Ready to Purchase Kunekune Pigs? What should you get? PLUS:Three Tips to Choosing the Best Kunekune Breeder for You!
Want to be the first to know about available Kunekune Piglets?
If you read my first three blog posts about how we raise our Kunkune pigs, then you are ready to find and buy your first pigs!! Feels great right? I can honestly say when we bought our first Kunekune pigs we did not follow all of these suggestions…..Oh well I know them now and can hopefully help start other new Kunekune pig owners off on the best foot possible! So as usual my answer to these questions is a bit nuanced and requires some more information from you first!
First some questions for you….. What do you want to do with your pigs?
Are you raising them as a companion animal to keep on your farm?
Are you raising Kunekune pigs for meat?
Are you planning to breed your Kunekune pigs?
Three tips for choosing the best Kunekune breeder for you!
Are you planning to get Kunekune pigs for a companion animal to keep on your farm?
If yes then I would recommend getting either two barrows, two females or a barrow and a female. You will want to get at least two pigs because they enjoy companionship of other pigs and they especially need that in the winter. In my experience the sex of the pig really does not matter as far as personality goes. Each individual pig has their own personality.
Are you planning to raise your Kunekune pigs for meat?
If yes, then I recommend the same as a companion pig. Either two barrows, two females or a barrow and a female. When I’ll sell pigs to somebody that is intending to raise them for meat I will try as much as I can to sell them my largest available piglets. I have experienced that size discrepancies when young tend to increase as they age. Meaning if a piglet is smaller than the rest of the litter as a piglet at six weeks it will typically be smaller as an adult as well. Whereas if a piglet is a larger piglet in the litter at about six weeks it will also be a larger adult pig. I have not found that the barrows grow significantly larger than the females however they can end up somewhat larger. I have had several females that are just as big as my barrows for that year and have also had several barrows that are much smaller than my females. Once again it is somewhat individually based on each pig. But on average I would say a good size barrow will end up being slightly larger than a good size female. Last year my biggest barrow was about 5 pounds heavier than my largest female. This year my largest meat pig is a barrow and my smallest meat pig is a barrow as well, with three good sized meat gilts in the middle.
Are you planning to breed your Kunekune pigs?
If you are interested in registered breeding stock you will want to be mindful of how close you house your boar and your breeding females and my next blog post will go into great detail about this. But I would suggest getting a boar and a gilt to breed but also having a buddy for each of your breeding pigs to live with. When breeding Kunekune pigs are housed together or very close together from an early age they will view each other as siblings/Companions and very often will not breed. So if your purpose is to eventually breed your pigs you will want to separate them as early as possible and have them housed fairly far apart. Basically you want their re-introduction to happen when you want them to breed and you want them to be somewhat mysterious to each other aka not very familiar with their sight and smell. So your boarling would need a buddy to live with and your gilt would need somebody to live with. You could get a barrow to live with your boar and two gilts to live with each other and have a mating trio or you could get a barrow to live with your boar and a barrow to live with your gilt. I don’t really know if it is a guarantee that your pigs would not mate but this is the case often enough that I have experienced it, my large animal vet warned me of this and I have heard of at least 20 other homesteader, farmers, and breeders mention this issue. I go into our story in our next blog post so stay tuned!
Three Tips Choosing the Best Kunekune Breeder for You!
I don't want to go into a lot of what makes a good breeder and how to find a good breeder because some of what one likes in a breeder is just personalities jiving well or not. There are not perfect breeders out there, however I have a few tips for finding the best breeder for you.
First tip for choosing Kunekune breeder
I would try and find a breeder that breeds pigs that you want to raise and it is also a plus if they raise pigs like you want to raise pigs. So that means take a bit of time to do some research on how you want to manage your pigs. What is important to you? What is your “WHY” for raising pigs? I am an extremely well thought out individual and have a very flushed out “WHY” for our farm as my first blog post. Read it here to give you a jumping off point for topics to think about.
If you are buying Kunekune pigs to breed future meat pigs for yourself, you will want to find a breeder that is also focusing on that. There is a fairly big difference in the size and quality of Kunekune pigs depending on what a breeder is focusing on. Some breeders focus on breeding Kunekune pigs for pet/companion pigs and are not likely focusing on meat confirmation. So if meat production is your goal I would avoid breeders that are not focusing on that. If you are looking for a Kunekune pig to breed companion/pet pigs then I would think any breeder that focuses on selling good quality stock would work.
Some breeders focus a lot on show confirmation and If you want to show that would be important. Maybe good independent mothers are not what some breeders focus on but it is something you want. Certain breeders love the idea of being very involved in farrowing and independent mothering skills is not one of their goals. But maybe a breeder that has been very involved in farrowing is more knowledgeable about what can go wrong because they are always there watching. What is important to you? Once again, how do you want to raise your pigs?
With all that being said, I don't actually know of any breeders that rotationally graze pigs the way we do nor raise pigs like we do in general. So obviously what I said above is not the end all be all. I went with breeders that were focusing more on meat body confirmation and thinking about the breed like I do. It is now my job to continue to breed the best pigs for my context but I wanted to start with as close to my ideal pig as I could afford and easily obtain.
Second tip for choosing a Kunekune breeder
I personally would be wary of a breeder that registers a significant amount of pigs from each litter every time. There are definitely breeders that have amazing lines and pigs that are very consistent and they are able to register many piglets from certain litters. But somebody that registers every piglet from every litter is going to be a bit of a red flag for me. In my breeding program so far I have been focusing on good meat qualities, growing well on pasture, and good mothering skills. I am extremely early on in my program and will continue with these goals but because of this I do not register all the piglets from each litter. First off I want to grow my own meat so I need some piglets for that and I don't register meat pigs. Secondly not every piglet meets my criteria.
If I do not think a piglet will turn out to be what I want my future pig to be or have other qualities that would improve the breed I will not register that piglet. I even have registered breeding stock that I purchased and in the end did not turn out as well as I would have hoped. One probably should not have even been registered breeding stock. As of right now I do not sell registered stock out of them, even though I could. I don't because these particular pigs have faults that could produce pigs that suffer in health and mobility because of these faults. They could produce offspring that should not be used to breed future generations of pigs. For now I just use them as meat pigs and they are perfectly fine for that. I am doing my due diligence and keeping their offspring for my meat pigs to watch how they turn out. Maybe my boar can correct a fault in their confirmation or strengthen a weakness they have. There are no perfect pigs and we all have to start somewhere though. Hopefully we are all trying to end up with better pigs than we started with and only registering pigs that have potential to improve the breed.
Third tip for choosing a Kunekune breeder
Lastly, a breeder that is willing to have open and honest conversation about what you are looking for and how their pigs either fit that or do not fit that context is a must. A breeder that can answer your questions about your context would be a huge bonus. But that does not mean a breeder needs to tell you exactly how and what to do when raising pigs. That is an impossible task for a breeder to accomplish. When somebody is asking me what and how to raise pigs I first point them to these blog posts to show them how we raise our pigs. I then ask them to tell me how they want to raise their pigs and then I can give them some advice depending on how they want to raise them. I can not help somebody until I know that . Broad questions like “how much will it cost me to keep these pigs?” has way too nuanced of an answer. I have no idea of your context for your farm….are you organic, non-gmo, traditional feed? Do you use regenerative practices, rotational grazing, or permanent paddocks etc.? Do you have a goal of fast or slow growth rates? What are your individual breeding goals? What is the cost of your feed, hay, fencing etc.? So do some thinking and digging to decide how you want to raise your pigs and then ask your breeder specific questions with the details so they can help you better. It is a “Help me, help you!” kind of situation.
Wowza that was a long one, hopefully you are still with me and some of that information was helpful! Each blog post is so much longer than I initially plan for. I can get bit wordy and I really try to address as many possible situations as I can! So do you feel ready to start breeding Kunekune pigs now? If so, stay tuned for my next blog post! I would say it is a must read for anybody that wants to breed. It is not really a “How to” blog post but rather a “How not to” blog post. Two things not to do if you want to be successful breeding your Kunekune pigs!
And if you want to learn more about our Kunekune breeding stock and available piglets click here!