The Kunekunes are really prone to hernia's, (especially during castration) due to a weakness in their inguinal wall. So generally speaking they're better to have a closed castration, done by a vet, at around 6 weeks old. BUT there are people who castrate them themselves, at under a week old and seem to get on fine.
For me, it's better to get the vet though. While I'm happy enough to castrate and feel confident & competant with it, I know I couldn't fix a hernia and wouldn't want to be in that position. (Plus Kunekune testicals at under a week old are really tiny - it wouldn't be an easy job to locate them
we know, cos we did look
)
Castrated boars make the best outside pets/long term pigs (no sex hormones or piggy pmt to worry about
) so all of ours who aren't reserved for breeding tend to end up getting pampered lives of riley
I can't feed my Kunekunes for £15 a year, if I could I'd have loads (oh wait, I
do have loads
)
They cost me an average of around £65-£75 (for pig nuts) per year, approximately a quarter of our Large Blacks and OSB's growers ration and a sixth of the breeding pigs ration. (I keep threatening to get rid of the 4 big pigs and replace them with 24 extra Kunekunes
but wouldn't really
)
Yes, they grow slower and don't gain as much in such a short time as other breeds but they cost less in hard feed to get to that weight (and don't have the same reliance on soya or wheat for protien & growth - usefull when the feed prices are rising and harvests look less than promising
), are gentler on your ground and are
very easy to manage pigs. When the grass goes in late autumn/winter (or if they're inside) we give them some silage/haylege (or hay, if we're feeling flush
) to make up for the lack of grazing, they love sugar beet too - but we've got to ration them carefully to prevent excess fat (though now I'm soap making, extra fat is good !
)
To be perfectly honest - it's my Kunekune herd that pays to keep my big pigs here
The profit from them has allowed me to expand and keep & breed bigger pigs. I know the big pigs should pay for themselves, but with costs as they are they break even or give a small profit £20-£30 per finished pig - and switching to a more commercial, fast growing breed just isn't a road I want to go down (it's just not my bag baby, as Austin Powers would say
)
