We finally decided to sell our big boar, Rufus. He has been with us since he was just a wee little feeder pig back in the fall of 2006. Today, he weighed in at 925 pounds and he was just as gentle as when he was 30 pounds! It was difficult to part with him, as he had become sort of a pet.
He did not want to leave us, either, which made it even harder emotionally. He volunteered to walk up into the hog trailor on his own, since we had fed him in there several times. When I started down the hill with him, however, I did not think I would make it to the house! He had reared up on his hind legs and had his front feet and head over the back tail-gate/ramp, trying to get out. This gate is a good 4 feet and I would not have thought such a massive short-legged animal could raise up that high! We fortified the back of the trailor with some cattle fence and headed on down the road for the hour and fifteen minute drive. Rufus remained standing for almost the entire trip, making the trailor sway back and forth and from side to side as we drove down the highway. He also did a number on the rails of the trailor, but we finally made it to our destination, more or less in one piece.
I didn’t realize we would be parting with him before he even turned 3 years old. I thought I had read that they are productive breeders for 6 or 8 years! That may be true, as Rufus was still very willing this morning to get at Sally. As it turns out, it just makes good business sense to get rid of him now instead of later. Even though our sows are also huge, it seems that his weight in addition to their own, has gotten to be too hard on their back legs.
We will have to sell off his two sows, Sally and Nellie before too long, also. This last time Nellie did not get pregnant at all and Sally only had 6 piglets. 6 is a drastic drop from the 14 she had last time. Sally and Nellie have just gotten too large as they are each 700 – 800 pounds. The last time they farrowed we lost several of the piglets to getting squashed by the big mama sows. Thankfully, all 6 of this last group from Sally have survived with no problems, but we have decided it would be all around better to start with new stock.
It is a tough choice, but we must look at it somewhat from a business perspective. With decreased or non-existant litters, the expense/benefit ratio begins to outweigh heavily to the expense side in keeping 3 very large hogs. It sounds cold, but every animal we keep here must have a positive contribution to our homestead that at least equals the expense of keeping them. If not, we are being poor stewards of the resources God has entrusted us with. Lately, Rufus, Nellie, and Sally have not been carrying their weight around here. (pun intended)
Right now, Sally is still allowing those 6 piglets to nurse from time to time, and I have decided to just let them nurse for as long as Sally will let them. I figure that is free food and nourishment and will allow these piglets to grow faster and healthier. Come December at least 3 of them are going in our freezer, 1 is going to a friend, and 1 will be the replacement for Rufus. (I’m not sure what we are going to do with the sixth one yet.) We also plan on soon getting two new girl feeder pigs that are of a different bloodline from ours to eventually replace Sally and Nellie.
We are planning on keeping Nellie until we are reasonably sure that she is not bred. She has been with Rufus continually and we have seen them breeding, but the earlier times this year have not taken. Maybe she is pregnant now? The gestation period is about 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days, so if she is not showing any signs of being pregnant by the first of November, we will take her off to the stock sales. We are thinking about keeping Sally that long also, just to keep Nellie company. They will be 3 years old in September and have literally been together their entire lives, being litter mates. I would hate to sell Sally and then have Nellie go into a depression.
The Pure Water Hollow pig operation will continue. We will just be in a transition period for a bit of time. If we were a ball team we could say this will be a "rebuilding" year for us. I guess it is actually just routine homestead life!
We continually thank God for the lessons He is allowing us to learn about hogs and about life. We have learned much, and continue to learn that we need to learn much more!
On a side note:
We saw our first black bear in our county on the return trip home! It was a medium sized bear and it was running in the grass along the roadside! It stopped, looked around, walked a bit, turned around and ran some more. It was looking for a way to get into the forest but a fence was in it’s way.
We had time to pull off onto the shoulder along with a couple of other vehicles to watch the bear. It was just like in the Smokies! The bear finally got to a break in the fence and disappeared into the woods.
We had heard about black bear sightings ever since we moved here in 1993, but this was the first one we have seen ourselves. This one was about 10 miles from our home, but there have been folks tell us they have seen black bears as near as the hollow next to ours!
It was really neat to see a bear, and I sort of like the idea of them being around. They are fascinating animals. But when I think with my common-sense business brain I realize that they are not a healthy addition to a homestead raising chickens, geese, ducks, goats, and pigs. I guess until they open a hunting season for black bear, that expense/benefit ratio doesn’t figure too well for black bears. I’ve read that bear meat is very good!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 comment
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sassyfras on July 21, 2009 at 2:57 am
Was reading your post this morning, took me back to when My hubby and I had our first group of pigs. It was hard to part with them, because they were our start on the farm. He was a big pig !!!! LOL anyway thanks for taking me back to a time and feeling that I had forgotten. Oh, and as for the bear, we just got back from the smokies and saw one. I don't thank I would want one even 10 miles away…..LOL
No comments:
Post a Comment