Hi everyone,
Commercial cross pigs (usually landrace x large white, although I would need to double check)
I have received an email this morning to indicate that a premises in Edinburgh have surplus animals which are looking for an immediate taker or takers. These are good quality animals in good health from a quality source, the details of the exact farm and breeder from which they came I can supply to any geniune enquirers. These animals were derived from a swine flu free herd which is situated close to Peterborough and used by the AHVLA as a source of swine flu free stock i.e. it is a closed, high-health herd of good quality. These animals were part of a consignment to arrive on 27/7/12. This stock has been maintained from that date until now in complete isolation, and some were subsequently screened for swine flu as part of routine testing.
The reason these animals are being offered free despite their good provenance is that these animals were never intended for sale commercially - they were bought for use in a research herd, for which extremely good quality, high health stock is necessary, and have not been used. Please be aware that when using the term "research", this includes such things as welfare studies and behavioural studies on healthy animals, reproductive studies and so on - the term "research" in no way implies that these animals have been in any environment other than the type of high-health environment you would expect for maintaining disease-free animals until further use. They are pretty much equivalent to buying high-health disease-free stock directly from the supplier, except without the attendant prices!
To move are a total of 25 maiden gilts and two sows which have had one litter of normal commercial piglets together with two teaser boars. These animals are likely to be of extremely good use to someone at no cost when they will otherwise be slaughtered as surplus.
Given the pressures of space, a clear commitment would be needed by the close of business on Thursday 11th April (which means I must contact them by then, so interested parties would need to get in touch with me within sufficient time that I can then contact them) with collection as soon as possible afterward i.e. probably within a couple of days.
I have more details, so please do not hesitate to contact me - as some of you may know, I work for SAC Consulting, part of SRUC, and this is the channel through which this information has been made available to me. Please do not be put off by the term "research", which is included only for transparency - these animals are equivalent to normal high-health commercial cross animals which are completely suitable for producing normal commercial piglets in the futre - the only difference between these and other commercial crosses is that these have had extra attention paid to the health status of their provenance herd and have been kept in exceptionally good standard of hygiene since then.
It goes without saying that they will only be available free to good homes therefore any contact should include details of your own facilities for pig-keeping and relevant pig keeping experience. Welfare is, as always, our top priority.
Thanks for reading!