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.