Berkshire conformation

The berkshires I've got all look like this. Most of them have some white on their face, but some of them are more than 50% white -- they've got spots all over them. These guys were hanging out sleeping in their calf dome when I looked in the doorway to do a welfare check. They were kinda grumpy as they'd all be sleeping in a big pile, and were asleep again before I walked away after checking their feed and water.

I am sooo pregnant

This is our boar. he's a handsome fellow, about 20 months old, and weighs around 500lbs. he's a berkshire boar. This is the animal that I am aware of when I'm working in their pasture. He'll sometimes see me on the other side of the pasture, and run all the way across. I'm pretty sure I can't outrun him. So while he's galloping at me I have to decide whether it's a backrub he's after, or if he's grumpy. So far he's been mostly itchy, but every now and then he'll come over and try to bite me. He's only half-interested in biting me -- he doesn't make any sort of followup, and I don't tolerate it, but it's a balancing act. I do not turn my back on this animal without having the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Today I chose to step over the magic electric fence to safety. Shorty, one of our sows, greets him.
Shorty looks small in this photo. The boar is 40" tall at the shoulder. Shorty is 350lbs by herself.

This is the subject of this blog. This is Big Momma, my most experienced sow. She's been a great mother and has consistently weaned a high percentage of her litters. She's feeling pretty pregnant right now. I'm guessing that she's due this week. She's laying down like a dog would -- with her hind legs tucked underneath her, and her front legs straight out. She weighs about 450lbs and is roughly 5' long.

Moving around to the side, I'd like to take a look at her nipples. I can usually do this by rubbing her tummy and nipples. I'm guessing it feels really good to be rubbed. You can flip over a 450lb sow with your finger.

That's another pigs ear in the forground. The pigs tend to follow me around when I'm making my rounds. Towards the end of my trip I'll have the whole herd following me. It must look pretty funny from the highway. People honk sometimes.

She doesn't really want to move, so I'm about to move on, when the boar comes up.

He manages to get her on her feet, mostly by threatening to mount her, and as a result I can take a look at her nipples.

Yes, she's starting to get "bagged up" -- Birth soon. I try milking her -- but no milk is flowing, so not today. Maybe tommorow or the day after. Sows enjoy being milked.

The pinball pen

The piglets that I don't sell as piglets to folks who want to raise them for their own families or to eat them immediately need to respect the fence lines. A pig(let) doesn't automatically assume that a white rope is to be avoided. To learn to respect it they need to spend some time looking at it and getting shocked by it. After a few weeks in the pinball pen, when we release them to pasture they are much less likely to escape.






We have four pinball pens, to accomodate different litters and sizes. Each one is 20x20, and has an metal feed bin and an automatic waterer. For the smaller piglets who haven't figured out the waterer, I put in a rubber bowl and drip a hose into it. So every pig has all the food and water it can eat.

The basic elements of this pen can be seen in the picture above. It has a 36" woven wire fence, and an inner electric fence. The outer fence prevents the piglets from taking a good running start and running through the electric. If they do that, they hit the woven fence, and are held there as they get shocked a few times. Usually you'll have one piglet do this, and the other ones watch it squeal and decide as a group that that's not a good time. The first few times they get shocked they pretty much shriek. EEEEEK! EEEEK! So do I, when I get shocked by the fence. I get shocked once or twice a week. Guess I'm a slow learner. Both the inner and outer fence are on 4' T posts that I salvaged from a highway project. They were throwing away thousands of them in a dumpster, so I dove in and pulled out 3,000 fence posts. I figure i have a lifetime supply. Such tremendous waste.

The white dome is a really a calf dome, used for raising calves, but in this case they're tough, relatively cheap shelter. We bed this calf shelter with 6-8 bales of hay, so the hay inside is at least a foot or two deep.

Welcome to the earth

I've found it easier transition if I put an older, experienced piglet or two in with the new litter. The older pigs know where to sleep, where to eat, and how to drink, so they show the new pigs pretty quickly how it works. Later I'll remove the older pigs. Here, the new pigs are slowly exploring the new space. This is the first time these pigs have been on any sort of dirt -- the farm I purchased this group from raised them on concrete.

Here the bravest pig of the new group says hello to the older piglets -- who have figured out that the hay is pretty darn comfortable, and were snoozing before I pulled up in the tractor.

Later that evening i went back and put every pig into the shelter. Once they've spent the night in comfort they'll find their way back. Pigs like to sleep in groups -- warmer for everyone. The original pigpile.