Growing fast and well

Our Berkshire pigs almost always grow fast and solid, as is to be expected from good sow and boar lines fed appropriately.

However, when we get a rare underperformer, we can’t help but wonder if the next litter of piglets will also fail to grow as expected.

Miss Piggy, the gilt that’s just gone to slaughter, was one such underperformer and took 33 weeks to reach 90 kilograms.

We had considered keeping her for breeding as she had looked to be an excellent example of a Berkshire as a weaner but from 16 weeks old her growth pattern diverged from our norm.

If she was fed our normal ration for growers, Miss Piggy would rapidly go to fat without the the expected growth in bone and muscle.

If fed less than the normal ration, Miss Piggy would increase her bone and muscle mass but very, very slowly.

By 28 weeks, when we send pigs for slaughter, she’d only achieved 60-65kg when we’d expect 80kg.

There’s little point keeping a gilt on for breeding when she’s an underperformer and likely to pass a slow growth rate on to her offspring, so Miss Piggy was marked for slaughter and given a few more weeks to reach a decent weight.

Given our experience with her, we’ve taken even more interest than usual in the next litter going through—even though they are from different parents to Miss Piggy and all bar one other of our pigs have grown as expected in the past five years.

We need not have worried.

All three of the Dodgy Girls (pictured above) are rocketing along and are nicely built at 16 weeks.

In fact, they’re performing slightly better than expected, which is excellent as we have a customer who’s interested in buying one for breeding.

So we can relax again, confident that Miss Piggy was simply the odd one out and our Berkshires continue to grow fast and well.