Breeding Question

Yeah, I'm curious too... We have two young gilts, and a young boar, just hitting breeding age, and the boar is the brother to one of the sows....

 

That depends on for what you are breeding. If it is for meat and not for intelligence, then in the big scheme of things it is not a problem. Even if you want to play worst case scenario and believe that (as is the case for humans) each individual has 8% lethal recessive genes, and assume both individuals pass all at once, that means that roughly 15% of the piglets wont survive infancy due to genetic problems, that's still 85%. If you are homesteading and not selling to commercial markets, that's still good production (6 piglets instead of 7). Also assuming you are letting the sows feed the piglets, the piglets will grow a little faster if they have less competition for food. Now the resulting pigs aren't going to be discussing the theory of relativity in relation to quantum mechanics as influenced by fractal theory, but then they are intended for sausage, now aren't they.

 

It depends on how you are raising them. In most cases you could likely go 5+ generations before you would notice significant defects. The really bad defects would die right away, the mother will eat them, and you would never know anything other than, "well... there are only 5 piglets this time", even with selective breeding. In a wild flock program even longer. If you keep one breeding pair, they will likely be productive for 5-10 years. Eat all the results. At about year 6-8 I'd let the litter do what they may, Butcher or sell the original parents, observe the piglets and see who is the most fit as the new breeders, and butcher the rest. You could realistically have up to 30 years of pork from only two pigs this way

 

Should be no problem, if your worried about it, find a small hog farmer and trade boars with him every so often, or just buy an uncut feeder pig and add him to your herd.

 

If you are controlling who is breeding, a boar will work, if you let them run together as a wild swineherd, then add a female, since the baors will fight for dominance and there is no guarantee the new one will be the breeder, unless you eliminate the old one from the breeding stock

 

Well, George, in a small herd you really wouldn't want more than one boar anyway....

 

I have the feeling that after we have paid to raise this boar to full size and have a look at the feed bills we will wish we had HALF a boar!

 

It depends on your set-up. Rasied as a wild swineherd, free-range like I do, there are occassional losses to predators. Right now I have a herd of about 40 potbellies and probably half are boars. It is getting close to butchering weather.