Berkshire weaners for sale
29 04 2008
Delilah’s litter of birth-notified Berkshire weaners will be seven weeks old on Thursday, which means they’re due to be weaned next week. From the litter of 12, five boars and five gilts are for sale, although at this point it appears all five gilts may have buyers. The weaners will be available for collection on the weekend of 10/11 May.
The piglets are already eating solids so weaning should be straightforward, but we like to allow a week between removing the sow and the piglets being collected to be sure there are no problems. The piglets will be wormed with Panacur a couple of days after weaning.
We’ve found Berkshires to be a good pig for beginner pig keepers. They’re a more compact pig, have a good temperament, and produce excellent pork. They can be killed at 60kg (porker, around 24 weeks) or 80kg liveweight (cutter, around 28-30 weeks). Boars grow faster than gilts, which may take a week or two longer to reach the same killing weight. The piglets are electric fence trained and used to being handled—although at this age they’re still skittish!
We’ve had an increasing number of people refusing to even consider taking boars as “they’re too dangerous”, “bite people’s arms off” and “rip you up with their tusks”. I’ll write more about this separately, but suffice to say that there is a vast difference between an immature boar taken up to 28 weeks or so and a mature adult boar. We’ve sold pairs of Berkshire weaner boars to several novice pig keepers to fatten. They’ve not only had no problems with them, but have positively enjoyed keeping them and then enjoyed the meat.
The piglets will cost £50 each with no discounts or negotiation entered into. They’re birth-notified with the British Pig Association, which means their sire and dam are both pedigree animals that are registered in the herd book. We’ve had to put prices up as we made a loss on our last litter thanks to rising costs, particularly feed but also energy, veterinary costs and fencing. None of the gilts look suitable for pedigree breeding as the ones with the best builds are poorly marked, while the best marked ones have less good builds.
If you’re interested in buying piglets from this litter or future ones, please use the contact form to contact us.
Hi Stoney,
Ive been lurking for some time now and enjoy your site. I live in Canada and am having a real problem attaining my supply of weaners for this year. Berkshire weaners sell for approx $160 (£80 ) over here but they are rare as hens teeth. Looks like ill need to get into breeding myself as my local breeder could have sold 50 this year. Ill keep watching your progress. I am doing similar in that I am a stay at home dad raising my own livestock on 60 acres in Nova Scotia whilst my wife works. I empathise with your challenges. Some of mine are similar and am itching to get the veggies in but as last frost day is still two weeks away i will need to be patient.
Keep it up sweating is good for you!!!!!
Stoney, they look fantastic !
We have the same problem up here regarding breeding pure stock, folk just dont want to pay what its worth, heck up here you get some folk trying to knock you down to £15 per weaner despite the fact that its cost you more than that to take it to weaning stage but now that we’re going organic we have a waiting list as long as our arms with local hotels & restaurants looking to work with local butchers.
They’re fine looking weaners, there’ll be some good pork on them. I now have a fairly regular supply of pork from my freerange Berkshire farming friends, it is delicious! I was amazed by the difference a happy healthy life makes to the taste of pork. We have gone from not eating pork at all, to eating it once or twice a week. Would love to raise our own pigs, but are not setup here for them. One day we’ll do it.
[...] 3 05 2008 While I was out checking over Delilah’s litter this morning, deciding if any were suitable for registering in the handbook and checking if they [...]
As of 3 May, it looks like we have buyers for all five gilts and for five boars. That leaves one pair of boars. As usual, that may change so we will take stand-by names or names for our waiting list.
NOTE: I keep getting queries about our pigs from people who ask where Scotland is in the United States. Scotland is part of the United Kingdom and is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean to the US. Have a look at this map.
[...] for the weaners, we now have three gilts available for sale [...]
[...] Due to a timewaster, we have three birth-notified Berkshire gilts from this litter for sale again. They’re £50 each and will be available for collection from this Saturday, 17 May. Please note that we’re in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Full details on the litter here. [...]