So our very first gilt, has had her very first litter of piglets last night. They are all doing really well thankfully! I was however surprised that she only had 5... the piglets are a very good size, the smallest was 2 kg and the largest about 2.8 kg so whilst they are less in number than I was expecting they are larger in weight than expected!
She is a hampshire and the boar used was an older landrace. Google seems to have varying opinions about how many piglets a first timer might have and what the average birthweight is. What do you more seasoned pig folk think? Maybe the boar was losing his mojo haha She will be going to a our new young pietrain next time, everyone is telling me she should go right after weaning to prevent her getting too fat after this small litter... again any thoughts on this? Of course I have also read that a young boar can produce a small litter so maybe next time she won't have that many either!
We are very happy and looking forward to our first home produced bacon already! I just want to make sure we do things right! Sometimes asking people is better than asking google