PIG LITTERS

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20494, 10 May 1938, Page 23 (Supplement)

PIG LITTERS

Averages are Best A sow belonging to a Somerset farmer once gave birth to a litter of 31 pigs! This is the extreme limit of prolificacy and must be a record which no pig breeder would wish his stock to beat. On the other hand, we hear sometimes of litters of two or three, and occasionally even of one. The size of litters is governed partly by the condition of the boar and sow at the time of service and to a large extent by whether the female is early or late in her period of heat. The proportion of pigs born alive depends almost entirely on the feeding of the dam during pregnancy combined with freedom from accidents through bumping and slipping on frozen ground. TWENTY-FOUR PIGS A YEAR What every breeder wants is a litter produced regularly twice a year and averaging from 10 to 12 strong, level pigs. To have more pigs than the sow has teats only makes difficulties, as few breeders care to undertake the trouble of hand feeding from birth. Very small litters, on the other hand, represent a poor return on the sow’s keep, and it does not always follow that the pigs are so much bigger and heavier at weaning time because the sow has had only a few to suckle. Many breeders keep careful records of the numbers of pigs born and reared by each of their gilts and sows. They find that fertility runs in strains and can be to a large extent fixed by breeding in the same way as conformation and other good points. Litters of good average number are of little value, however, if each cf the pigs is not strong and full of vigour, well able to hold its own and to secure a proper share of food. Provided the parents are healthy and normal, that vigour can be imparted to the piglings before and after birth by intelligent feeding methods. Any shortage in the food of protein and mineral matter causes weakness, slows down growth in the unborn pigs and adds to the risk of being born dead; while after birth the same wrong feeding causes many losses.