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Northwest Missouri | I have an outdoor farrow to finish operation so I only farrow twice a year. Once in spring and second time in fall. Have always used boars never AI anything. Usually buy groups of 3 or 4 boars as pigs, raise them on the farm and run them together their whole life so don't have much injuries to fighting. Average I probably get 2 years out of them, 3 if I'm lucky. Sows last a little longer than that. Have some sows now that are 5 years old, but not too many stay productive that long. Biggest problem I have with them is not breeding or breeding late and getting out of sync with the group and rather than waiting on them I usually cull them. Hard to farrow outside in the winter. But with your set up, that probably wont be much of a problem.
Only starting out with two sows its going to be pretty expensive to keep a boar. Have to consider inbreeding too if you are keeping your own gilts back. A little bit is ok, as long as you start with good stock but definitely don't want too much. If you are experienced in AI, I would say hold off on buying a boar until you get a bigger herd. Then gilts won't all be 100% related and will have a good genetic mix to start. Since I breed everything all at once I use a boar for every 10 sows. If you space your breeding out a boar could handle probably triple that.
I can assure you PED is very nasty stuff and you definitely don't want it. But I'm not sure you can totally prevent it either. Last winter I had about 20 sows farrow around Christmas. I had not brought in any new boars for a year and there is only one other hog farm within 20 miles of me. Don't know how I got it, birds or if I tracked it in on my shoes or what. But everything was fine one day, noticed some pigs with scours the next, and everything dead the next day. Didn't make for a good Christmas. 85% death loss in everything under two weeks old. About 5% in pigs under 50lbs. The fat hogs all had scours for about a week didn't lose any though. A couple days later had some more sows farrow and no problems at all.
Dad always said you get better conception rates if you breed right after you wean pigs. But I wean my pigs later than most. In a confinement set up where you have a good nursery and are weaning early I would think you would want to wait a little before rebreeding, depending on body condition. But I'm not sure on that.
Another thing to consider is your market. I raise Berkshires outdoors cause I can get a good premium at a local slaughterhouse. Small producers can make up inefficiencies in their operation by raising a specialty product that commands a premium. Its hard to compete with the big guys weaning 23 pigs per sow per year if you are producing the same product.
Sorry for the lengthy response, but there aren't many hog questions on here and I couldn't help myself. | |
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Small farrow to finish
