Maybe...

 

Well, we are 99.9% sure that this girl is bred. Rex hasn't been nearly as interested in her in over a month. We are hopeful that she's going to have piglets possibly in March. 

She is such a sweet girl. The photo above isn't great, but I knew that if I got into the pen with her, she would come over to me and start rubbing her head on my leg. 

It's very interesting to me to compare the offspring of the different litters that we have had over the past couple of years. Big Momma's piglets have grown up to be very sweet and easy to be around. Like Bill & Ted, they seem to like getting their belly rubs or ears scratched. The boys are more likely to come around then the girls. Although, the girls warm up eventually. We sold one of Big Momma's gilts to a lady who once lived here in Clark County, but now lives in Idaho. She wanted a gilt and we happened to have a couple available. After many texts and a week, this little lady went to her new home in Idaho. If she is anything like her momma, she'll be a good breeder and very sweet. She also looks like Fiona.

Big Momma's baby, Ida

Oliver, our big boy that came from one of Fiona's offspring (fathered by Rex) he's a lot like his momma. She was very pushy and a pip. He has his moments and can be a nice boar, but his eyes...when he looks at you it is intense, much like his momma. Her look was always intense. 

The exception to offspring of Rex & Fiona having piglets would be Little Momma. Her piglets have all been so sweet and she's a wonderful sow and mothers very well. So we'll keep her for a while. She's already had three litters, maybe four. I've lost count. She'll be rotated in with Rex before the weekend is over. So maybe another litter of piglets will come in April or May. 

I'm very excited about the possibility of new piglets. Mostly because we are the ones who are controlling the breeding periods. 

The Boys

This is a terrible photo, but this is another piece of evidence that the boys do sleep in their house...

It's hard to tell, but all four of the boys are in here sleeping. Oliver, Bill, Ted and Zeke. As much as I wanted to stand in the door way and take a decent photo I opted to just take this photo through the window. I know if I stand at the door one of them would become aware and then wake up. That would ruin the photo!

Each of the boys have a fun personality as well as annoying. The annoying one is that they are all looking for food, except when they are sleeping. Even then they are probably dreaming about eating.

Oliver is our big boy, born September 29, 2021. He has always been very sweet and really liked the belly rubs as a piglet. 

Oliver at 4 months old

Oliver was the runty boy of Ethel's first/last litter. She wasn't supposed to be a momma, she was intended for and ended up in the freezer. 

Oliver will be 15 months later this month. He's a hefty boy now. Runty might equal becoming large. He's approximately 135 pounds now. We'll keep growing him out until May.

Then there's Big Momma's boys, Bill & Ted. They are the two that were left from Fiona's litter in March this year. We decided that once we sold their sister to a couple in Idaho, we would just keep them for meat. 

These two...Bill (on the left) is the sweetest of the two. Ted is friendly, but he is more standoff-ish. Bill likes to come up and get a good belly rub and looks fairly happy with their current situation. At 9 months old, they do alright. They hold their own during feeding time - they have to contend with Oliver.

Then there's our little buddy...Zeke.

All full of apples!

So, Zeke is from our accidental sow, Skinny Momma. She was slated to be slaughtered along with the other five girls that were processed on September 16. We decided to hang on to her a little longer since she was extremely small, compared to the other five. We kept Zeke for a couple of reasons. First, he's super cute! When he was little he would let us pick him up and hold him and give him ALL the love! We ended up selling his four sisters on the same day. As such, his momma decided that he was old enough to eat on his own and pretty much cut him off. At three months, I suppose he would have been fine, but I felt bad for him. So for a few more weeks I decided that he could have "private dining" and get extra feed throughout the day. That lasted for three weeks or so. Let's just say he is/was the most spoiled of ALL of the piglets we have raised here. Even now, as the littlest boar he still gets chased away from the food. He gets plenty, I think, but I feel bad for him. He sometimes will stand off to the side, his back to the other three and with his head down. Such a sad sight!

We are planning to graduate him in early 2024. The other three are on Morgan Kemper's schedule for May 2023 as well as skinny momma. I have a feeling that skinny momma will remain skinny, so she might just be turned into ground pork. Oliver will graduate to our freezer while Bill and Ted will go to a friend's freezer and a neighbor across the street from us. 

It's hard to go back to commercially grown pork after having homegrown goodness. However, these pigs take so long to grow to a good size, we have only gone to about 14-15 months with them. Oliver will be the oldest hog going to slaughter at 18 months old. We'll see how much bigger he get in the next 5 months. I did recently buy a pork shoulder roast and some trimmings to grind for breakfast sausage. I would rather season my own sausage rather than buy the seasoned stuff a the store. 

Looking forward to filling the freezer with more pork!

It's Time

Rexy and his main girl

Now that we have the swine down to a manageable number, it's time to think about breeding the girls. 

We currently have Big Daddy Rex and Big Momma Fiona together and it's been about a month. We know that Fiona has been in heat once, but to make sure that she is pregnant we'll leave them together for the rest of December. At the beginning of the year we'll let Bridgette hang out with Rex and hopefully have a litter in May. Since we have two sows, I'm inclined to just let them breed once a year. I know, I know, I should let them have two litters a year, but I'm not convinced that we can support more pigs that we have now. If we let them have two litters each that would be AT LEAST thirty-two piglets that we would have to sell or grow out for meat. That's exactly double what we had this past year. It was not enjoyable for me, they were mostly girls and man they were just whiny as all get out. It got to the point that I couldn't wait to get them slaughtered and into our friend's freezers!

Here's something interesting that happened a couple of days ago - we had a note left on our gate from a gentleman who lives around 3 miles from us. He has obviously driven past our house because he could tell that our piggos have ear tags (which indicates that they are registered). He is looking for a boar and while we have a few right now, they are destined for freezer camp. Three of the boys and our youngest sow are all scheduled to be slaughtered in May 2023. We need to get more pork into the freezer and when May rolls around, Mr. Oliver will be 20 months old. That will be the oldest that we have let one of our hogs grow out to. He's already approximately 130 pound (hanging weight). Twenty months should really fill the freezer! Anyway, we have our first buyer for 2023. Once Fiona has her litter I'll be sure to start handling those piglets as much as possible and get our new buyer a really nice boar. So far all of our boys have been extremely sweet and very friendly. So, we'll be able to provide a good boar for our "neighbors" Tamworth sow. 

There are days that I get tired of the pigs. When they get bigger they sometimes are not as cute or amusing as when they are little like our little buddy Zeke

At the time that this photo was taken he was probably 35-40 pounds

I'm looking forward to what 2023 has in store for us.