Before moving back to Central Texas we had a 7 acre homestead South of Houston where we had a menagerie of animals, a few of which were American Guinea Hogs. AGH is an old homesteading bread that is about ¾ the size of a typical hog. It is with these Guinea Hogs that we “practiced” raising pigs, which included farrowing. Farrowing is pig talk for having babies.
When we started Amber Oaks Ranch, our plan was to just buy weaner pigs (2 month olds) and raise those up to finish weight – which is what we’ve been doing for the last several years. This had been working well for us, but finding piglets of the correct breed, at the correct price, at the correct time was quite the struggle. As a result, we’d often go several months without any pork to sell.
So four months ago we retained one of our female hogs and purchased a boar (male pig). She was a Red Wattle (though black in color) and he was a Duroc. (You may recall the story from a recent newsletter) Bertie and his new lady immediately got to work making babies – I mean within 2 minutes! Which is fortunate because I knew the exact day that the farrowing would occur.
Pigs have a gestation period of 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days. And true to form, we had baby piglets on November 28th, 114 days after Bertie joined us. I had learned the hard way, “practicing” with the AGH, that it is best to just let nature take its course. Contrary to all the textbooks, trying to force the pigs to farrow in a “farrowing hut” resulted in piglets getting squashed when mamma rolled over. The whole point of a farrowing hut is to help prevent this from happening, but after several problematic farrowings, I threw the text book out the window and just let the pigs be. So with those lessons under my belt, I just put out some hay for momma to make a nest in, and she got to work.
Though fully anticipating a litter on the morning of the 28th, I was none-the-less giddy when I found a squirming pile of piggies in the nest of hay while making my morning rounds. Litters of this size are not unheard of, but average is around 8, and for a first time mother it’s even less. To have them all survive is a rarity as well. One of the reasons I like the Red Wattle breed is because they make excellent mothers (they are also good out on pasture and have excellent meat). If she had 11 pigs on her first attempt, it’s likely that she’ll have 12-15 in the future – which is a lot of piglets!
We did lose one of the piglets on the second day. It seemed to have gotten an injury to the side. I’m assuming an errant hoof struck him when momma tried to turn over. It’s hard to keep track of 11 piglets in a melee of feeding. The remaining ten piglets are doing great. We have 6 males and 4 females with half being red and half being black. A few of the black ones have a red/black stripe pattern, but I expect this will fade as they get older.
The piglets will grow fast, and in a few months will be weaned from their mother so that she can recover and get ready for her next litter. In about 7 months these piglets will get to around 250lbs and will be ready to fulfill their destiny as dinner for you and your family.
