[Alastair]

Hi All,

Three years back having taken a few pigs from weaner to freezer we decided to take the plunge and breed our own from two nice large black gilts. Had a few ups and down along the way. One of the major downs was that although one of our girls is now, hopefully, in pig for the fourth time the other we never managed to get in pig. We tried both AI and an onsite boar. She got a little on the large side and we think some of that was due to, and a cause of, problems with her back legs, yes I know pigs only have two legs but you know what I mean
The leg problem combined with knowing she wasn't going to get in pig meant in the end we decided to sausage her. A bit of a sad day all round.
So that's the back ground. Now we have one sow and 4 growers from her last litter (just over 14 weeks old )one of whom is a nice female. We separated them at 9 weeks so they've been apart from 'mum' for just over a month, within ear shot but out of view due to long grass.
So the idea is to put them back together now. The boys will be off in another 6 to 8 weeks leaving mum and daughter together until mum starts to think about farrowing at which point they'd be separated but this time just with a few strands of electric fence between them so they'd still able chat. Then in a while we'd then be looking at getting them both in pig around the same time.
So the question is, this all sounds very nice in theory but is it going to work? We don't want our sow on her own but wonder if reintroducing a mum and offspring is going to work. Any thoughts/idea much appreciated.

Cheers,

Alastair

[Fowgill Farm]

Sounds like a good plan to me  
Mum might be a bit narky when daughter first goes back in and will push her around and make it known she's top pig so you will have to watch at feeding times that the little one doesn't lose out, after a couple of days they should be best friends
Mandy

[Alastair]

Thanks Mandy, much appreciated.