Thursday, January 15, 2009

Father and Daughter

Pigs grow an amazing amount. Here's our berkshire herd sire boar and a daughter of his. He's two years old, and the piglet is about 3 months. The piglet weighs about 60lbs, and the boar somewhere north of 500lbs.

The boar is surprisingly gentle with the piglets. When I first started raising piglets on pasture, I was concerned he'd step on the piglets, or crush them, but to date, I don't think I've lost a single piglet to him. When a sow has a litter he's very solicitous, and actually sleeps with the sow and piglets for a couple of days afterwards. It's behavior I wouldn't have expected from a pig.

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