AI vs Breeding

Need help, I'm back on the fence about AI(ing) after I got off the phone with 2 very knowlegable hog guys. I was told if I wanted to breed Ruby I needed a boar that was older then her. Okay I really don't want to purchase a Jan 2010 boar, in which I never had my hands on since he was 8 or less wks old. Besides I really don't want to transport and hogs with our heat index being over 105 degrees.

So I'm looking for option and know that AI(ing) is one.

We no longer have a stock tank for semen and was told that we did not need one. Is this true?

Where can I learn how to AI? We have time since our son doesn't want to breed Ruby until March 2011.

New at this, is 6 mths the age for a gilt to have her 1st cycle?

I was told to let her cycle 3 times? Is that to many times (cycling) before breeding her?

Thanks.

and also you want to let her get to about 300 lbs and bred her to where she will farrow out about the time she turns 1 year old.. gilts start to cycle at around 150 lbs

In pigs, does it depend on their weight when they have their 1st cycle?

Like I said we are so new at this...LOL...I'm thinking we should of stayed with barrows.

But I don't take change that easy.

well from what i was told that a gilt will not cycle till she is at least 150 lbs so i am guess yea.

So I have nothing to worry about until Ruby reaches 150 #'s, good to know.

So how old should a boar be or at what weight should he be for his 1st go at breeding?

Have you every AI(d)?

well i bred my gilt for my first litter with a boar of the same age. this year i am going to bred her to a boar that will be younger than her, in fact i am breeding 2 that the boars will be younger. BUT if there not tall enough i will teach them to collect first anyway.

Do you know where I can go to more information on AI(ing)? I've only read about it in the books we got for our son about how to raise FFA pigs and 1 Storey (sp?) book on pigs.

I dont i dont AI nothing because i cant get anything bred that way soo somebody else will have to help you on that lmao

Like I said before, still on the fence here, our son isn't looking for a hug litter but then again some babies in the near future is better then none at all.

So what would be about the right height for a 1st time boar and does it depend on the breed of the animals?

Our 1st set was a land/york cross (barrows) and now we have 3/4 red wattle and 1/4 hampshire (gilts).

well they are still considered cross pigs and i mean you can go with another wattle boar or cross boar. something at least the same age .. and on your first time boar i had to go out and "help" my boar bred the gilt after that he got it himself

So if I can find a boar that was born in May...we "might" be okay when we allow Ruby to go through 3 heat cycles. I just need to read up more and see what time I have to spend on this "project."....LOL

In October, Ruby will be 5 mths for the fair so if we go another 3 mths that puts us in Jan. I'm guessing in an ideal world she should of went through at least 2 cycles by the end of Jan. So we breed Ruby in Fed...are we looking at a mid-July litter (provided everything went to plan)? We are not looking for babies to fit for a show, we are just looking for babies on the ground for our son to raise and see if he wants to do this all over again.

Got another question, do we rebreed her when she comes back in or can we skip a cycle or 2 to try to have babies when we want them to be born? With this (skiping a cycle after her litter) mess with her system?

well again i wouldnt bred her until she is at least 300 lbs or close to it. you will need to keep boars and gilts seprate untill then. and also boars can be very aggressive.

well on the breeding i bred my gilts for spring litter march - april and then again for august-september litters. i am not sure about skipping them? i have been wondering my self. But gilts will cycle every month ( i think every 18-20 days )

Okay so through the timetable out the window and I need to get better at reading the weight tape. Once she gets over 150 #'s we can pull out the old calf scale that goes up to 800 #'s.

Working on extending the pig pen as the days go by. I was thinking about putting the walk pen between the boar and the ladies. Got the ladies, don't have the boar (yet). Our son's walk pen will be 14x28 and then the boar pen 14x14 with the shelter inside the pen about the same set up as the ladies just the shelter will face a different way. We are extending down hill and the last pen shelter needs to be at the far east side. Gate opening (still working on that), I know we need 2 gates one to the walk pen and the other on the outside south side (maybe).

So if we get a boar, how can we keep him from being so aggressive? Are is it just their nature?

My boars pen is 8ftX16 ft not counting the house that makes up the end of it. and my 2 shows pigs are in a pen that is 8x16 as well. the panels i welded square tubing around them and i can bolt it to there house.

well i mess with mine every day and they are all diffrent. i had a york boar that he loved the kids when they would get in there and pet him he would just lay day and oink and wag his talk. i raised him... But i have a cross boar the i didnt raise he was shown at duncan when i baught him weight 360, well he is alright to mess with in the pen he does try to bite and when you get him out of his pen he runs away lmao (thanks god he runs slow!). my york i bought him when he was only 40lbs and spent a ton og time with him. BUT no matter how tame they seem to be they do have there bad days. right now i am raisein another york boar along with a duroc. so far the duroc is freindlier than the york but i have heard horror stories about duroc boars. so i will find out lmao

Well like true to form, I guess I'm doing everything backwards. Should of gotten the boar 1st at an early age to raise up with a barrow to eat and then look for gilts. But you can't show boars at our fair (don't know about the other fairs out there). I was having enough trouble as it was to find our son a pig that did not cost him an arm and leg to show in October that wasn't white. Gilbert and Spot taugh us both that we were just not up to task for white pigs. Our pens are on the ground and maybe when I win the lottery (yhea right) I can get a cement truck on the hill and poor concrete.

Hey i had my gilts before i got a boar! i promise right now i have 2 boars and a gilt together but they are only weight 100-125 now. i know here for long i will have to get them into there own pens. and here the only show i know of that you can take a boar to is duncan. I sold my yorks for 100.00 which i paid alot more than that for there sire and dam..

and hey my yorks are on dirt. until this show seaon i had enough money saved back for a concret floor which in only 2 iches thick and it cost my 130.00

We have that Mississippi Red Clay to tend with and would not trade these 2 reds for anything unless it was a Hereford hog.

At what weight do you lower their protein %?

well here in oklahoma we have the red clay as well. Buti made my pens moveable that way when it rained and they got nasty i could move there pens to dryer ground my white hogs are always orange. i raise yorks, duroc and crosses

Is your pen on skids? Tell me more.

I have hopes, that if our son got really into pigs, we would make his pen the entire wooded section. Then have holding pens (what the pig pens are now) for new pigs or pigs that will have their litter.

I will have to get pics. i just welding the panels to square tubing and then the house is made out of squaretubing and it all bolts together and i can un boltit and move it. it take 3 of us tho to mive the house

Well I wanted to make the pen interchangeable, incase our son moved on to something new after Gilbert and Spot. When it was time to try and sell them our son was talking about hair sheep. Thank GOD he no longer wants a pair of them.

But I have to be honest, after they were slaughter and how the meat turned out, the entire family wanted another set. But the money to feed them and then to butcher them out weighted getting the meat from the store. But I knew what was put into them and how they were treated (at least from the point when we got them home to the day they were sent off).

But I started to miss going to the pen and having something to do. So our son started to talk about showing a hog (again) and then when I placed that ad in our La Market Bulleting and then D.J. called me about his litter. Oh boy the pigs were on again.

So we got these two and I'd placed a call to my sister and she said all their boars will be white and since white is so dominate I need to look some more. I called a Duroc breeder, but I don't know if Mansfield is in the cards right now. But I've got time, I hope.

So how big is your wallow for your pigs? Thanks to Gilbert and Spot, Ruby and Garnet have a nice size one. But the "girls" are so much cleaner then the "boys" where. They wait till I come home and they start to blow bubbles in their drinking water and then I dump clean water from the bigger water tank that they can't drink out of just yet (not tall enough yet). The water is warm in the afternoon, sitting in the sun in a black mineral tub. Then the sprinkler system is turned on over the walk pen and they run in and and out of the sprinkler until I turn it off and shut them out of the walk pen.

well my showpigs dont have a wallow my sows do and it is about 5 X 5 feet lmao. my boars also have a wallow but i dont let it get very big because they are in a lil pen. But as far as my show pigs no they dont get one. i got out and hose them off and that is all they get and they are doing fine. but i didnt fine a mister set at atwoods that i am going to put up of my boars and then above my farrowing crates.

Farrowing crates is another issue. I don't know if we will be using them. The shelters that we have are pretty big and I was thinking of just putting 2x4 at an angle so the piglets have something to get under. Depending on when the babies come, our main issue may be the heat. That's why I trying to talk our son into fall or spring litters like we do with the calves. We will already be running around with our heads cut off with calving season, so why not through the pig litters in the bunch, too.

How long have you had your pigs?

LMao.. well my first litter that i had i didnt have a crate i put her in my stock trailor and made a box for the babys to get into. i had a hole cut in the top so i could put in a heat lamp.. she raised all 10 but not all farrowings go that eay either