[Ladygrey]

Hi there 

I used to keep and breed kunekunes, due to a few reasons (time constraints, land turning into a swamp into winter) I cam out of breeding pigs and sold everything apart from my two favourite sows Kiri and Crumpy, they are living at a petting farm/garden centre and enjoying life to the full!!

However right now I would love to make some more sausages,bacon,pork but I dont have the time and land for over wintering breeding sows.

So I would like to get in some weaners, pop them into the freezer and sell bits and bobs to my direct family (which is huge) with the local butcher buying any surplus off me, (well he would buy the whole pigs but I wont let him)

Land is gently sloping, fully stock fenced with barb wire at the bottom, its 2 acres maybe, with 1 acre paddock and 2 half acre paddocks.

If I bought weaners now could I kill them at 5-6 months old in august-sept time?
I want one of the paddocks to be rooted up, so I want pigs that would root it up for me, its no weeds, a clover mix grassland but its very bumpy and I want to plough up, rotovate and re seed, rotovater is not strong enough to go in the ground and the farm only has one tractor at the moment so I dont want to ask to borrow it as feeding the dairy cows takes so long

Any breed recommended?

I am looking at berkshires, OSB, Glousteshire old spot or I suppose any crosses, not so keen on tamworths, has to be a faster growing breed that would be able to take from 5-6 months of age even if it means a lighter carcass

Many thanks

Jess

[Porterlauren]

I slaughter nearly all of mine at 6 months, with a live weight of around 70 kilo.

Bacon pigs are usually run on until about 10 months.

Most traditional breeds will root the ground up to some extent, I can vouch for OSB's and Saddlebacks.

[Ladygrey]

Thanks that sounds good, was planning for 70 kilo at 6 months ish,

I have inquired about a few different litters of weaners, will see who gets back to me!

[Bionic]

I am still a novice but have had OSB's and GOS. From the land perspective they seemed to be mostly the same. I also fed them the same but the GOS ended up a bit bigger and came back with much less fat. Abattoir said they were good carcasses

[Ladygrey]

Thanks Sally

I think OSB's are lovely but there arent many around locally, I think I will have to go for something thats closer as I am reluctant to travel over 45mins to an hour away just for piggies

Waiting to hear back from someone with GOS and Saddleback weaners who is only 30 mins away 

Cant wait to have piggies again! I miss them the pig huts around the field will be happy again!

How much did you feed your GOS's Sally?

[Porterlauren]

That's real interesting you say that. I've always found the GOS the hardest to keep lean, for some reason mine always seemed to run to fat easy, and were generally lazy, grumpy pigs.

To be fair, in my experience of a few different breeds, I have to say I LOVE the saddlebacks, never had such docile, friendly, easy to get on with pigs. They are hardy as well, make good mums, and generally are nice to look at and spend time with.

Oh and they taste great to!

[Ladygrey]

Thanks everyone

After successfully selling my car on ebay this evening, I have put down a reserve on 6 saddleback weaners! picking them up one evening this week 

I was impressed by the saddlebacks friendly natures! cant wait to have them running around the field!!

Hoping it isnt too big for them, may restrict them to one end of a paddock for the first couple of week

They are all entire boars, but im sure they would be fine untill 6 months of age!

Yay excited

[Ladygrey]

oh yes, I have only had kunekunes before, kunes eat sow nuts or low protein feed even when growing

What would I feed saddleback young men on?

Growers? or would sow and weaner be ok?

[Porterlauren]

I do love saddlebacks. . . . they are such a friendly breed.

Might make sense to strip graze them to an extent? Although i'd be tempted to just let them have free reign. . . . although the bigger the pen, the more fence to check!

Being entire should be fine, I've got entire males, castrated males, and females all around each other until six months, and have no issues.

To be honest, I don't think when rearing traditional breeds that there us much advantage in using growers over sow nuts, the difference is about 2% protein. With lots of foraging etc, i'd just use sow nuts. That's what I fed, until the local mill smashed the price of everything. . . . . so now they are back on 18%.

[Ladygrey]

Ok thankyou! so as they will be getting a certain amount of forage they wont require a higher protein food?

They are already electric fence trained, so yes I could strip them across the field!

My pig hut is kunekune size but in each paddock there is a largish open sided field shelter that faces away from the wind/rain, so im hoping this would be ok for them to use as its so warm anyway

[shygirl]

thats interesting, porterlauren - wev reared batches of weaners on sow rolls and also on growers and did notice a considerable difference in their growth.
we were using east coast viners / harbros.

[Porterlauren]

I wouldn't imagine that 2% protein would make a significant difference??? That was the difference between my two options at the time, well, that and about £4 a 20kg bag!

But i'm happy to concede i could be wrong!

Mine do have access to vast amounts of foraging though, and plenty of fruit and veg.

Out of interest what were you rearing? And what kind of growth difference at what age did you get?

As long as mine finish at about 70kg at around 6-7 months, i'm happy.

[shygirl]

tamworths
i dont know the % off the top of my head now, but difference in appearance was quite considerable in their early growth.
one group were weaned on weaner pellets and growers and the other fed only sows rolls from 3 weeks old.
even at 8 weeks there was a big difference.
obviously other factors could be responsible too, as they werent siblings. i prefer the size of the sow rolls as there is less wastage when feeding from the ground.

[Ladygrey]

very interesting about the feed 

I would like to feed rolls but if there is a difference maybe its best to feed growers, however I have loads of yummy grass wich has a high % of clover, so wondering if this would up the % of sow rolls?

[HappyHippy]

If you're raising traditional breeds and you want them to grow well Ladygrey, forget about them getting much forage from grass (that's a trait almost exclusively shown by Kunekunes  ) They'll need 1lb of feed per month of age each to have them finish in the timescales you're looking at. You can replace fruit and veg for pig nuts (4lbs of fruit & veg = 1lb of pig nuts) but the less hard feed they have, the longer they'll take to finish.

With the traditional breeds the difference between weaner/grower/finisher protein levels wouldn't have made that made difference to the growth/finishing weights - these feeds are designed mainly for hybrid commercial pigs who have much higher feed conversion rates and are kept in constant (indoor) temperatures - the differing feed is designed to give maximum growth......with traditional breeds higher protein levels just tend to get converted to fat 

You'll be looking at feeding them 12lbs per day as 8 week weaners and by the time they get to 6 months old will be on 5lbs of nuts each.....30lbs per day for the 6. I wouldn't be tempted to go much higher than that for Saddlebacks or they'll just put on fat rather than muscle.

At 5-6 months old they should be around 80kg each if fed as above, and although the bacon will taste great, the pigs won't have developed much depth in their loin, so the 'eye' of the bacon will be smaller than usual.
I would section your land and allow them half an acre at a time to root up, before moving them on to the next.
HTH