changing over in Marthasville Mo

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changing over in Marthasville Mo

Postby kluesner57 » Mon Aug 02, 2010 10:39 am

Hello my name is Nick. I grew up raising hogs my whole life and took over the hog operation about 6 years ago. My family and I made a living with 300 sows (farrow to finish) confinement operation as well as cattle and crops. I always thought I would be able to make a successfull living with the way we were raising hogs. I found out the hard way that it was not enough. Marketing to Tyson and Cargail was not any fun when they were not paying enough to even break even, and it has left a very bitter taste in my mouth. With these experiences under my belt, I realized that I needed to take the market in my own hands. The RW hogs seem to be a very unique hog and alot of people do not know much about. I myself have not heard about this breed until April of this year. After I marketed all of my conventional sows I purchased 6 RW gilts and 1boar. I am transitioning out of confinement and going to a natural setting. I will be farrowing 2 gilts in Oct . Word of mouth is how I have been advertising them so far. People are talking, and that is a good thing. I have a new motivation in me again. I find this site to be very informationable and I hope to make some good connections with my fellow RW breeders. Good luck to everyone

Thanks
Nick
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Re: changing over in Marthasville Mo

Postby New2pigs » Tue Aug 03, 2010 9:45 am

Nick, how did you pick out your boar?

Our 1st time 4H(er) just got two gilts in June. We are going to show one in October and hopefully breed her and have babies next year. We are new to pigs and this is his 1st set of gilts. The set before this were barrows Land/York and our son wasn't happy with them. But is is LOVING these two. I don't know if it's the difference in the sex or the age when we got them. But anyhow it's all water under the bridge.

Good luck to you all, too.
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Re: changing over in Marthasville Mo

Postby kluesner57 » Tue Aug 03, 2010 12:42 pm

Hello New2pigs,

Well I committed to 6 gilts and 1boar sight unseen... I am really happy with the gilts, the boar was a little young but none the less proved he was mature enough to breed. What I really enjoyed was he got right to the point when put the gilt in his pen. I have had alot of boars from conventional breeds that agrevated me because they would mount on the wrong end. Not the case with this RW Boar. The first 2 Gilts have settled and next week I should know if the 2nd group of 2 are settled.
As far as choosing are picking a boar out, well I was just happy to find one. I really thought is would have been a little challenging just to find one.

thanks for the reply

Nick
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Re: changing over in Marthasville Mo

Postby New2pigs » Wed Aug 04, 2010 8:23 am

How's his temperment in and out pen with the "ladies?"

I'm torn between getting a boar or AI(ing). I could get a reg boar from the man we bought Ruby and Garnet from, but my mom has scared me about keeping a boar with her young memories of their pigs.

AI(ing) is an option, but don't know where to start and it read like I would have to go with another breed if I AI because no one knows of anyone who collects the semen.

Either way there is a lot of time and money invested, but what would work out the best if our son only has one that he will breed?
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Re: changing over in Marthasville Mo

Postby kluesner57 » Fri Aug 13, 2010 12:39 pm

New2pigs,

sorry it took me so long to reply to your questions. My boar is very calm for the most part. I do keep him in a seperate pen, but I am doing this so I have control when the gilts get bred. I am spacing my breedings 6 weeks apart so I can enjoy fresh pigs all the time. There really won't be to much of a problem if you had a boar with your sows(gilts) as long as the he is not very far out of proportion to the females body size. You will definitely want to have your sows farrow in a different pen away from the boar.

A.I. is a great idea if you can find fresh seman. It has been a little while since a have A.I. any sows but it does work. A few things to take note is that boar seman has to be kept around 64-68 degrees fairenheit and it only last for 7 days at the max. So with that you really have to know when those females are cycling and have the ability to breed them in the peek. I am sure there could be a frozen seman method, but I am not familiar with that

hope this helps you out

Nick
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Re: changing over in Marthasville Mo

Postby farmmamma » Sat Aug 21, 2010 2:37 pm

Hey there.

So the problem you may find in RW's is that no one is really offering AI services. We have seriously considering looking into collecting our RW boars (we have 4) but its one more thing to add to our very long list AND there is a concern that we have about over using a particular boar line in such a small total gene pool. What we don't want to have happen is to have the gene pool flooded with one line. We already have enough trouble with everyone being related to everyone. Don't get me wrong, I think there is definatly a place for shipped semen in the scheme of things, but it is something that ought to be done with some forethought and planning and restraint.

Oh.. as far as boar temperment goes. As I mentioned we have 4 grown Red Wattle boars. All four are absolute puppy dogs. Not to say that they aren't "all boar" and they will fight with each other if they happen to find themselves face to face. But they haven't even shown aggression to humans or to any of our other many animals that share the pastures with them (chickens, turkeys, horses, cows and itty bitty piglets that have escaped their mommas watchfull eyes.. lol) All that said, they are still 800+ lb animals with BIG sharp tusks, so we never take them for granted and always keep at least one eye on them and never ever get between them and one of their ladies when she is in heat. :-)
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