As several of this blog’s reader keep pigs or are considering pigs for their smallholdings, it’s worth reminding people that you should worm pigs immediatly on arrival on your holding as well as keeping them separated from your other livestock for a couple of weeks.
I do this as a matter of course, and this has just paid off in the case of the Tamworth weaners that arrived a week ago.
The weaners were in good shape and well looked after, if slightly small for their age. Their first feed included a dose of wormer mixed in with the barley and apples, and I’ve been keeping an eye on them ever since.
This afternoon, when I fed the pigs and did the usual dropping inspection (one of the joys of pig husbandry), I found dead adult ascarid worms in the most dung so I was right to worm them.
As well as stunting growth, worms lead to other health problems (and can be lethal), they can also result in the meat from your pigs being declared unfit for human consumption and it is possible for them to spread to humans.
If you’re using organic methods, then you shouldn’t practice unneccessary worming, but I think worming on arrival is a good idea as is keeping your new pigs separated from your exisiting herd until a few weeks have passed.
It’s also worth worming a sow a week before she farrows, as worms can kill piglets very quickly.
What a great website. We have 4 Berkshires, 2 lads to finish and 2 gilts to breed. They are now 15 weeks old. When is the usual pork finishing age for Berkshires? We are estimating dead weights and think that they are ready to go.
All advice gratefully recieved.
Berkshires are early finishers so you’re looking for a carcass weight of 36-45kg for porkers. Depending on how good your feed regime and conversion rate it, that should mean a liveweight pig of around 55-65kg.
That means you should be looking at having them slaughtered from 20 weeks to 22 weeks, so yours have a way to go yet.
We generally take our pigs on to cutter weight - carcass around 55-60kg from a liveweight pig of 80kg or so. That’s around 26 to 28 weeks.
However, there are a couple of big “buts” involved.
First, to avoid boar taint, boars should be slaughtered by 24 weeks at the latest (although they often grow faster than gilts so it does balance out).
Second, early finishing breeds like the Berkshire can run to fat quite quickly if you’re not careful with feeding. Ours are on grass so have their feed restricted to 1.8kg per pig per day (two feeds) from 18 weeks on. They are fed one-third sow rolls and two-thirds bruised barley and vegetables.
Of course, some pigs grow faster, some grow slower so you do have to use your judgement.