boar hore
Boar Hire Service
Keeping breeding stock and rearing litters of piglets can be costly, feed costs are high and the cost of suitable housing more costly. It takes several sows on one farm to justify the cost of keeping a boar; figures vary but 6 have to be a minimum. We keep 5 breeding sows and hire out our boar for service. We do not take our boar off site, as this frustrates and distracts him from his duties so the visiting gilt or sow after being wormed and checked for any health issues visits us and is housed with the boar in our purpose built pig housing, under quarantine, until served.
We advise that breeding gilts should be at least one year old before they have their first litter, to ensure that they are well grown, even though they can start coming into heat from five months old. The heat period is approximately every 21 days and lasts for one tor three days and once in pig she will not cycle again for three to five days after weaning of her litter. A sow may be put back to the boar at this first heat.
Sign of heat is easier to see in gilts than older sows, it is useful to acquaint yourself with the common signs of ‘brimming’ and to record your pig’s cycle.
The sow will only stand for the boar for a limited time during the heat period and she should be served at least twice in a 12 hour period to enhance the chance of impregnation. An alternative of course is AI but at last checking there was no sperm bank for the Oxford, hopefully that may change in the future.
The gestation period for the pig is between 110 and 120 days, with 114 days, (or as claimed in pig circles, 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, 3 hours and 3 cups of coffee). being the average.
The age and size of the boar is very important. A boar ideally should be mature if being used on more mature sows as a mature sow not ready to mate can turn on a younger boar and give him a beating that will inhibit future performance. We replace our working boar about every three to four years as a boar’s appetite and potency tapers off from about five years old and a really large mature boar is too large for servicing gilts.
Contact us to inspect our boar and welfare and housing conditions or to book boar hire services.