Well, we had planned on breeding Miss Piggy and the butchering Angelo after he had a rest from breeding and I had confirmed Piglets, then we went back and forth a bit on this one, as there were pro’s and con’s to getting a new male pig once a year as that is the most litters I really want from Miss Piggy..

So just a heads up that Angelo is heading off with Marty and Ten of our biggest lambs to the butcher on Monday..

I have read it a number of times that carrying a boar requires three females to make it successful in terms of profit on the little ones, and I have figured a few things out.. first being that given that I am going to do most of the piglets for myself, I am not so worried about if the offspring are purebred or not..

Miss Piggy is purebred but not papered, so I can’t sell the babies as purebred, so why worry about if I am breeding a pure black to a pure black, I could in fact keep my wonderful Miss Piggy and take her to a regular old pig, or a half heritage pig of a different breed, so that I get colorful wee ones, don’t you think red spotted would just be so much fun!, getting a much better growth rate on her offspring, because let me tell you.. right now, I have to say that my growth weight in the three, almost four month old piglets are not impressing me..

While the piglets are growing and are super healthy, they are going to take two or three months longer to reach the same weight as some of the half hertiage/half meat pig weaners I have raised up, and dare I say this, I want some of that growth rate back in her offspring.. now I see why those I got my weaner pigs from had heritage breed pasture mothers, crossbreed back to a regular or half regular meat pig.

I have really only one way to adjust out the feed costs of raising this litter up, and that is butchering out a piglet every six weeks or so, this allows me to gain fresh meat for us on the farm and it allows that feed portion from that piglet to go to the remaining piglets in the grow out pen, thus keeping the feed cost at a level rate, instead of growing with the piglets per month..  It is being effective in that way and the meat is excellent and I certainly have enough piglets that its not going to effect the end result of having lots of pork in the freezer or canned up in the pantry etc..

Having said that, it does effect the overall amount of return we are getting, clearly if I am butchering out a piglet at 3 months, 4 months and 5 months and most likely at 6 months of age in order to carry the rest to the eight/nine month stage for proper butcher weights, that is a problem in the sense of I am giving up a fifty to six pds of meat per pig I butcher out early in the long run.

By being willing to crossbred, I still control the raising and lifestyle of the male pig, and I control the pregancy of the female and her babies, while gaining the faster growth rates, I don’t lose mother ability because that is miss piggies domain, and she is very good at it.

As much as I hate to admit it, letting Angelo go to be replaced in the future with Kermit the Hog makes alot of sense at this time. What breed Kermit will be, only time will tell..