The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: sabrina on May 15, 2011, 02:47:33 pm
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Just back from seeing the Kune-Kune Piglets that were born on Friday. turns out she has 4 so we have choosing one cream and the brown both males. Very nice people and lovely pigs. so looking forward to having them ;D :pig:
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Gorgeous :love: :pig: I love my Kunes ;)
Interesting colours, especially since she's spotty - did you see Dad at all ? What colour is he ?
Ooo it's exciting, you'll have to keep us up to date with their progress. Are you rearing them for meat or keeping as pets Sabrina ? If it's pork, and you've no other pigs round about you, I'd be tempted not to have them castrated (it can stunt their growth and take you longer to get them to size) but if they're to be permanent residents best for them to have them off :o ;)
Good luck :wave:
Karen x
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The little piglet with the stripes seems as if it is a wild boar (I know what they look like I used to have them) The little ginger ones look like tammys and the wee black one at the back could have stripes to. I have breed pedigree kune kune's and they have never looked like this from a pedigree kune kune boar. I do not think the dad was a pedigree kune kune, this is just my opinion.
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In my last litter we had some with stripes like this, they faded once the hair came in more though. And mine are pure pedigree Kunes ;) :wave:
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our KK had her first litter yeasterday 11 in total some black some black with white patches and some white with black patches and spots, mum is all black dad is ginger with black patches.
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11 for a first litter is fantastic for a KK ;) ;D
Can I be really nosy (again!) and ask your bloodlines ?
Keep a wee eye on Mum as the piglets start to get bigger, my last litter (of 9) needed weaned a wee bit early (6 weeks) as mum was starting to lose condition.
Photo's please (when you can drag yourself away from them to get the camera ;))
Karen :wave:
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karen i have no idea of blood lines tbh we were given 4 kk's last year they were june born and the people that had them were surprised a male and a female would mate as they were pet pigs, she had such a good nature we decided to keep her and have the 3 boys for meat (which we have done), so we brought in a young unregistered boar and hey.
we will be giving her plenty of goats milk to keep her condition up along with a endless supply of fruit and veg, hay, comprey (sp ?), pea straw, grass and a top up of PBP nuts so she should be fine.
i must admit we were surprised by the number she had it was all over very quickly just before feed time, which she soon tucked into.
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11 piglets from a kune kune is fantastic, the most we had was 7
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so we brought in a young unregistered boar and hey.
Good stuff with the feeding - she should do well on that ;)
The bad news is that legally you can't sell them as pure Kune Kunes :( (that's assuming you're wanting to sell the piglets - me I'd keep every last one I have if I could afford to, soooo cute ;))
Only registered piglets, birth notified to the KK society and from registered parents can actually be called Kune Kunes. You'd have to call them KK cross.
I'm sorry, I know this sounds terribly snobby, BUT unregistered pigs (any breed) don't count towards the official herd numbers as held by relevant breed societies. What this means is, if in the worst case scenario there was another FMD outbreak your pigs wouldn't get any kind of consideration for being a rare breed and they couldn't be used to establish new herds because there is no record of bloodlines or pedigrees. It's in the best intrests of the breed to only buy and breed from registered stock from a conservation point of view ;)
Sorry, lecture over ;) ;D
Karen x
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i understand all that, we have a friend who wants 2 for his children as they keep eating the one the kids get attached to. they know they are unregistered and are happy with that. we intend to keep most for sausages.
we usually only fatten pedigree stock, having said that we have 2 crosses atm just as a experiment.
strange how things work if you buy a x breed calf from market they are usually sold by the breed of the bull. atm the pasports of our cattle state limmi's, simmi's, angus and dexter the only pedigree is the dexter.
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yes it seams strange the description of pigs but unfortunately that is how the BPA describe pigs
if you go down the GOS standards you cannot describe a GOS as a GOS unless it has pedigree parents and is birth notified (they have protected status) and is as far as i can tell illegal and punishable if you say it is GOS without the paperwork :pig:
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They really are lovely, bet you cant wait to get them home.
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yes thats how i understand it too.
mind you as far as a kk goes they are cheap to feed but the slaughter cost is the same as lets say a hampshire (thats what we sent our off with) so if you pay £100 - £150+ for a pegigree kk (i have seen tham at this price locally) the meat then goes from cheap to very expensive imo. so the pure kk for pork could be a non starter if the choice is £40 - £60 for a weaner that will killout with far more meat in less time because at the end of the day price will come into it for most people.
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Ah, my slaughterhouse charges the same kill fee for all pigs (£20), but the butchery charges go by weight (80p per kilo) so smaller pigs are cheaper ;)
Karen x
PS The only ones I sell for £100-£150 are the breeding quality stock, 'porkers' go for less ;)
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i was quoting local prices to me the unregistered ones are going for £80 which is rather high if you want to eat them.
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i was quoting local prices to me the unregistered ones are going for £80 which is rather high if you want to eat them.
Ah, but (got to fight them cause for the KK's here ;)) when you consider the cheaper cost of raising them (1lb of food per day -v- 3, 4, 5 then 6lbs a day for 'big' pigs) It does work out cheaper ;) ;D
I did calculations on here a while ago - I'll see if I can find the thread, think it was called 'Kune Kunes for pork'
Karen :wave:
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They are pure bred, he only has Kune-Kunes, also has a couple of rescue girls. Not only did he let me choose first as I had been in touch a while back but he has asked to bring them to us so he can check our set up. Someone who cares about his pigs. I am so looking forward to having them and I know when the time comes for them to go I will be upset but as they are slower growing I can put my name down for another 2 if all goes well with the first ones. :)
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chickenfeed just curious or nosey your Hampshire was it pure or x breed what age and sex if male still intact and what was the dead weight
o f the carcase also what was the depth of backfat :pig:
i have worked out what it actually costs to put a kilo of pork on a variety of pigs and will post on a new thread :farmer:
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hi robert they were pure breed birth notified and registered etc. etc. etc.
the first 2 went off at 7 months and came back as 156lb & 130lb of meat + 62Lb of sausages between them.
the second 2 went of at 8 months and came back 186lb & 174lb + 75lb of sausages between them.
1/2" of back fat
they were all entire boars.
i must say i would snap any up i see locally after having them they were quite laid back :o after having had tamworths.
the pork is very tasty too.
over the years we have tried
british lops, tamworths, saddle backs, oxford sandy and blacks, GOS and kk's although we have favoured lops and OSB until now.
t
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hello chickenfeed a quick conversion to metric as follows in the same order as you listed first two pigs 84 kilos and71 kilos i am assuming that is boned out weights the second two 102 kilos and 96 kilos again i am assuming boned out weight your back fat =13 mm
all very good so far
we have lop x Hampshire but remember the lop is not a big pig and our Hampshire's are 260-300 kilos at 18 months
pure Hampshire one cut male and 4 en-tires and 5 gilts and the Hampshire x tamworth so far they have doubled there weight in `1 week
i can see a lot of you asking the relevance of all this if you bear with me until i start another post on weights age and feeding it will all come together(just as a taster it can vary from 60p per kilo to £1.37 per kilo cost to put pork on the pigs weighed) especially when pork costs from £3.00per kilo to £10.00 per kilo depending on where you buy it and the end product :farmer:
it will be several months before the final weighings just be patient :pig: