[Lu.O]

I bought a gilt the other day, about 2 months old, a landrace X. Your regular long nosed  pink pig! I have only had Kune X OSB before and we processed the boars at 7 months. I had planned to process this new gilt at 6/7 months too but now I'm wondering if I should get a litter out of her before slaughter. But how would that affect the meat, would it be much the same as long as I don't let her get too old? We have a boar so I'm assuming she would become pregnant around 8 months(?) Any thoughts?
I did buy her to fatten so don't want to screw that up.
Fairly new y smallholding so advice is appreciated!

[SallyintNorth]

She will become pregnant at 6 months unless you are keeping the boar separate . 

Personally I would be extremely happy with pork, bacon and sausages off a 15-16 month old sow (breed at 8-9 months, 4 months less a week in pig, wean at 8 weeks, 3-4 weeks to regain condition), but two things. 

• Are you planning on eating all the meat yourself or selling some?  If the latter, your customers may not be so happy with meat from an older animal.
• Check with your abattoir the maximum pig size they can handle.  Some can't manage full grown sows (need a bigger vat for boiling skin to remove hair, etc.)

[harmony]

Before you breed from any pig you should be certain that it is fit to breed from. The important thing being that it has a good underline. At least 14 evenly spaced teats and not dummies to feed a litter.


Next that you have the facilities to farrow down and then that you have an outlet for the weaners.


You normally farrow a pig down at around 12 months of age.


After that yes you can do pork joints but everything will be bigger than taking a pig to slaughter as prime pork.


As SiN says around 6 months of age and sometimes earlier they will start cycling. Farrowing too soon and gilts can be poor mothers and lose a lot of condition when feeding a big litter or hungry piglets.