Swine

Types of Swine Operations

Farrow to finish operations: take pigs from birth to market weight at about 6 months old.

Farrow to feeder operations: take pigs from birth to about 30 - 60 lbs, when they are sold to feeder to finish operations.

Feeder to finish operations: buy piglets when they are about 30 - 60 lbs and take them to market weight. Low labor requirements, no long-term commitment, don't need to manage breeding stock.

Health and Care

It is important to establish a regular health care program with a local veterinarian with swine expertise. Keep enclosed facilities clean and with good ventilation. Purchase animals from disease-free sources and ensure their feed is free from potential contaminants and stored in a manner to prevent spoiling. 

You should create a biosecurity plan for your operation, in order to reduce the spread of disease. You or visitors might carry pathogens on your shoes and wildlife can also spread disease to pigs. See short video here to learn more.

Pay attention to changes in behavior like being less active, strange body positions (huddled, sitting like dog with labored breathing, arched back) and being less social. These could all indict that your pig is sick and needs to be seen by a vet.

Pigs are susceptible to viral infections, soil-based parasites and bacterial infections.

Poor ventilation and high humidity, common in confined operations can increase risk for respiratory infections. In outdoor systems, there is greater risk for internal and external parasites.

Housing and Fencing

Pasture and rangeland systems: Pigs are not ruminants, but they will forage, as well as root and wallow, in pasture and rangeland systems. They forage for insects, roots and some vegetation. They root (or dig with their nose) as a means of foraging to find food and to explore. They wallow (coat their bodies in mud) in order to cool themselves. People often use nose rings to discourage rooting and rotating paddocks every day or two can also help reduce the erosion impacts from wallowing and rooting.

Figure 2: On the left side, pigs have just been moved into a pasture. On the right side, you can see the pasture after the pigs were rotated from it - the vegetation is trampled and there is the start of a wallow. The pigs have been moved to a new, adjacent pen and are being contained with temporary fencing and have shade cloth for sun protection. Photo/courtesy Theresa Becchetti.

To improve pigs' welfare and minimize impacts to the environment, small landowners can use portable feeders, portable shelters, seasonal management and electric fence to facilitate rotation of areas that are being foraged. Table 1 provides approximated stocking rates in outdoor swine production that can be adjusted as forage supply changes and as you gain local experience.

Table 1. Stocking densities for rotational swine production. Table adapted from UCCE’s 2015 publication Outdoor hog production best practices for resource conservation in the San Francisco bay area.

Figure 3: An example of swine rotationally grazing a rye grass pasture using electric fence, a shade structure, and a water trough. Photo/courtesy Theresa Becchetti.

Dry lots: In dry lot systems, swine are kept within permanent enclosures with higher stocking densities than with outdoor, rotational systems. Note: if pigs are kept in enclosures without rotation, vegetative ground cover will be lost. These systems have concerns with compaction, soil erosion, and nutrient buildup.

Woodlots: In woodlots, swine are raised in forested areas, usually oak woodlands. If properly managed and rotated, swine can trample undesirable species, such as blackberry and poison oak. Electric fence and portable feeders and troughs will help ensure swine don't have negative impacts on any one area.

Deep-bedded systems: In deep-bedded systems, swine are in raised, semi-permanent hoop houses with 12" or more of bedding on top of soil or concrete. Bedding helps minimize impacts on soil. Stocking rates in these systems are less than conventional, slatted floor systems but are much higher than pastured animals. One animal needs about 13 sq-feet.

Fencing: As you figure out your rotational pattern, temporary, electric fence or panels (for only a few animals) can be used to try out different paddock sizes. Eventually, you will figure out the best rotational system for your land!

Having a good, permanent perimeter fence to your property is crucial, in case your livestock gets out of your temporary paddocks. Most counties in CA are closed range, meaning it is the swine owner’s responsibility to keep livestock enclosed with “good and substantial fence” around their property perimeter.

• “Good and substantial fence” is three tightly stretched barbed wires fastened to posts of reasonable strength, firmly set in the ground not more than one rod apart- one wire shall be at least 4 feet above the ground surface
• Any other kind of wire or fence of height, strength and capacity equal or greater than the above described wire fence is also “good and substantial”

Interior fences are not held to the same standards as perimeter fences. For more information, look at state regulations for fencing and the estray ordinance here.

Figure 4: Pigs foraging in an oak woodland. Photo/courtesy Theresa Becchetti.

Nutrition

Water: It is very important that swine have access to fresh, clean water. Daily water needs for pigs range from < 0.5 gal/pig/day for newly weaned pigs to greater than 1.5 gal/pig/day for grow-finish pigs utilizing nipple drinkers. Water requirements for breeding swine range from 4 gal/day for gestating females and 6 gal/ day for lactating swine. More information can be found here.

Automatic nozzle/nipple waterers are recommended because pigs often spill buckets of water. It is important to consider the height of the animals and adjust the nozzle to the correct height. If you are rotating animals, you might have to use a bucket with a garden hose that may or may not be set up with an automatic float. If you do use a trough, make sure it can supply enough water and is secured, so your pigs won't easily knock it over or break the float to make a wallow.

Figure 5: A pig cooling off in a water trough. Photo/courtesy Theresa Becchetti.

Raising swine on a grain diet: As soon as pigs are weaned, they should be offered free feed to improve feed uptake and you can also provide “creep” feed the last few days they are nursing in order to ease the transition from milk to solid feed. Pigs will undergo a period of adaption after weaning, in which they can easily digest lactose and specialty protein, but not plant protein, sugars or fats as easily. Over time, as the pigs transition from a “nursery” diet to a “grower-finish” diet, they can have the higher cost specialty components replaced with lower cost components like grains and soybean meal.  Pigs will need about 2.5 - 3 lbs of feed for every pound of gain. They can gain about 1.5 - 2 lbs per day during the growing period. In general, smaller pigs need a higher protein and higher lysine (an essential amino acid) diet, while larger pigs need less protein and lysine. See Table 2 for recommended amounts by pig weight. You can look at feed bag labels to see the nutrient content and compare to what your pigs need.

Table 2. Recommended crude protein and lysine levels in swine feed. Table adapted from Nutrient Requirements of Swine, 10th revised edition, 1998; National Swine Nutrition Guide, 2010, US Pork Center of Excellence.

Energy is another important component of swine feed. In terms of grains, corn has the highest energy, followed by wheat, barley and then oats. Minerals are also important component of swine feed. The calcium:phosphorous ratio should be 1:1, and no higher than 1.3: 1. Table 3 shows a pig's diet (confined, no pasture intake) at different phases.

Table 3. Example swine diets at different stages. Table from https://extension.psu.edu/swine-production

Raising swine using by-products: Using alternative feed sources, such as by- products like bakery/restaurant waste, veggie waste, or brewers grain, is also common and can increase economic sustainability, though care must be taken to ensure that the nutritional demands of your swine are being met. This paper provides the nutritional makeup of some common by-products.Using alternative feed sources, such as by- products like bakery/restaurant waste, veggie waste, or brewers grain, is also common and can increase economic sustainability, though care must be taken to ensure that the nutritional demands of your swine are being met. This paper provides the nutritional makeup of some common by-products.

When using by-products, it is important to take into account the water content of the by-product. The higher the water content the more expensive per nutritional value (protein, lysine, etc) the feed will be. A wet by-product may be cheaper, but you are actually paying for water weight and not nutrition! Wetter products also spoil faster, so can't be stored as long. It may be helpful to calculate the price per unit of protein, lysine, or energy when deciding whether to use a by-product.

Raising swine on pasture: There is increased interest in raising swine on pasture, especially because of growing specialty markets. On small acreage, landowners must be very attentive to how much forage can be produced and how much supplemental feed will need to be brought in. Because pigs are monogastric, like humans, pigs can’t utilize pasture as easily as other livestock that are ruminants. For this reason, pasture should be consumed at its earliest stage of maturity, when fiber is low. For young pigs, crude fiber should be 5% or less. Forages that are good to be grown in pastures for swine are legumes (ex: alfalfa and clover), root vegetables (for the tops and roots), young tender grasses and grain-bearing crops (ex: corn). Acorns are can also contribute heavily to swine's diet if they are raised in oak woodlands. Pigs can also be supplemented with more easily digestible feed while on pasture; sows should get 2 - 3 lbs of complete feed daily while on pasture. This (in addition to nose rings) will also help reduce rooting behavior which can damage the pasture.

Reproductive Cycle

The swine estrous cycle is about 18 - 24 days long, with the sow being in estrus/ “heat” or being receptive to mating for about 12 - 60 hours. Nursing prevents estrous, so a sow won’t be in heat again until her litter is weaned (after about 21 days). Gestation length is about 114 days (or three months, three weeks and 3 days). Because of a shorter gestation length and short nursing window, sows can have 2 - 3 litters per year, if managed appropriately.

Piglets are about 3 - 3.5 lbs when they are born and litters usually consist of 5 - 11 piglets. In order to make improvements in growth performance and immune systems, piglets shouldn’t be weaned before they are 21 days old.

About 1 in 4 breeding sows are culled each year due to old age, poor performance, illness or injury.