Piggery Farming
Pig management is the control of a number of factors such as housing, feeding, breeding health and records, to allow pigs perform to the maximum of their genetic potential at a cheap cost.
Pig production is like any other business – without clear objectives and production targets, it lacks purpose and can end up being less profitable than it might have been. To manage a piggery effectively, you must consider the piggery’s production and performance, identify ways to improve your herd, provide your herd with suitable housing, manage your herd’s feeding and monitor environmental issues.
Piggery Farming
Piggery farming plays an important role in risk diversification and livelihood security of Smallholder and poor households as they are important assets useful in generating income for school fees payment, purchase of farm inputs and covering emergency cash needs.
Common Pig Breeds to Acquire
- Hampshire Breed
This breed is black in color with a white belt around the shoulder forequarters. It is a medium size breed that originated from Southern England. It has a straight face, erect ears, good nursing ability and produces and excellent lean carcass.
- Large White Breed
This breed is white in color, has erect ears and a ditched face. It originated from Yorkshire, England. Although it is not quick in maturing, it is a good feed converter.
- Landrace Breed
This breed is white in color with a long and big body that has deep sides. It has a straight snout and loped ears which cover most of the face. This breed originated from Denmark and has been widely used for cross breeding especially with the large white to produce prolific breeding sows. The breed is mainly used in bacon.
- Duroc Breed
This breed is mahogany to red in color. It has good motherly ability. It is resistant to stress and is adaptable to various environmental conditions and is very useful in crossbreeding programs.
- Crossbreed
Crossbreeding is practiced because it combines the desirable traits in the parent breeds into one animal. The major traits that a pig produce should target to improve in a crossbreeding program include, fast growth rate, good feed efficiency, resistant to diseases and good litter size and mothering ability.
- Local pigs
Most of the local pigs that are kept in villages have arisen as a result of improper management of the exotic or crossbred pigs. It is only those that can survive the poor management practice that stay. The biggest advantage of these pigs is that they are able to survive on low quality feeds and are resistant to some diseases. However such pigs have low growth rate.