A Guide to Pig Breeding - A Collection of Articles on the Boar and Sow, Swine Selection, Farrowing and Other Aspects of Pig Breeding

SWINE BREEDING.

The swine-raising industry has reached a development in America greater than anywhere else in the world. Other countries have effected improvement in their bacon-producing swine, but the world’s lard supply comes from the cornbelt. The improvement of swine for lard production began with the occupancy of cornbelt lands. The horses and cattle brought by settlers from east of the Alleghanies and from Europe were satisfactory for the time, but it was not so with the swine. Upon this class of stock devolved the work of readily converting the easily grown corn into a marketable product.

Need of Improvement.

Since the establishment of the first American breed, the Poland-China, down to the present, the most serious problems of American swine breeders have arisen from that striking feature of the environment of their swine, the corn diet. The original types, of which there were many, were too coarse and ill-proportioned from the standpoint of those in charge of the first packing enterprises. It was also clear that a greater economy of production was desirable. Development was too slow and too small in proportion to the feed consumed. The offspring of some of the stock at hand became marketable at an earlier age than the others did and the blood of such was freely used. This was no occasion to consider the idea of impairment of size or prolificacy. The great defects for many years were slow fattening and lack of market qualities. Until the beginning of the second quarter of the nineteenth century efforts to improve the swine were necessarily scattered and not very effective.

BERKSHIRE BOAR.

Breed Building.

Developments of the years following gave promise of reward to breeders who could supply the most profitable type of swine to the rapidly increasing numbers of farmers in the corn-growing areas. The Berkshire was the most carefully bred hog obtainable, though his breeding in England had not been directed with a view to adaptation to utilization of corn. However he was superior in many ways to the native stock and gained a place. Selection among descendants of crosses of the Berkshire with stock combining the good features of the types previously used gave the foundation of the Poland-China.

Extremes Needed.

The pronounced disposition to fatten that characterized this breed brought it into strong demand for improving the stock upon farms where little improvement had been effected. The native sows being disposed to mature slowly but to reach good size and breed freely, the opposite extremes were really needed for mating with them in order that the offspring should be as nearly right as possible. Most of the breeders made their selections to meet the general demand. Heavy feeding of corn was commonly practiced. Animals of the smaller size soon passed through the period of most rapid growth and became fat at an earlier age than those with greater tendencies to growth.

POLAND-CHINA BOAR.

Results of Extremes.

Because corn alone is more favorable to fattening than to growth its use in herds being bred for early-maturing qualities was an important factor in the elimination of animals that fattened less rapidly in their growing days. Well sustained gains are possible only by the continued development of frame that characterizes animals capable of coming to large size. The extreme of early fattening means rapid gains from accumulation of fat and also cessation of gains at a comparatively early age. It has been said that the tendency in all breeding of improved stock is to go to extremes. Extremes are usually demanded by stock-raisers who see the need of improvement in their previously neglected animals. Continued adherence to an extreme type in the herd eventually results in difficulty. If followed by a majority of those working with a breed it results in the stock becoming unsuitable to the needs of the raisers of commercial stock who first demanded the extreme type. This is no more true of swine than of other stock. Progress toward the extreme in swine was facilitated by the fact that corn-feeding aided the selection of less growthy swine. It also served to accentuate the tendency to small litters which naturally accompanies the curtailment of growth. Because one generation of swine follows another only twelve months later the results of selection appear in a very short time.

Show Type.

Judges at fairs are usually breeders. They naturally take as their standard the type of animal for which buyers will pay most liberally. The early type of show hog in the cornbelt was the type that was demanded and needed by the buyers of sires of market hogs. Developments in farm herds of swine also come rapidly and a comparatively few years of breeding to boars of the show type and of heavy corn-feeding brought the farm sows very close to the same type. It was then that complaints were made of lightness of bone, which means lack of size and growthiness. Smallness of litters was also an outcome of the same conditions and methods. The show type was spoken of as something separate and distinct from the farmers’ type although it was first established as a result of farmers’ demands.

DUROC-JERSEY BOAR.

Opening for More Breeds.

The earliest improved breeds were the first to undergo such evolution in type and popularity. The logical remedy lay in the use of opposite extremes. These were usually found in newer breeds still retaining unimpaired size and fecundity along with native coarseness and slowness in maturing. All the older breeds of swine have passed through much the same stage. The changes illustrate the idea that every wrong condition works its own remedy though after a great cost to individuals. The incoming breeds have not escaped the effects of the influences that brought them into demand though the workers with more recent introductions have seen the necessity of combining refinement and ready fattening qualities with a desirable degree of size and growthiness and have demonstrated the possibility of such a combination.

Mixing Types.

The rising and waning of the height of popularity of successive American breeds of swine compels one important conclusion. Neither real success nor profit can come to the breeder or raiser who proceeds by the mating of opposite extremes. Even though the mixing of breeds is avoided opposite types within a breed must necessarily be the product of different methods and the descendants of wholly different animals. The union of such is subject to the same uncertainties that follow blending the blood of animals of different breeds, even though the progeny remains eligible to registration. Errors having been made and realized, such a step may be the beginning of correction but it is a retracing rather than an advance.

Continuity in Farm Breeding.

Farm production of swine or other market stock is most satisfactory and most remunerative when the necessity for reversing methods and changing types or breeds is entirely avoided. If breeding stock is selected to embody the best possible combination of qualities for the market with the essentials of economic production, progress can continue without interruption. New sires selected for their possession and inheritance of the same qualities serve to raise the standard of the females and to reduce the proportion of inferior offspring by strengthening the blood. What is aimed at in bringing in new sires may also be contributed to in selection of the females which become increasingly uniform and prepotent as time goes on.

Conservative Breeders.

There have not been wanting workers with the older breeds who foresaw the ultimate outcome of continued breeding in accordance with the extreme demands and needs of owners of wholly unimproved stock. Such far-seeing men have saved the day for their breeds by breeding the medium types which needed no correction and which they foresaw must ultimately be generally adopted. Occurrences in swine breeding also show the need of foresight on the part of professional breeders. To be permanently successful they must recognize and adhere to the essential points. The final result of the fads and extremes of transient popularity must be foreseen and avoided. The breeder has greater need than has the raiser of commercial stock to forecast demands that come through changing economical conditions or as a result of errors or misconceptions of the large number. It is with breeders endowed with such powers of perception that the permanency of our live stock industry rests. They have also frequent occasion to show the courage of their convictions by running counter to the ideas of a majority of their fellows or by giving the note of warning of the result of adherence to an impractical ideal.

Breeder’s Reward.

The few breeders of unusual courage and judgment, upon whom so much rests at times, do not always live to see the return of their fellows to the conservative standards. The benefit of their work may sometimes go to those who follow them, though real ability as a breeder very seldom fails of receiving material compensation. The fascination of molding animal form makes the breeder’s work an absorbing pleasure. To have earned the right to feel that he has aided in rendering domestic animals more useful to mankind is his most prized reward.

BREEDING STOCK

This chapter reviews the management of the breeding stock. There is a discussion on the selection, feeding, housing and mating of boars and sows, the care of the sow at farrowing and the subsequent rearing of the litter, the castration of surplus males, the weaning of the litter, the rearing of breeding gilts and their selection. The gestation period, oestrum, the age of mating, the length of the breeding life, prolificacy, and the marking of young pigs are considered.

THE BASIS OF SUCCESS

Management of the Sow. The efficient management of the breeding gilts and sows in a herd is the foundation on which pig production of any kind is built. The success of the pork pig, the bacon pig, the pedigree pig for breeding or the show pig depends initially on the management of the sow. The rearing of breeding stock is discussed in a later chapter and for the moment it must be assumed that breeding gilts or sows are available.

The gilts will have been separated from the boars at 6 months old, because at about that age they attain puberty and if the sexes are left together they may breed. It is not advisable to mate gilts prior to the age of eight months, because their growth will almost certainly be restricted and the resulting litters will be small and weak; the actual birth of the litter will be difficult and it is quite probable that the gilt will die. Gilts grow so rapidly at this age that it certainly pays to wait an additional two months and to mate them at eight months old. Many pedigree breeders, on the other hand, anxious to obtain greater size and development in their stock, often delay mating until the gilt is 12–14 months old. In a commercial herd the loss of these 4 months may be regarded as an unnecessary loss of time. There is an added danger in deferring mating until 12 months old and that is the tendency of the gilt at this age to lay on fat, which makes her less likely to conceive at the first service. Over-fatness in breeding stock of any age is a bad thing for the same reason and should always be avoided. The degree of development of the gilt at 8 months will obviously be different from farm to farm according to the liberality and suitability of the feeding, the composition of the ration and the general management, so one should not be too dogmatic about the mating at 8 months and a standard size for mating is a better guide than actual age. The season of the year during which the first litter will be born is another point to be borne in mind; the young gilt will have a much easier time with her first litter in the spring and summer and it might well pay the owner not to mate his gilts to farrow in mid-winter but to defer it for a few months. His decision on this matter will also be influenced by the type of house in which the gilt is to rear her pigs. The mother has her first heat period from 3–10 days after the young pigs are weaned, and it is a known fact that she is more likely to conceive if served during this heat period than during subsequent ones. Conception during this period ensures that two litters in a year will be produced and weaned by this sow.

A sow that is being well-fed while rearing only a small litter may come on heat whilst she is still suckling the litter. If it is intended to breed from her again, in spite of her small litter, it is as well to mate her during this heat period, though she may not become pregnant.

The gestation period of the sow, which is 16 weeks (112 days), is subject to very little variation. Careful record should be kept of the expected farrowing dates; they are easily worked out from one of the many breeders’ tables which are published. Old sows, gilts and sows in poor condition tend to farrow a day or two before their time is up, whilst strong, healthy sows in good condition tend to farrow a day or two beyond their time.

The breeding life of the sow, as with all other farm stock, is very variable. She may eat, fail to suckle or overlay her first litter, in which case she will not be retained for breeding any more unless she is a pedigree pig of a particularly valuable strain. She may become ill, she may be particularly bad tempered or she may not meet the owner’s requirements for some other reason, but if all goes well she should breed 8–10 litters during her breeding life. Sows have been known to breed for 8–10 years, but the average life is about 6 litters. In countries or districts where the winter is very severe it is customary to breed only one litter a year and that, of course, is born in the spring. In this country the best months for the litters to be born are February and August, but in order to disperse labour, food consumption, housing and marketing it is customary to arrange for sows to farrow throughout the year, the poor pork market during the hot summer months being overcome either by selling some of the litters as weaners or running them through until they are of bacon weight. A pig of small pork weight on May 1 will reach bacon weight in just over 100 days—say August 1. In a good herd the average number of pigs produced by a sow at a birth is just over 9 and the number actually reared is 8, but this depends on a number of factors and it would perhaps be as well to enumerate the factors affecting this and discuss each one in turn.

1. High or low natural prolificacy of the strain of sows.

2. The proportion of gilts to sows.

3. Freedom from disease.

4. Good housing.

5. Good feeding.

6. Mating.

7. Farrowing.

PROLIFIC STRAINS

1. Natural prolificacy. Some breeds are naturally more prolific than others, though information on this point is far from complete. Some figures are given in Tables V and VI. Within each breed there are strains which are more prolific or less so. There is no great advantage in producing a large number of piglings at a birth if the sow’s capacity for giving milk is low or if she has too few teats to supply each pigling with its own teat. If a sow, for example, produces 12 pigs and has only 10 teats, two of the piglings do not get their share of milk and will be stunted in growth; from such a set-back at the beginning they rarely recover and are uneconomical to rear to pork or bacon weights. It is usually better to kill them so as to release the amount of milk they consume for the benefit of the other piglings. Up to 20 pigs have been reared in a litter by an exceptional sow, with exceptional feeding, but whilst the weight of the litter as a whole at 8 weeks was certainly very large, the weight of the individual pig was undoubtedly very small and it is doubtful if the subsequent progress of most of the pigs was economical. The number of teats is the limiting factor in deciding how many piglings to leave with a sow; she should never be selected unless she has 12 sound teats. If it is so arranged that sows farrow in batches, the surplus pigs from one litter can be put on to another sow. Sows as a rule accept these foster piglings quite readily. The unsucked teats dry up, but of course produce milk again if required by the next litter.

The most complete information on the subject of prolificacy is contained in a paper by A. W. Menzies-Kitchen. From an extensive analysis of records obtained in the Eastern Counties he found that the litter sizes and percentage survival at 6 weeks were as shown in Table V.

TABLE V.

Other figures are available in the hands of County Pig Recording Societies.

Further information from A. W. Menzies-Kitchen’s same excellent paper includes the litter records of the various breeds recorded by the National Pig-Breeders’ Association.

TABLE VI.

The number of pigs weaned depends partly upon the weather conditions and, therefore, to a certain extent on the month of the year in which the litter is born. Menzies-Kitchen found that litters during the 6 months April-September contained three-quarters of a pig more than those farrowed during the remaining 6 months of the year. Litter size increases up to the 8th litter born to a sow and only falls seriously again after the 10th litter.

2. Proportion of Gilts to Sows. It is common practice when buying a herd of pigs prior to starting a pig farm, or a pig section of a mixed farm, to obtain a certain proportion of gilts and a certain proportion of sows. This ensures that the replacements for the herd are made gradually instead of in bulk as would be necessary if the herd were all of the same age. Moreover, a herd which consisted entirely of gilts would have a low litter average since gilts rear from 1–2 piglings less per litter than sows.

3. Freedom from Disease. This subject is adequately dealt with in the chapter about diseases (Chapter VII) and that on the rearing of the young pigs (Chapter V).

PROPER PROTECTION

4. Good Housing. This subject is dealt with fully in Chapter IV but it is relevant to discuss here the merits of the commonest systems of housing sows from the point of view of the owner and of the sow. Whatever system is adopted, it is essential that the sow should have a dry, warm sleeping place with plenty of ventilation, but free from draughts and with a corner that is out of the direct rays of the sun. This can easily be provided in a range of farrowing sties facing south and equipped with an open-air compartment. The sow and litter can be admitted to this or excluded by means of a door on the indoor compartment. Buildings of this type have the advantage that they can be used equally well for any kind of fattening stock. Satisfactory houses can also be made from baled-straw, the bales being protected by wire-netting to prevent the pigs from pulling the bales to pieces. Corrugated iron buildings of a similar type tend to be cold in winter and hot in summer. Baled-straw houses and corrugated iron houses are not mobile and if a house is required for moving round a grass field, fold houses or huts with the sows tethered may be employed. Each fold unit has a house