Tips on how to be successful with breeding Kunekune Pigs….Or rather three things not to do if you want to be successful with breeding your Kunekune pigs.
Want to be the first to know about available Kunekune Piglets?
Are you ready to breed your Kunekune pigs?? In this post you are going to learn about our first year breeding and what we learned along the way. These lessons need a little background information in order to really drive the point home. So first I have a little story to tell you about a pig named Steel. Now Steel was the sweetest Kunekune boarling there ever was and he had two of the most eager, yet ignorant, owners there ever was. Luckily for these pig owners now ‘pig breeders’ they had a great livestock vet who gave great advice to set the new ‘pig breeders’ up for success!!
Anyways when Steel was brought home to Michigan in February of 2018, he came home with his brother, Berg. The ‘pig breeders’ (that is us in case you did not know that yet…..) did that right at least. Pigs tend to adjust to new herds or even paddocks, if there is more than one pig being introduced at a time. Anyways on the farm waiting to welcome Steel and Berg were four other Kunekune pigs, Meaty, Eaty, Rosita, and Pearl. At this time they were all about 6 months old and out of ease and maybe a little ignorance we just decided to house them together.
At the age of 8 months or so we separated them with a simple fence line. You know because we did not want them to breed at that early of an age…. hindsight makes that statement funny!! So on one side of the fence were our gilts, Rosie and Pearl, and a barrow Eaty and on the other side of the fence was a boar Steel with two other barrows, Berg and Meaty.
We rotated the pigs around the pasture right next to each other, just a fence between them, the entire growing season. I will repeat that again…..this is our FIRST big mistake….we housed the pigs right next to each other the entire time from February to November. We did this up to November/Decemeber when we put them in their winter paddocks. Their winter paddocks were on the opposite sides of the greenhouse, maybe 50 feet from each other.
One day in January 2019, I was talking through my breeding plans and timeline with our great livestock Vet (that I mentioned above) and he looked at me and said ‘You really need the boar further away from the gilts if you want them to breed.’
I did not really know what to say. One, it was winter….how were we supposed to set up new pig pens in the middle of winter?? Two, honestly I just did not really believe him … No other pig breeder I had ever saw on the great ole’ YouTube ever mentioned anything about this and I never read anything about that either. Why listen to a vet that so happened to grow up on a farm, raised all kinds of livestock…he would not know more than me!! He definitely knew a thing or two (or hundreds) more than the new us. But we just left the set up as it was and planned to breed in February for June piglets.
When breeding time came around we took Steel out of his pen with Meaty and Berg and took him to the pen with the two gilts, Pearl and Rosie, and Eaty a barrow. I am going to repeat that again …..it is our SECOND big mistake…..we took Steel, our boar, out of his paddock/pen/area and put him in a new paddock that already had three pigs in it.
LET THE PIGGIE SUMO BATTLES BEGIN!!! I had no idea pigs would fight like that. They are just so sweet when we are all together and they never really even bickered…but I just did not know yet! However I did know in that very moment that we made a mistake and poor Steel battled for well over an hour. He battled each and every one of the pigs. It was a little funny because I remember standing there in the dark because we introduced them at the evening feeding (we always introduce/do pig pen changes as early in the day as possible now because it can take time for everybody to settle down and figure out the house situation) …anyways standing there in the dark and I can remember the moment that Steel went from getting chased and bit and pushed all over the paddock to realizing that he was a BOAR and he was going to fight! And fight he did! His ear was bitten and bleeding but he was the man of the pig house that night!!
After a few days everything completely settled down. Steel was the king of the food bowls and the house. They all were comfortable with the new set up. I thought “ok all is well!” The gilts came into heat within a short time of having Steel in the paddock with them. I watched and watched to catch them mating and I must have just missed it every time (at least that is what I told myself) I wrote the date of the heats down and waited for 21 days to pass and see if they came back into heat….Well they did come back into heat…womp womp! Both gilts, Rosite (big and bossy) and Pearl (sweet and gentle), kept coming back into heat every 21 days for the next three months!! I was very patient…too patient I should have tried to figure it out sooner. Steel was not mating them or they were not getting pregnant, one of the two.
So I called my vet and breeder and they both basically said the same thing. We listened to these much more experienced and wiser pig experts and we had three things we were going to do differently to fix this situation and to hopefully not experience this again in the future.
ONE - we should not have had Steel so close to the females we wanted him to ultimately mate with! I couldn’t change that now but I could plan for the future and get them as far away from each other now.
TWO - We need to give Steel a little confidence boost and some time as the big boss pig of a group. Poor Steel had his confidence/ego bruised a bit by all the fighting and being introduced to a group of pigs by himself.
THREE -Next time bring one girl into his domain.
We just hoped a little absence would make their heart grow fonder and by giving Steel a confidence boost he will try and mate them. So we moved the girls to the other side of our 2.5 acre property and put Steel in with the smaller meat pigs and let him be the big king boar for about a month. During that time he lost his familularity with the girls because they were on the opposite side of our farm and he became more confident being the boss of the paddock for a while.
The time came to see if Steel had what it takes to do the job he was here for and mate the girls!!! So first we started with Pearl, the sweet and gentle gilt. We waited for the day she was in heat and as close to standing heat as possible. We wanted her to like him too…that is important in pigs. So we waited patiently to see if we would see any signs of him mating her and lo and behold one fine morning I looked out my dining room window and I saw Steel out back doing his duty!!!!! We were all so excited and the boys and I counted how long he was mating Pearl so we would know for sure!
Next we put in Rosie, the very big and bossy gilt. We hoped that we would see him mating her but we never did. I thought at one point that she was pregnant though because she was not going into heat in July but then in August she came back into heat again. Pearl farrowed in mid September and she was a great mother. We were four months behind when we wanted piglets so not too bad for learning the hard way but we only had one litter and not two. He never did breed Rosie, we even gave her another whole year to get pregnant. She would still come into heat but I never saw steel even try to mate her and we ended up butchering her.
So what can you take away from our first breeding season?
First off, we have kept the gilts/sows much further away from the boars and boarlings from that point on and Steel has bred every new female right away. I have seen him breed almost all of our sows or have seen very obvious signs that he mated them for every breeding we have had. They don't have to be super far away from each other but you don't want them to get used to each other's smells and sight.
Second, you want your boarlings first breeding to be a success and then he will want to do it more. It is best if he goes into his first breeding with some size and confidence over the gilt/sow and I think it would be best for him to be higher up in the hierarchy of the particular pen he is in. If you have a female that is bigger and bossier you do not want your boarling to try and breed her for his first go around. Try to pair him up with a sweeter and younger gilt for his first time.
Third, Bring the female to his pen. You want him to be on is own turf or at least don’t bring your boar to the gilt/sows turf where he has to fight for his place in the hierarchy right off the bat. A neutral turf can work too.
I think as the boar ages number two and three might not be as important because he will have the confidence, knowledge and a much stronger desire to breed the more he has done it and the bigger he gets. I have also read/heard that if you have more than one boar they will sense more of a competition so they will be more eager to mate the females. And if the boars share a fence line with other boars that can encourage the competition between them, allow them to see how it is done, and make breedings more successful. This is my first season with two boars (technically three boars but I am only breeding two so far….) so I will report back after I learn more!
And there you go….hopefully our little story of Steel can save some future pig breeders some time, frustration and money! I try and tell as many people that are interested in purchasing breeding stock about this. I have met and spoken with so many others that have dealt with a very similar situation and if I can help somebody out along the way then I would like to.