Curiousfarmer

I weaned the piglets last Thursday.  The oldest litters had a nine week lactation, which is the longest ever for my farm.

Something I learned was the time it takes for sows to return to estrus while lactating, eight weeks. That’s the same as our beef cows when on good pasture.

Now the sows are my genetics and were ad libitum, (free access), fed a corn-soy diet.  Different genetics and/or a different environment may lengthen the return to estrus.  I’m betting it won’t be less, short of weaning, which is the typical stimulus for sows to return to estrus.

Most sows will show estrus five to seven days after weaning, which makes it fairly easy to plan breeding, even with artificial insemination using live boar semen which only lives for about a week.

I used Dru terminal boar semen from SGI to produce most of these piglets.  I’m very happy with the vigor and muscling of the piglets.  I’m hoping for excellent growth and meat quality as well.  Click on the photo below and click again to enlarge and you’ll see the excellent muscling of the piglets.

Three-week-old piglet biting my pant-leg.  We have probably all heard stories about people being fed to hogs.  I don’t doubt the veracity of the stories as hogs are omnivores and will eat just about anything.

Piglets are also natural fighters.  Below you can see two piglets fighting over a scrap of plastic.  Imagine how viciously they would fight over something valuable.

And that must be how the cruel sport of Piglet Fighting started.  Two piglets fighting until exhaustion, the winner receiving warm milk.  Contact your representatives in Washington and urge them to enact legislation to ban Piglet Fighting now.

My fear at switching from a heated barn with crates/pens to outdoor farrowing was unfounded.  The first full year of outdoor farrowing averaged 7.8 piglets weaned per litter.  The heated farrowing barn typically weaned 8.5 to 9 piglets per litter.  So it appears I lost about a piglet per litter, but that’s not the full story.  I’ll list the farrowing groups below.

Month           Ave. Weaned

January         5.9

March            8.3

May                8.3

July                 9.3

September     8.2

November      8.0

Look at how most of the months were in that 8 range.  If I take out the two litters which froze in January, the average weaned for the year is bumped up to 8.1.  If I take out all the January litters, the average weaned moves to 8.4.  Now we’re getting close to my indoor numbers.

And I think I can do better this year.  The first thing I’m doing different is I’m not farrowing during the worst winter months.  My first group will farrow the beginning of March.  The other thing is I experimented with sows making their own farrowing sites.  Some chose the farrowing huts I provided, some chose their own spots in the woods or pasture.  All of the sows did ok, and I don’t have data, but I’m pretty sure the sows in the huts weaned an extra piglet or so compared to the independent-minded sows.  I’m going to encourage more hut farrowing this year, but will try to keep data on each.

All in all, it has been an interesting and enjoyable transition to outdoor farrowing.  I would have a difficult time going back to indoor farrowing as the work environment is much nicer for me and the pigs seem happier.