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Post by Otter on Mar 14, 2016 18:27:46 GMT
Has everyone heard of Idaho Pasture Pigs? If you check out the website, there is a lot of excellent marketing and pricetags to match, but the basic principle is, I think, sound. Plenty of folks want to raise a hog or keep a sow, but they don't want to keep a huge, lean one. They want something easy to handle, easy to fence and with some nice fat. I'd planned to try a similar cross, with easier to get animals than Kune Kunes, so I was not at all upset when it was clear that Sylvester the potbelly had managed to successfully breed Flora, the GOSx. Now that the piglets are a week old, I'm actually really happy about it. They were born very small. Just uber-teeny little piglets, and I was worried they might take too much after the potbelly side. But they are growing into wonderful little chunks! Really nicely broad. Bodies are mostly midlength, with good conformation for a lard type pig. And their growth rate has been noticeable. I'm not sure how much is hybrid vigour, but I'm already eager to find out with future crosses. We had planned on keeping one gilt, but now I'm thinking of keeping 2 if I am still as happy with them at 8 weeks as I am now. In the picture, the black one and the smallest one with the wildest spots are the boys, the rest are girls so I have a nice choice. I'm hoping that the girls will max out at about the size the mother is now so they'll be big enough to breed to a standard breed pig for nice feeder pigs, but economical to keep in themselves. Most people looking for a small to midsize pig look at purebreds, like AGS and Kune Kunes, but these are looking good ( and are MUCH cheaper ). Has anyone here done a similar cross for similar reasons? Or an accidental one even? How did they turn out for you?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2016 13:03:54 GMT
We breed lots and lots of Kunekunes, so I've never been tempted. I will warn other about the IPP's that you mentioned however. They are a three way cross between the Berkshire, Duroc, and Kunekune. The original breeder went bust in the process without ever realizing her ultimate goal. The remaining herd was bought up by someone who is also a limited Kunekune breeder, and who saw an opportunity to cash in on the Kunekune popularity. The only problem is that these pigs are not what was hoped, nor are they what is claimed by those selling them. The major problem is that they DO NOT have the Kunekune temperament, They are more Duroc, and that is not a fun pig. There's also the faulty premise that you can improve the Kunekune pork by just making it grow faster, and nothing could be more wrong. Just as with the full blooded market hogs, as you increase the size and rate of gain, the quality of the meat suffers, it never improves. The very thing that makes Kunekune pork so delectable is the fact that they eat grass and marble well on it, but it is a slow process. Any pig - even the Kunekune, can be made to grow bigger fast, all ya have to do is feed it lots of GMO crap like soy and corn. The resultant meat has a completely different nutrient profile and type of fat. We've seen fabulous grass fed beef ruined that way by simply putting it on the feedlot to "finish" on corn and GMO silage for as little as a month. Kunekunes don't just survive on grass, they thrive,meaning they not only grow and fatten and marble well, but they also maintain breeding vigor and fecundity. Almost any swine breed can survive on grass. Kunekune are one of the few and best at thriving on it. They actually suffer when fed grains. Their short snout make them less inclined to root, and they are absolutely the easiest keeping, easiest to care for of any pig I have ever seen. Need to check their feet? Just give them a rub and they fall over like feinting goats. Keep rubbing their belly and they become almost comatose, allowing handlers to administer injections (we only use sub Q de-wormers once a year and other non-injectible wormers in between, so we're not injecting them all of the time) check or trim hoofs, inspect teeth, or ears or whatever. Good luck trying any of that with most any other breed. My wife is maybe 100 lbs. soaking wet and she spends most of her days out in the pasture with them, often just sitting on the ground amongthem. The mothers let us sit in the farrowing stall with them when they are birthing. Try that with any of the IPP's that I've seen and you will be hurt - seriously. These guys are just as comfortable field farrowing in a nest of dried grass or straw. We had one that we didn't realize was even pregnant grab a piece of plastic mulch through a fence and balled that up for a nest. There's a lot, and I mean A LOT, of unscrupulous Kunekune breeders out there, and many more who simply don't have a clue what they are doing, nor do they care, and it's a terrible shame. I know a handful around the country that I would candidly and honestly recommend, but most are unethical, greedy, ignorant, or a combination. We raise them for ourselves, friends and family, as well as trying to get up to speed with enough to supply a local CSA and several restaurants that want them. Our business is not modeled on taking advantage of newbie owners and people wanting breeding stock. The truth is most of the people selling "breeding stock" act as if every pig that pops out of their sows' cooters is dipped in gold, and they simply are not. Other than the fact that statistically maybe 5% of all of their off-spring are actually show quality, and maybe another 5% are breeding quality, that's at best only one in ten, not entire litters except the runt, but that's never acknowledged by any of them. Here's another pet peeve. There are a lot of them that continue to breed pigs with known genetic defects out of simple greed. The pigs are known to have issues with scrotal hernias in some lines for example, and one of the biggest IPP sellers that I mentioned has been breeding from a defective boar like that for several years - passing those defective traits onto literally hundreds of other pigs, as well as new owners who have no clue that they've been had. Kunekunes can be had as unregistered, homestead quality, high COI pigs that can keep you in delicious, grass raised pork, for a very reasonable price, but you absolutely have to know what to look for and what to avoid. That of course is true of all livestock, but Kunekunes are our main. The COI BTW stands for Coefficient Of Inbreeding, and roughly half of the breeders, including many of the biggest and oldest, poo poo or completely ignore its significance> It's a number that is used as a reference to help warn breeders when they are screwing with something called the Vortex Of Extinction. I'll post more on this elsewhere later, but suffice it to say that it applies to all animals and breeds, including humans. There are actually a large number of Kunekune breeders will argue all day that they are competent in line breeding (alias for in-breeding) and that they are the special few who understand "the art". Yeah, well it ain't all that artsy I'll tell ya. It's much more about the science and the math, and beyond that you just need to be able to exercise some common sense, no art required. There simply is no better pig for quality of pork on grass, ease of handling, ease on pastures and fencing, heartiness, ease of birthing and great mothering. Their temperament is unmatched, and if undertaken with an eye to sustainable quality pork production they can be managed very ethically an profitably. Unfortunately there are a large number of well established breeders who are nothing more than swine versions of the puppy mill - 'cuz there's money to be made. Think about it logically: why would someone sell you their best breeding stock if they were in the business of breeding more breeding stock? It's oxymoronic, and the truth is they will only sell you the crap that they don't want, or that they know something is not right with. There are exceptions, but they are so rare as to be insignificant. Not just Kunekune breeders. They just happen to be the ones I know the most about. Beyond that, because these pigs can produce the highest quality pork from the least expensive inputs, and the current swine and beef trends warn that THAT is the only way that producers are going to survive (by discovering innovative ways to lower input costs to compensate for the depressed market) the result is that you should expect to have to apy more for those pigs that can already get the job done. If you want pigs that tear up fences, you, and each other, along with your pastures and anything they can get into, by all means, buy the cheapest pigs you can find. If you want to raise quality, sustainable, pork that you do not have to sell for peanuts as a commodity, then you want Kunekunes. There is no future for small holders in trying to compete in commodity markets. Might as well call it what it is; share cropping.
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