PIGS

[pether]

when breeding pigs outdoors do farmers work to a system e.g 3 girls 1 boy in every individual enclosure or is this way out?

im sorry if its in wrong section.

[farmernick06]

Depends alot on how many you've got i think  \ With a rare breed like the Essex pig i think a good breeding boar isn't very common so he often has to be used on quite a lot of sows.

A more common breed it also all depends on what you've got. The farm i worked on they had one boar on 3 sows, the rest were for slaughter.

But im not entirely sure  \

[pether]

first of all this is for my layout ive got around 70 girls and roughly the same in boys.

[farmernick06]

first of all this is for my layout ive got around 70 girls and roughly the same in boys.

Oh right i see, i don't think that there would be that many boys in a pen  \ Far less than the sows i think 

[pether]

would it be ok 1 boy to 4 girls in each pen as these are sort of free range?

[Tractorman810]

i always though most were artifically fertalised now adayds to be honest, even free range, better rate that way, i know most of ours were when we had the farm

[Leakeyvale]

i always though most were artifically fertalised now adayds to be honest, even free range, better rate that way, i know most of ours were when we had the farm

Visited a pig farmer a while back and yes, artificial insemnation is the order of the day although this particular unit also had a boar (one) to keep the ladies happy as well.  AI just made certain

[Tractorman810]

thats what i thought, we did have a big old boar to, but all were done ai to

[pether]

so il get rid of most of the boys then but keep a few.

[Tractorman810]

you could ,but it depends on how old or new year wise your layout going to be, ours was 70's to early 90's and they ai'd all of the sows i belive bar a few, ,maybe before that they didnt

[schw84]

we have over 300 sows and only 3 boars, 2 live in the sow yard, and the other one lives with the gilts only now used as chasers to mark up be4 AI

[Graeme]

The farm next to me ,where I used to work have 2500 sows outside. We worked on an AI system and also ran a boar with 20 sows per paddock just in case the AI didn`t work.