dejia:
Hi farmers,

I have taken time to read almost all the post, i have learnt alot , we hope to learn more from each other

Am a pig farmer in ilorin.. Yes, ilorin ; our farm is 2years old , we have about a 30 sow production,
with a capacity of about 70 sow unit.( still growing)

We only use A.I from PIC in SA ,to cross the breed we got from Obasanjo, we dont even have a boar on the farm.

We decided to go this route, when we noticed we bought some piglets from a farm when we started 2years ago, immediately they got to about 45kg

they simply stopped growing, even when we feed them with soyabeans and maize, the best we got was 48kg. We eventually sold them losing

money;
I took time to research and did a training in piggery training in SA from a farm that has 6,000 sow unit, and discovered it might be inbreeding problem;
In SA, at 7months weigh about 135kg averagely while a 7months old pig in Nigeria weigh about 45kg,
what we are trying to do is to bridge the gap and have atleast 80kg within 7months,

i know alot of expert here will argue that breed isnt the only reason, for the weight diff.. i also

agree but it is one of the biggest factors.

but if you are able to achieve 80kg in 7months, you wont mind to feed maize and soyabeans, eventhough they are expensive ( we dont feed that)

We inseminated my first set of sow Sept last year, and they littered early this year, some gave us as high as 19 piglets, in SA, any litter less than 14 isnt accepted for A.I, something must have gone wrong in the process


Our third set of A.I litter has started littering since last week, and we hope to wean them after 40days, and re-inseminate

10days after than. We synchronise our sow, so we inseminate them in batches

From my experience, A.I is the way to go ( some farmers might not agree), foreign breed is necessary to prevent inbreeding . We intend to re-inseminate our first batch end of August, as they will be about 80kg and ready to be served. with that, we hope to get a pure PIC breed by Jan,2015. We are still experimenting and researching, but we are happy with the result so far.

We are a breeders farm, majorly looking at serving those who want to go into piggery, Our pigs dont come cheap, because of

the cost associated with bringing in A.I into the country; but i can tell you, its worth it.

Also, let me also advice, farrowing crate is a must.

Liquid feeding is also the best way, mix your feed with water before giving it to the pigs, we mix our water with

multi-vitamins and then mix it with the feed. We also use a growth promoter instead of broiler premix

I also read post about nipples, well we have been using nipples for 2years, a sow requires about 20liters of water

when lactating, how do you serve her that? Also i noticed alot of people give there pigs dirty water; it is totally wrong

from trainning, the farmer must be able to drink the water the pig drinks, so ensure you supply clean water.

Am openned to help any new farmer, who wants to learn from my 2years experience.

Please Mr Dejia I will appreciate if you could give your contact details? I do like to ask you some questions regarding artificial insemination (especially the link to SA for fertilised egg etc) as I noticed you have discussed it at length on this page. I'm a pig farm and I wish to concentrate on breeding.