Breeding Pigs and Raising Piglets on a Small Farm

Most small-scale pig farmers never breed their own pigs. They buy piglets, raise them to slaughter weight, and that is the whole operation. Simple. But some farmers do breed, and if you do it right, it can actually be more profitable than raising pigs for meat.

The author had a waiting list for her piglets that stretched a full year in advance. She sold them at 8 weeks old, weaned and eating on their own. The economics worked out better than feeding pigs all the way to slaughter weight. Something to think about.

Your Options for Breeding

You have a few ways to go about this.

Keep your own boar. This gives you full control over timing. But boars eat a lot, take up space, and can be aggressive. You need good fencing and experience.

Borrow or rent a boar. Some farmers will loan out their boar for a fee or in exchange for a piglet from the litter. This saves you the trouble of keeping a boar year-round.

Artificial insemination. More common than you might expect. It removes the risk of dealing with a boar entirely. You can also access genetics from high-quality boars that you would never be able to keep on your farm.

Buy an already-bred sow. The simplest option. Someone else handled the breeding part, and you just wait for babies. Good for first-timers.

Quick Terminology

Before we go further, a few terms you will hear constantly.

A bred female is pregnant. An open female is not pregnant. To farrow means to give birth, and it also refers to the litter of newborns.

When Can They Breed?

Boars are typically ready at 28 to 30 weeks old. Gilts (young females that have not had a litter yet) can come into heat as early as 18 to 24 weeks. But many farmers wait until 8 to 12 months to breed their gilts. Letting them mature a bit more means a healthier pregnancy and better mothering.

How to Know She Is in Heat

There are pretty clear signs. Her vulva will swell and redden. She will urinate more frequently. She will be restless and may try to mount other pigs. You might see mucus or a bloody discharge. Her tail will twitch.

The timing matters. Gilts should be mated on the first day of heat. Sows (females that have had at least one litter) do better when mated on the second day. Standing heat lasts about 36 to 60 hours, so you have a window.

One important rule: always take the sow to the boar, never the other way around. Bring a boar to the sow’s pen and he gets way too excited by the new environment. It does not go well.

Gestation

Pigs are pregnant for 113 days. There is an easy way to remember this: 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days. The estrous cycle is 21 days, so if breeding does not take, she will come back into heat about three weeks later.

Here is something interesting. The sow needs more than 4 embryos to implant successfully. If fewer than that attach, her body actually reabsorbs them and she will come back into heat as though nothing happened.

Signs That Delivery Is Close

About 4 days before farrowing, her vulva will swell noticeably. Her teats may start leaking milk. And roughly 24 hours before delivery, she will start building a nest. If she is on bedding, she will push it around, pile it up, and arrange it. This nesting behavior is a reliable signal that piglets are coming soon.

Pigs give birth lying down. Piglets come out head first. The whole process can take a few hours depending on litter size.

The First 24 Hours

Piglets need iron within the first 24 hours of life. In the wild they would get it from rooting in soil, but in a pen they cannot. Most farmers give an iron injection, though oral iron drops also work.

Pre-weaning losses average about 11%, and half of those losses happen in the first three days. Those early hours are critical. Keep the area warm, dry, and safe from the sow accidentally laying on a piglet.

Nursing

Piglets are born with sharp little teeth. They use them to compete for the best teats. Nursing behavior is actually surprisingly complex. There are distinct stages where piglets jockey for position, latch on, and feed in sync.

A teat order forms quickly. Each piglet claims a specific teat and returns to it every time. The front teats produce more milk, so the strongest piglets usually end up there. Once the hierarchy is set, it stays.

Weaning

Most farmers wean between 4 and 8 weeks. There are different approaches and opinions on this.

Forced weaning is when you physically separate the piglets from the sow at a set age. It works, but it is stressful for everyone. The piglets scream, the sow is distressed, and you feel terrible.

Natural or self-weaning is what the author preferred. She found that piglets naturally started weaning themselves around 6 to 7 weeks. The sow would begin standing up during nursing, walking away, and generally discouraging them. It happened gradually and with much less stress.

Early weaning at 3 to 4 weeks is practiced in commercial operations, but the author considered it too young. Piglets weaned that early tend to have more health problems and slower growth.

Orphan Piglets

Sometimes a sow dies, rejects her piglets, or cannot produce enough milk. In that case, you are bottle feeding. A regular baby bottle works fine.

The most important thing: piglets need colostrum within the first 24 hours. Colostrum is the thick, antibody-rich first milk that gives them immune protection. Without it, their survival chances drop significantly.

After that, you can use milk replacer formulas. The book includes recipes for homemade milk replacement if you cannot find a commercial pig milk replacer.

Castrating

Most farmers castrate young boars unless they are selling them specifically for breeding stock. Intact boars develop “boar taint,” an unpleasant flavor and smell in the meat.

The author actually did not castrate her pigs, which is an uncommon choice. If you do decide to castrate, the book covers the basic steps, but the strong recommendation is to have an experienced person with you the first time. This is not something to learn from a book alone.

Book: Backyard Farming: Raising Pigs Author: Kim Pezza ISBN: 978-1-57826-621-0 Publisher: Hatherleigh Press, 2016

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