[Tamsaddle]

There have been a couple of posts recently about what to do with sow meat, and some of the sows mentioned seemed quite young, only 2 or 3 years old.   I have been wondering whether the reason for their culling was infertility, and would be interested to hear just how common this problem is.   How long have you kept trying before giving up?    Is there a breed element to it, or any other obvious factors?  Or are they being culled for a different reason altogether?   
 
We have just got to the end of 5 failed attempts with our 23 month old Tamworth sow, who had a perfectly normal first litter of 7 last summer and had appeared to be having heats every 3 weeks after her litter was weaned, but to no avail.    Two gonadotrophin injections specifically for infertile pigs and other animals has had no effect either.    It has been incredibly disappointing as this is to be our last breeding year before closing down, but she too is now destined for sausages in the near future.    In our case, we have always had Saddlebacks and Tamworths, and planned always to get one of each pregnant at the same time for companionship purposes, but it is always the Saddlebacks who have always got pregnant immediately, sailed through the next 4 months without problems, farrowed without intervention and then produced gallons and gallons of milk for their babies.    The three Tamworth girls have all had one problem or another, the most common seeming to be poor lactation 1 to 2 weeks after the birth, with worryingly skinny piglets all screaming for milk, compared to the Saddleback piglets in the next ark gorging themselves on a happily grunting mum.
 
Would be most interested to hear anyone else's stories on why you are culling young sows - Tamsaddle
 
 

[Tamsaddle]

Really surprised to get no replies to this.   Is no one else interested in this issue?   Tamsaddle

[hughesy]

We've got a gilt here that's coming up to the same age. We've been trying for a year to get her in pig. Thought we'd succeeded last time but it came to nothing. Will give her a last chance as our boar will be on his own for a while otherwise but barring a miracle she'll be going for sausages.

[Berkshire Boy]

Maybe infertility isn't that big a problem.
I have a 3 year old sow that I'm culling soon but the reason is she has hurt her back leg and doesn't walk on it very well. She would not take the weight of the boar so will not pay her way. Not looking forward to the day as she is one of my favourite girls but it is best for her really.
I have never had a problem with infertile gilts so I just presume it is not that big an issue, I may be wrong of course.

[Mrs Snoodles]

We culled ours recently because it has become very obvious that I cannot handle the amount of work involved with 5 sows and their litters, particularly through winter when we work during the shooting season and my little man is off for 4 weeks every December.   I got through it, but never again....

[Ladygrey]

I tried for 3 heats to get a sow pregnant without really thinking about what she was actually like.

Then after sitting down and thinking that she was now 3 years old and only had 8 teats, wasnt a nice nature and would try and kill the other pigs for food, did I really want to breed from her anyway 

so she went off and produced some amazing sausages!

[Mrs Snoodles]

I think lady Greys response it very interesting and the right approach. After a while if it isn't happening, or when it does happen the litters are problematic you need to question whether you ought to breed from that particular gilt/sow.
Just an aside....we were told by a few people in the industry about the real need to a boar (to stimulate the gilt/sows reproductive hormones) and to keep the pregnancies flowing.   We were also advised to keep enough gilt/sows for the boar, to keep him interested, busy and therefore fertile.

[P6te]

We purchased an OSB sow who was 2 years old and supposedly in pig - but wasn't ... after a 10 week 'holiday' with a well proven boar she returned .... again she was not in pig so went for sausages and bacon.

As reported previously here ... sausage were fantastic ... bacon very very poor.

Pete

[Tamsaddle]

Interesting to hear there are reasons other than infertility for having to make that choice.   Agree with Mrs. Snoodles that it is a horrible decision to have to make,  far far worse than taking the meat pigs off to slaughter.  My own sow in question has been with us since her birth and I have grown very fond of her indeed, she is such a character.   On the other hand, it was almost as hard saying goodbye to a different, fertile, in pig, sow, we had to sell to someone else due to us having too many to cope with as well.   Thanks for your replies - Tamsaddle

[Tudful Tamworths]

Sorry to hear that the gonadotrophin didn't do the trick, Virginia.
I've only had to cull one non-productive sow (the one I mentioned which turned out to have cystic ovaries). I can't see it would be more prevalent in certain breeds, although there may be a possibility that some breeding lines could be less fertile. The only other sow I had to cull was one which prolapsed. That was hard because she was one of my original ones and a particular favourite.
Much harder than sending a non-productive sow off for slaughter was sending some beautiful young show gilts - because a buyer pulled out and I had no room to keep them.

[Marches Farmer]

I wonder if high feed prices and/or low demand for weaners does breeds good if it doesn't go on for too long.  As has been mentioned people tend to keep only the best of the best and cull the rest.

[Mrs Snoodles]

I found culling our sow to be far more difficult than the meat pigs.  She had been a lovely pig, had a big litter and looked after them really well.   She was in good nick too.

[norfolk newbies]

One of our sows is not infertile, but does have problems with her back legs when pregnant. It is her 3rd litter this time and we are trying keeping her on hard standing, as we thought it was due to ice the first time, then mud the second, but I think it is just her conformity. 
 
So I think after this litter she will have to go, as I do not think it is fair to put her through it again, but cannot feed her without piglets as an outcome.  BUT the issue were are having is that our local abbattoir  (Grantham, not in Norfolk anymore) is 'not keen' on cull sows ( she is a GOS and reasonably sized, although not as large as our other GOS sow.) I have not figured out whether not keen is an outright  ' we wont do it' or whether we need to pay more or find somewhere else.
 
Has anyone else had an issue with size and acceptability. I can see that it would need a couple of heft men to shift her...
 
Jo
 

[kja]

of the 3 slaughterhouses near us only 1 will take a sow or anything over 200lb dw. although i did talk one of them into taking a 12 month old gilt in (264lb dw) but had to pay double  .

[SMarshall]

We've got a red mangalitza who took ages to get pregnant. We had her from an early age but she came after our other Mangalitzas so they terrorised her and bit her tail off :-(

in general we let our boar run with our girls and for a while had four other sows who all got pregnant and produced good litters. Red became overweight and we were at the point of thinking her weight was stopping her from also producing, that or she was infertile. In the end we decided we had too many sows so sold two (whilst unsure as to what to do with red) and suddenly we notice a pregnant red! I'm guessing five girls was too much for our boar!