The Circle of Life

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The Circle of Life

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Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 16 10:21 am Post subject: The Circle of Life

The circle of life.
First of all, we have Gladys's last litter, which is due to go off to slaughter on Monday and then we have Gladys herself, who by coincidence is due to farrow again on the very same day that they're going off.

The pork pigs have been out on free range since they were a few weeks old and were brought indoors to clean off on Monday.

Now coming right up to date, here's a news flash on Gladys.

Gladys's third litter with us.
Gladys our favourite sow wasn't a spring chicken when we bought her and it was a bit of a gamble having her. She'd been allowed to get immensely fat and we were concerned that we might not be able to get her into pig. Anyway, the gamble paid off.
She had thirteen piglets in her first litter with but when we sent her away from home to be mated for her second litter, she only had seven. We put it down to her age and the fact that she was getting a bit past it, so you can imagine my surprise when this morning, she presented me with no less than eighteen spotted babes.
The father of litter is Matty form Matlock, our pedigree Sambo boar. This is way the biggest GOS litter we've ever had here over the years. Unfortunately, she squashed four of them during the night but that still leaves fourteen for her to contend with. Needless to say, there are a few diddly one's amongst them so fingers crossed for them over the next few days.
Here's a picture of our Gladys, when she first arrived here.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 16 10:44 am Post subject:
ace snap of gladys .tis sad saying goodbye to old chums but saying hello to new chums balances it up (and chops are very tasty) your pigs always look happy ,well kept sir.

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 16 1:43 pm Post subject:
Wow, 18 is fantastic. Is she managing to feed them all?

Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 16 8:39 pm Post subject:
Mum and kids are doing fine.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 16 10:09 pm Post subject:
Awww, you and Barefoot Andrew with your baby photos.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 16 10:32 pm Post subject:
wow well done gladys(and her pal ) im all piglet broody now

Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 16 6:31 am Post subject:

sean wrote:

Awww, you and Barefoot Andrew with your baby photos.

Mine aren't going to cost me as much to keep as Andrews.

Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 16 3:00 pm Post subject:

I've just got back home with 24 bags of pork, which represents six pigs, two bags per half.
They've come back rather larger than anticipated, One of the smaller halves has just been collected and that weighed in at 28kg.

Some of the other halves are well into the thirties.
Thankfully this batch are all spoken for but I've got to break it to my customers that they are bit bigger than anticipated.

Even litters?
The previous litters of GOS's that I've been rearing up to pork weight have all been pretty even. I refer to finished weights, and this, even allowing for sex difference.
For some reason, the litter of six that I sent in on Monday have come back with a considerable variation in carcase weight. I wasn't too surprised, because you could see the differences when they were on the hoof. They've come back at between 56kg up to almost 80kg
Maybe I've been lucky but I've never had anything like this variation within a single litter before.
They've been on free range with plenty of feeding space and were just six months old.

I'm no at all sure whats gone on with this lot.

Last edited by Bodger on Thu Feb 04, 16 3:54 pm; edited 1 time in total

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 16 3:10 pm Post subject:
that seems a very good yield and a lot of delicious dinners

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