Piggy Pairs

Happy New Year!  

Today, the first day of 2017, the American Guinea Hog pairs were out in their pens, enjoying the mild temperatures and sunshine.  

They met each other a few weeks ago, just before the snow storm and terrible cold temperatures set in.  I would have waited a few more weeks, but....worrying that the gates would be frozen to the ground indefinitely, I opted to introduce the males to the females a bit earlier than planned.  And a good thing, too.  The weather certainly did freeze anything and everything, and only in the past few days would I have been able to say "And now...allow me to usher you into the presence of your soul-mate"

Usually, I obsess about whether or not they are being more than *friendly*....but the brutal wind and temperatures in the teens made that observing process a bit impractical...  So we'll guess at due dates, which will drive me crazy until their piglets make their spring appearances.  :)  

Huddled in their little A-frame pallet houses, they had plenty of time to get cozy...but staying warm may have been the priority for a few weeks there!

From left to right in each photo: 

CC's Bag of Chips (boar) and Old Beach Setty Raspberry (gilt) are bred for early to mid-April piglets.   Chips is a little on the young side, and Raspberry will be one year old in March.

And....Dykstra's Camille (yes, Cameo's 2016 baby by Batman!!!) and Old Beach Setty Michigan are bred for a slightly later litter.   Camille will be one year old in April, while Michigan is just a month older than she is.  

Raspberry (Razz) and Michigan (Mitch) are full siblings, all the way from the northern reaches of Wisconsin, with a very nice  (and enviable) pedigree, if you're breeding with preservation in mind.  Obviously they won't be bred to each other, so....enter Camille for Mitch, and Chips for Razz.

Chips is the boar which we brought back from Kentucky, because of what his pedigree would add to our breeding program.

And Camille.  She is a Batman daughter, bringing strong traits from her father into the mix.  If I had known which direction our goals with these pigs would be taking us, Batman would not have left the farm for my friend's place in Wisconsin.  But I'm excited to see what his daughter adds to the mix!  I had planned to sell her, but as time went on and no-one else wanted a gilt from Cameo's spring 2015 litter, I began to see a lot of potential in the "leftover" gilt, and when we acquired Mitch, I knew he would be paired with her...

Both pairs have strong "Setty" influence from both boar and gilt, and it will be exciting to see what traits are present in each litter.  

(A bit of Guinea Hog history:  When it was realized 20 or 30 years ago how rare this breed had become, only ELEVEN hogs were found across the country which were deemed purebred and worthy of keeping the breed from extinction.  They were registered and became the "founding hogs" for the present day registered population of guinea hogs. "Setty" is the herd-name of a few of those hogs.  Represented in the pedigrees of the four hogs pictures, we see Setty Houdini, Setty Rose, and Setty Little Old Stiff Guy among the other names...  Because the focus lately seems to have been on achievinng the lowest % of inbreeding, the pedigrees are starting to look a bit of a mish-mash, and specific lines are becoming blurred...)  

With these hogs, and their specific pedigrees, this is my little experiment.  It may not yield any spectacular hogs, but it will address my interest to "play" with genetics a bit, while keeping in mind that once everything becomes too mixed up, the specific traits will/would be lost!  It is part of the challenge, and the adventure...wondering which traits could be lost, experimenting with which strengths should be maintained and preserved.  And since all of our livestock are heritage breeds, meaning....old-time valuable breeds in which the numbers are low and sometimes even dangerously low...it is important to understand as much about the genetics as I can wrap my mind around.

I can tell you some instances from my very limited experience...  Rose passed on her pigeon-toed front ankles and her inverted nipples to some of her offspring, and it was interesting to see that when I paired her with one boar, the traits showed up in MORE piglets than in the previous pairing.  If Rose had not moved to another farm, there would have been some breeding to explore that inheritance a bit more.

And this "trait" which also seems to have some genetic importance...  If you're reading out loud to a small child, or easily blush when body parts are talked about, best to skip to the next paragraph!  When Cameo was bred to Batman, she produced some very nice piglets, very well endowed (the males).  Very easy to castrate.  The vet had a marvelously easy time.  Cameo paired with Lawnmower produced a larger litter.  The babies are a little smaller in size but not by much.  Certain parts were not so....um....obvious as in Batman's male offspring.  When it came to castrating...the vet declared that he had NEVER had such a difficult time.  Swear words were muttered through clenched teeth...  Something about the connecting tissues in the Cameo/Lawnmower babies made it so much more difficult to find and remove certain things.   Ahem.  That trait, as well, could be explored in future breedings.

And back to spring piglets and happy thoughts.  

Not pictured: Bea (aka RAF Anna Suey) was bred *either* by Chips for late February babies (not the intended match!), or hopefully by Ham Sweet Farm Lawnmower for mid- to late-March.  If it was Chips, I expect a small litter.  But then, this is BEA we're talking about.  Her last litter was eleven!

The next two months may be cold, or even VERY cold, but knowing that piglets are in process and waiting to make their spring-time appearance is a happy thought.

 

Laura