Weaning at 5 weeks too early?

[cooper101]

Starting to look for feeders for the spring and saw an ad that said the piglets would be weaned at 5 weeks and ready for pick up at 6 weeks old. Is that too early and what size would I expect at that age?

[Ed Norman]

We let ours wean themselves. They have quit nursing from 3.5 weeks to 5.5 weeks. They are given feed after a week or two so they can start trying to eat whenever they want.

[FL.Boy]

I wean mine at 5 to 6 weeks old and they run between 20 to 25 pounds.

[Gregg Alexander]

Not to early if you have them eating some feed along with mama's milk

[linn]

As long as they are eating feed, they will be fine. We have found that if we leave them on the sow much longer than 5 or 6 weeks, the sows get thin and the pigs make the sow's udder sore.

[HeritagePigs]

Five weeks is usually fine to see if they will gain weight on feed alone. Some farmers force wean earlier but I've found that doing so stunts their early growth although they can catch up later.

We leave our piglets with the sow for seven weeks then they are ready to leave at eight weeks. never failed for us so we are sticking with it.

[Rogo]

All the feeders I've bought were 4 weeks old and on solid feed.

[Lazy J]

Just for comparison, most of the commercial swine industry weans pigs from 17 to 24 days of age depending on the producer.

The sows milk production starts to decrease at about the 18th day of lactation.

Jim