[Kitchen Cottage]

  Charlottes children are now 24 weeks old (on Saturday), in accordance with that unbreakable bond of friendship between man (or woman) and beast..... I have separate 7 of them out in order to eat them at 28 weeks, and a solitary girl (Domino) is left with her for company and as a replacement for her when she ceases to procreate.

I am feeding them according to a chart from the Berkshire Pigs site

http://www.berkshirepigs.org.uk/marketing.htm

and they are in my sorry apology for an allotment.... a jungle of weeds that they are also chomping through.

At 24 weeks they are showing (using my trusty pig tape) as 65-67 kilo's... being a very level litter.

Now, I've looked at them and I've looked at Domino,  she is bread and veg fed and was always a good size (which is why she was chosen as a replacement) and she seems bigger....

I have also convinced myself that the other piglets are dachshund pigs and not particularly tall and just short for their weight but..... they seem a little fat.... well, lets be honest.... they are porky.

They need to go on 8th November.... should I reduce their food to take account of the weeds they are chomping...or do I carry on with the chart?.

Ah, the perpetual battle with weight... even when you only live for 28 weeks you still struggle with it......

[Tiva Diva]

I'd reduce their feed. We use feeding guides as just that - guides. With experience you learn to feed by eye: at least you say that the meat pigs are all much of a similar size, which helps. I'd try cutting their feed ration by up to 1/3 depending on how much weeds they've got to eat. The mangalitza "rotavators" in my vegetable garden are on half rations  , but there are lots of unharvested tatties and jerusalem artichokes in there for them    ( or at least there were, they've been busy digging!). With a month to go before slaughter, you should have time to get some fat off them, but be careful: crash dieting isn't good for pigs or people, and if you reduce their feed too much they'll lose muscle too!
Let us know how it goes!

[FiB]

..and enjoy the crackling!!  Ours were fat (the perils of co-operative ownership with insufficient agreements and communication!) but TASTY.  I'm a new convert to fat and lard!!

[Fowgill Farm]

If they're out rooting & digging you'll probabbly find that they look fat but it could actually be muscle, rare breeds need to work or they do lay down fat.
We cut our GOS porkers down to 4lb a day in the last month and i have found our back fat thickness has improved greatly. Bacon pigs are however a different story and i'm having difficulty getting them to grow on without an inch or two of fat. The other alternative of course is to send them earlier to the butchers before they get chance to put on more lard!
Mandy