hog – 6 to 8 months of age and about 300 lbs live weight which gives about 200 lbs hanging weight. Feed for flavor in the last 30 days just like with finishers. This is our goal hog size at Sugar Mountain Farm as it optimizes meat quality and the costs vs return on investment with our pastured farming methods. The time to this weight varies with the season – winter means slower growth like with all things.
- Block Hog – Hog on the auction block ready for slaughter. See Market Hog above.
- Swine – Pigs.
- Pig – Sus domestica a.k.a. Sus scrofa domestica the domestic pig.
- Breeder – A particularly prime pig of excellent qualities that is selected as breeding stock. See boars and gilts. We select about 5% of females and about 0.5% of males as potential breeders to be tested with their first breeding. The best of these continue on the farm to join the breeding herd.
- Market Weight – 250 lbs is the typical Live Weight in modern times. See Finishers above. We can grow pigs larger or smaller to fit your needs. This weight is reached at approximately six months during the warm seasons and a little longer during the cold seasons.
- Hanging Weight – 180 lbs or 72% of live weight of 250 lbs.
- Commercial Cuts – 120 lbs or 67% of the hanging weight is standard commercial cuts yield for things you see in the typical grocery store like pork chops, sirloin, tenderloin, ham, shoulder, belly, ground, etc. The adventurous cook can eat like the farmer and get a yield more like 90% of the hanging weight by also using the oddments.
- Oddments – Back fat, leaf lard, hocks, trotters (feet), jowl, head, tail, ears, tongue, organs, etc.
- Organs – Heart, liver and kidney.
- Offal – The portion of guts (stomach, intestines), lungs, blood and such that the butcher discards. This is not available from the butcher at this time as a special HACCP/PR must be filed with the USDA for the sale and handling of these products. At our on-farm slaughterhouse we will be able to compost the offal to return it to the mountain from whence we came.
- Specialty Products – Pork is a versatile meat that has been made into a myriad of delicious treats through brining, smoking, curing, stuffing and other age old techniques:
- Belly – bacon
- Tongue – brined, smoked and thinly sliced on cheese and crackers
- Trotter – Soups and stews for thickening
- Ham – Brined and smoked
- Heart – Thin sliced and stir fried
- Ears – Slow cooked, fried and tossed on salad
- Liver – Finest patés
- Ground – Hot dogs, kielbasa, sausages, pepperoni, salami.
- Pet Pigs – A smaller breed of pig like the Pot Bellied Pigs. We do not sell pet pigs. Our pigs are large farm pigs that can reach well over 1,000 pounds in a few years. They can easily eat you out of house and home… and then there is the other end of the issue. Pigs can bite and they have very strong jaws with sharp teeth. They also weigh a lot and can step on you or crush you up against a wall or something just like a horse or cow could. If you want a pet I recommend a cat, dog, ferret or the like.
- Deposit – A deposit is money you put down to secure your order. In the case of piglets it gets your name on the reserve list. In the case of roasters it gets your pig taken out of the freezer and started thawing for frozen pigs and taken to the butcher for fresh pigs. For whole and half pigs it gets your pig’s date with the butcher. Deposits are non-refundable. If you are not going to be able to use what you reserved, see if you can find someone else to buy it to protect your investment in the deposit.
Hi Walter
i just noticed your killing weight (250lbs),we are brining five pigs for slaughter next week and were told that the weight had to be approx 70kg (150lbs) because they only put fat on after this weight, what is your thought on this, (these are live weight)
kind regards
Kieran Kearns
Pigs don’t tend to put on much fat until their over the 200 lb mark but diet, as well as genetics, make a big difference. e.g., You can have a very fat young pig or a thin older pig – just over feed them and boost the calories. Animals raised out on pasture don’t tend to be fat as they get more exercise and a lower calorie diet.
For market efficiency 250 to 300 lbs is our ideal goal live weight. This is because of several factors but mostly how the butcher’s pricing structure works which has a significant economic impact. However, pigs can be eaten at any size – we’ve had 800 lb sows and boars that were delicious although like big beef and lamb they require some hanging time. Some people like little suckling and weaner pigs for oven roasting. This is a specialty dish for celebrations in many cultures. For BBQ roasters the pigs typically run around the 70 to 200 lb range although they could be larger or smaller. For big hams, prosciutto, etc people raise the pigs to larger sizes.
The other reason that most pigs are slaughtered in the 200 to 300 lb range is that their growth rate slows down some time in that range. For people raising pigs on grain, e.g., store bought feeds, this is a critical issue as they want to put the weight on fast to avoid costs. As the rate of gain curve flattens out somewhere around 250 lbs the cost per additional pound of gain goes up.
How much space can a pig turn a grown over field to plantable space?
err, I should have said how much space over a summer season into fall until slaughter?
I don’t have an exact answer as there are so many variables but see the post about “How much land per pig” which will give you some ideas.
It’s needless to say that this article is beneficial. Do you mind if I borrow your faq for my farm web site?
Feel free but please provide a clickable link back to this FAQ page on my blog. Realize that I update the FAQ time to time with new information so rather than copying and pasting the content a link will service your readers best.
I don’t know if I’m doing this right,..but you guys have alot of great info on pigs,..info that I feel I can trust. My question is about pot bellied pigs. There’s so much misinformation about the potbelly in the first place,….what is a julian or teacup potbelly? I ask this because they’re asking up to $ 1’500 for one of these little guys!!! Is there such a thing,…or is it a runt? Apparently alot people believe it because there’s more then a few awesome, detailed websites about them. I figured you all would be the ones to ask,…if not, thanks for taking the time to read this…. Denise
I don’t know about Pot Bellied pigs from first hand experience since we deal with farm pigs. From what I understand, they were originally kept as kitchen or court yard pigs in Asian households, often in town or cities where people couldn’t have larger livestock. This gave the families a source of meat, animal protein and fats. The Pot Bellied pigs were small and took up little space. They acted as live composters, eating the family’s scraps.
Later the Pot Bellied pigs were brought to other countries and sold as pets, bypassing the zoning that had blocked people from keeping farm pigs in growing urban and suburban areas. Some of those really were pets and others were labeled pets but kept for meat.
My understanding is that the Pot Bellied pigs generally get to 150 to 300 lbs at full adult size. Claims vary widely and I suspect that has to do with both diet and genetics as well as at what age they were measured and their health. This is much smaller than the 600 to 1,500 lbs of big farm pigs. Through selective breeding and, from what I’ve heard, dietary deficiencies, some people have produced smaller pigs. They are not teacup size at adulthood but there is a lot of marketing of them pictured at that size as piglets. Very cute photos. From what I’ve read the Tea Cup version gets to 50 or 100 lbs at adulthood. I’ve never seen one other than the photos on the net.
I would suggest checking out Wiki as a starting point of information and follow the links from there.
Hi Walter,
I have several questions: do you have different size/age groups separated out? I think I remember reading that you just borrow a boar from time to time and don’t keep any on site, is that right?
Last two, and this is where we are having our most difficulties/inefficiencies and need the most advice: castrating: how do you get the piglets away from the sows without getting killed when they are out in the pasture? And, yes, I’d love to get away from castrating altogether. the one problem is that we let our lard pigs grow out for about a year and our numbers are pretty low with the bacon pigs yet, so one “ruined” pig would be quite a blow. Finally, how do you get your finished pigs on a trailer to the butcher when they are out in pasture – do you have holding pens you walk them to or hydraulic crates you take out there…? Would love whatever info you can provide!! Many, many thanks! Steph
Actually, we have lots of boars. We have three breeding boars currently, Archimedes, Speckles and Guy Noire. We had Spot and Big’Un until last year – they were brothers and passed away in the same year in their sleep.
During the summer we tend to run our herds as mixed groups. In the winter we tend to separate them out by sizes. This prevents the smaller ones from getting crushed.
We don’t castrate. We do not find castration necessary because our herd’s don’t have boar taint. Read all about it here. Most pigs don’t have taint – it’s rare and genetic as well as caused by certain feeds (commercial corn/soy) and management styles (pens). Test boars of progressively older ages to figure out if you need to castrate. The advantage of not castrating, besides it being more humane, is that boars grow faster and put on more meat and less fat than barrows. Boars are more efficient at turning feed into meat than barrows or sows. Boars also tend to grow larger at the same age. We have seen this dramatically. One example is that Happy, one of our sows, and Speckles, one of our boars are litter mate brother and sisters. Both were that top prime percent that were worth keeping. Speckles was nearly twice Happy’s size by one year and he has continued to be far larger than her now that he is an adult boar. I would not be surprised if he reaches three quarters of a ton like his father. Happy on the other hand will probably top out at 700 to 800 lbs.
For loading we have a sorting pen that leads up to a loading ramp which our van docks with. We call the pigs and then pick out the ones we want. I have a couple of posts I’m working on that will talk about this in more detail. See this a very old post from when we used to use a mini-van instead of our big cargo van. The trick is to have a calm situation where the one way for the pigs to go is the way you want. Realize that we’re loading selected pigs every week instead of all our pigs once a year. If you are just doing it once a year then simply park the trailer out in the field with food and bedding. Let them make that their home and then close the door one night so you can drive away in the morning.
I live in plainfield and was wondering where i can get info about small “nano-scale” inspected processing facilities. To start with i don’t want to do any cooking or curing. I would assume if i was certified i would do a 20-50 animals a year for neighbors.
I have not got a response from the department of agg person who is the contact for new facilities in Vermont even after several phone calls.
I am looking for some basic floor plans and what is the minimum infrastructure i need.
thanks.
See the Butcher Shop page and after you’ve read that follow the links there for more articles. Also see the Butcher Shop tag in the Tag Cloud in the right hand column for many articles about our adventures in starting up our own butcher shop.
The people we’ve been working with at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture (AoA) are Mr. Quenneville, Mr. Mitchel and Dr. McNamera. See the Contact Page on their web site. There is a departmental directory there. They have been most helpful.
The AoA has a web page about the requirements for different levels of processing. I think you might fall at the custom processing level. See this page on their site and follow the links onward.
You also may find the Vermont On-Farm Processing Report and Update of interest.
Hi Walter- I’ve been reading your blog on and off for the last year as I have ventured into raising my own pigs! I am very small scale and just getting started….I currently have 2 sows and a boar and I only kept 2 barrows from the litters my sows had last month.
I had a third sow and it is she that I have a question about. She was bred and due and I believe was going into labor when she died. She was a Duroc/Old Spot cross. This (my first) go around with farrowing I put the sows in a barn stall (they spend the rest of their time on pasture). (In the future I plan to have a paddock with an open shed for farrowing) This was to be Pearl’s first litter and she was 1 year old. She had been acting normal…peeing, pooping, eating, enjoying belly rubs, etc.. and then she started showing signs of impending labor…swelling vulva, laying on her side and sort of breathing in and holding it briefly and she basically stopped eating, but was still drinking. After 2 days she still hadn’t had her piglets and a I found her in the morning, dead. No blood, no piglets… The only other “evidence” I can think that may be telling is that she didn’t really build a nest like my other sows did. Do you have any idea what may have happened?
I love and respect what you’re doing in Vermont, we are in Virginia. I love my pigs and reading your blog has helped me in many ways! Thank you for any thoughts you may have on Pearl’s death.
Catherine, I’m sorry to hear about your pig’s death. It is possible that she had some congenital defect that made her not able to delivery. The fetuses may also have died in the womb and then her body became overwhelmed with the infection load creating septicimia or the like. There are some diseases like PPV that can result in this as well as some bacterial infections. The fact that she was not yet nesting suggests to me she wasn’t ready for labor and the fetuses were a dead load. A necropsy would reveal this. You would look to check for mummified fetuses. On the other hand if a piglet was caught in her vagina and blocking then you would find it in the vagina as a partial birth.
Two good resources for disease diagnostic are the disease problem solver thePigSite and check out the Merck Veterinarian Manual.
I recently had a pig die on me and I wasn’t for sure why. I noticed that it seemed to have a little trouble walking on it’s hind legs in the last 2 weeks. It would get up and set there for a few minutes before it was able to stand up and come to the trough. I thought that it was cause it was cold outside and it had been laying all day in the barn on it’s legs and maybe they were just stiff. Last night I got home from church and went out to feed my pig, “Shank Williams”, and I gave him some of my birthday cake that was getting old. They had baked me a red velvet cake that looked just like a pig and the part that I gave him had alot of red food coloring and icing on it. I came out this morning and he was layed over dead right next to the cake. Do you know if feeding pigs red velvet cake will kill them or maybe it had something to do with his legs? Any thoughts from you on this will help. Thanks
I’ve never heard of feeding velvet cake, or heard of velvet cake for that matter so I haven’t heard of it killing pigs either. I would doubt that was the cause of the pigs death since it was human grade food which usually won’t kill a human so it usually won’t kill a pig as they have hardier constitutions.
That said, I have heard of the hind leg failure but at the moment I’m forgetting the disease. Check the Disease Problem Solver at ThePigSite and you might be able to find something. I just looked quickly and didn’t find but dig more. If you figure it out, let me know.
I got 2 pigs about 6 weeks ago and built them a training area/pen in the goat lot (about 12 acres) to get them used to the electric fence and Me. My real question is do you know of something that pigs can’t/won’t cross. I am wanting to run a short fence around the Goats house, water and eating area to keep the pigs from pushing the goats away from their feed and to keep their water clean. If the pigs for example can’t climb a steep set of steps then that would still be easy for the goats to cross over the fence into their own “private” area. Thanks in advance!
I don’t know of any problems specifically with goats and pigs. I have heard people say that they don’t want their cattle, sheep and goats eating too much grain and since most people feed their pigs candy, er, I mean grain, this is an issue. i.e., You’ll need to keep the goats out of any pig feed.
Pigs are not very maneuverable nor generally good at jumping so tight corners and jumps could let the goats move to areas the pigs can’t get to. We have what we call man-gates or step-overs which we and the dogs can navigate but pigs and sheep can not handle.
Oh, I’m not at all worried with the goats eating anything out from under the pigs! My pigs really only get table scraps and a little bit of 12% All Stock at the end of the day. All day they spend in the woods digging or eating grass. My goat lot has WAY more woods than grass. The reason I got the pigs is because they are gonna eat stuff that the goats dont. At least I don’t think the pigs will eat leaves out of the trees… That, and goats really don’t eat table scraps. One other question, if the pigs mostly eat what they find out in the woods and the little bit of feed will it make them “gamey” tasting? Thanks!
Not in our experience. We do also feed dairy which provides lysine, an amino acid that tends to be limited in woods and pasture forages.
Also do you know of any trouble to be on the look out for with goats and pigs living in the same pasture?