Pig Gestation Management: From Confirmed Pregnancy to the Farrowing Move
Pig gestation management is the set of decisions that protect a pregnancy from breeding until the sow moves to the farrowing room: what to keep away from her early, how to house and feed her alongside other sows, how to hold her condition, and when to…
Pregnancy Diagnosis in Sows: Methods, Timing and Accuracy
Pregnancy diagnosis in sows is the process of confirming, as early and as reliably as possible, whether a mated female is carrying a litter — and the decision that matters most is not which machine to buy but when to look. The same ultrasound scanner is…
Pig Heat Cycle: Stages, Signs and Breeding Window
The pig heat cycle is the repeating reproductive rhythm that decides when a gilt or sow can conceive, and reading it correctly is the single skill that separates a breeding herd that stays on schedule from one that drifts. Most missed matings on U.S.…
Berkshire Pig: The Heritage Breed That Grows Fast
The Berkshire pig sits in an odd position among heritage breeds: it carries the premium reputation and the long history, but it does not carry the slow growth that usually comes with them. That combination is why it turns up on small farms selling direct…
Feeding Pigs Kitchen Scraps: What U.S. Law Actually Says
Feeding pigs kitchen scraps is not simply legal or illegal in the United States — it depends on one specific question about the food, and then on which state you farm in. The federal line is not drawn around whether something is leftover. It is drawn…
Pig Fencing: What Actually Holds a Pig
Pig fencing fails in ways that surprise people coming from other livestock. A pig does not test a fence by leaning on it or jumping it. It tests the ground underneath, the gap at the corner, and the moment the gate latch is loose — and it is patient.…
How Much Space Do Pigs Need?
How much space do pigs need is the first question that has to be answered before a single board gets cut, because everything else—feeder placement, shelter size, how often you move them—follows from it. Most of the figures circulating online are not…
Pig Artificial Insemination: Timing, Technique, and Where It Fails
Pig artificial insemination is the practice of depositing boar semen in the female’s reproductive tract by hand rather than through natural mating, and it is the dominant breeding method on U.S. commercial farms. Most failures trace to three things…
Commercial Pig Breeding Cycle: Days, Intervals, and Where Schedules Slip
The commercial pig breeding cycle is a repeating sequence of four intervals—service, gestation, lactation, and return to estrus—and the length of that sequence, not the size of any single litter, determines how many pigs a sow farm produces in a year.…
Feeding Pregnant and Lactating Sows: Two Phases, One Continuous Decision
Feeding pregnant and lactating sows is often treated as two separate jobs with two separate feed tags, but the number you put in front of a sow during gestation largely decides how much she will eat while nursing. If you overfeed her in gestation, she…