Tamworth Pigs

[Stacy]

I put out an ad on craigslist asking for pigs, feeder pigs in particular. I got a response that was this:

Hello,

I think your post to Craigslist was meant to be. My
husband and I are looking for a new home for our Tamworth
boar (red). He is just about to turn 6 months old and
weighs in close to 100lbs currently. He is not neutered
and we were hoping to find a home where he would be raised
as a stud, not as bacon. We did originally buy him to take
him to the butcher when he was older. Unfortunately he has
turned into the sweetest pig I have ever met (he follows us
around like a dog, rubs against us, loves to be petted, and
even gets excited when we pull into the driveway from
work.) We would keep him, but our dogs and our mini-horses
do not like him, so it is simply not safe for him at our
house. One of our dogs got into the pigs part of the yard
about 2 weeks ago and attacked him, the pig is just fine,
but that is what made us decide to re-home him instead of
keeping him as a pet/stud ourselves. We are asking $100
obo for him (which for an un-neutered Tamworth is pretty
much rock bottom priced). Here is some additional info
about the breed.

FROM:
www.localharvest.org/features/heritage-pork.jsp
The Tamworth: a red heritage breed producing the best bacon
in the U.S., a direct descendant of the wild boars which
roamed the forests of Staffordshire. Was introduced to
North America around the 1870's. Very outdoorsy and
athletic.

If you decide you are interested let me know and I will
send you some pic's of him.

Then it goes on to tell me where she's located. Now, they are about two hours from us... and it's only a boar pig. No girl. NOT sure where to FIND a girl either as I haven't been able to locate any around here.

My questions:
1) Are Tamworth rare and or a heritage breed?

2) We're not experienced WITH pigs yet and were hoping to start with a "baby" and learn with it. Is it a bad idea to start out with one this age already and not even have a friend for him?

3) Is this a fair price?

Stacy

[Tammy]

Stacy,

Two hours north or south of you! hehehe

I am leaning towards Tamworth's myself. I am not ready to get started yet though. Gotta get a pen built, etc. Maybe when I start having 20 gallons of milk a day DH will see the need?

I am looking forward to following this thread! Hope you can get him! As the lady said, it sounds like it was "meant to be"!

Tammy

[Stacy]

Looks like 2 hours east of us...
Tammy, if we BOTH raised them, we're close enough we could swap bloodlines! Woohoo! LOL
I don't have a pen built yet either but can put one up pretty quickly. We tore down a bunch of 4' tall privacy fencing. I'm thinking I might could use that. I have an extra electric fence charger so could hook up a wire along the bottom as well for it (them).
Just some thoughts on fencing....

Stacy

[Tammy]

Now that IS a thought! Would be nice to have someone close enough that we could work together on getting established and swap piggies!

Stacy, I have done a little research, although not much. They are on the rare breeds list, if I am not mistaken. I would be jumping on that boar, if it were me. Sounds very reasonable but maybe someone who knows more will chime in and teach us both something! Is the boar registered? Are you looking for registered or just purebred?

Doesn't Mitra have Tamworths? I need to go back and research some of the old posts.

Tammy

[Stacy]

I just talked to the lady on the phone. He's not registered. They didn't bother because they were going to eat him. She said the guy they got him from is in Maryland somewhere and didn't have very many breeders there, so probably doesn't have another bloodline I could use to get a hold of a girl. She said a lot of people cross them with another breed, but I can't remember what kind she said. I'd rather go purebred if possible, worry about registration as I go and as I find more breeders of them. She said he's NOT that good with electric fence..he'll just sit near it and keep on getting zapped... ?? Worries me to jump into a pig of this age, but he's only six months old and right at 100 lbs she says. She's going to take some pics and email them to me. I'll post them on here.
I told her I'd think about it and see if I could find some females for him before I decided. She said they weren't advertising as they really didn't want someone to just pick him up and eat him, but rather breed him considering his friendly nature and his rarity. So she said she'd wait a bit for me to see what I wanted to do. She also said again it seemed like it was meant to be to her, considering I'd advertised for something like him. LOL! Just like she said in her response.
Anyway, I couldn't think of any more questions for her! So...we'll see??
I'm not sure if Mitra has them or not... We can always ask.... If so, maybe she could evaluate the pics of this guy to make sure he's the real deal. That'd be nice. And yes, it'd be extra nice to have someone close enough to work on this project with as well!! That'd be awesome!

Stacy

[Tammy]

Stacy, Looks like Eastcoast Farmer has Tamworths. Here is a link to some pictures she posted a while back.


familycow.proboards32.com/index.cgi?board=pigs&action=display&thread=13079

And pictures from Mitra at the next link:

familycow.proboards32.com/index.cgi?board=pigs&action=display&thread=13045

[Tim in NY]

If just keeping a feeder pig is what you were looking to get into then keeping him as a boar and breeding is a much more involved operation. Boars get huge! Check out this link.
This is a Yorkshire cross but a full grown Tamworth is probably going to be similar. sugarmtnfarm.com/blog/2008/08/seeing-spots.html
You might want to check out Walters blog anyway, he is an expert at raising pigs on pasture, just read some of his posts and get an idea of what is involved.

[hazelsmilker]

I'm curious about the weight of this boar. By 6 months my feeder pigs would be pushing 300 pounds. Granted, they generally are getting a lot of skim milk, barley, and excess produce, but 100 pounds sounds to me like a very small 6 month pig! I wonder if the owners are just guesstimating his weight. You might ask them to measure his girth just behind his front legs and his length along his topline from ears to tail. GxGxL divided by 400 will give an approximate weight in pounds.
Sounds like fun!

[Stacy]

Tim,
I figured if I was going to raise pigs, might as well raise a "rare breed" or heritage breed and get a pair to raise our own piglets. So a boar would be a start, provided I could find me a girlfriend for him.

I wondered about that weight thing too. I think I've had 6 month old chickens that weighed more than that! LOL! Ok..KIDDING, but close! Sheesh. We may or may not have fresh milk around here to give it , but if we do, I'd hope to bump up that weight by some.

She was supposed to send me pics tonight but as yet, no pics. Don't know if I'll get them later on or what... ??

Thanks for all the links. I did find Mitras' posts about the tamworths. Wow! They look like they are gonna be some big ol' hogs! Pretty in red though. I'm going to check out some of these other links y'all posted too! Gotta figure out what I'm getting myself in to!

Stacy

[Mitra]

How did I miss these pig threads!?! Catherine's got her cute piggies safely at home, with pictures, and you are asking about Tamworths. My heart is racing ;D

I got my Tamworth gilts (actually they are crosses but there's a lot of Tamworth in them , Sophie and Charlotte, from Jessika (eastcoastfarmer) at her amazing farm called Olde Sow Farm. She has a nice website too, www.oldesowfarm.com Check it out to see some beautiful Tamworths and rave reviews about the pork from this heritage breed. What a great roadtrip with my daughter that was. My daughter and one of Jessika's daughters are both the same age and hit it off like long lost soulmates.

I drove six hours one way to go pick the piglets up. They were about 7 weeks old at the time. The plan has always been to get them bred so that I could have my own feeder piglets born on the farm (for us and to sell). I would not mind keeping a boar but my DH has vetoed this. We are going to attempt to AI these gilts later this fall. If it doesn't work, then he may be more amenable to having a boar. On the other hand, if we could arrange some kind of piggy get togethers (having lived in this same town in Maine, you'd know how to find us!).

I agree with Mina, the weight of the boar sounds off. He is probably a lot closer to 250-300lbs if he's 6 months old and NOT being starved. The price is fantastic. I think you should snatch him up!

[catherine]

I second the concern about the boar's weight...my gilts were at least 250 or 300lbs. by 6-7 months. If the boar is in good condition and fairly pure blood, I'd think that $100 is a steal. Little feeder RW piglets go for about $85, and baby breeders for $250 down here, and I hear that other rare breeds go for more! If this guy is already 6 months old, he's probably breeding age. Hmmm...sounds like Mitra needs this boar, and then she could send piglets down to everyone else, next summer! Just a thought. ;D Personally, based on what I've been learning, I wouldn't start out with mismatched ages on the piggies. If you have a grown boar and then bring in a little gilt, you are going to have to worry about his large size when the first breeding season comes along. I am a tad concerned about the month or two difference between my new little boar and baby gilts. Mitra's gilts are already grown, and could handle this boy. Just my opinion.

I was going to say that the fencing doesn't need to be that elaborate for the pigs, but if this boar isn't scared of electric fencing, that might be a real problem. Everyone we've read says that we were doing exactly right with the electrified poultry netting with our first two gilts. I have to say that once they were trained to it, it did make life a breeze. However, the wild boars weren't trained, and went right through, and if this boar isn't worried about getting zapped, he could be a handful (though you might be able to retrain him...behind a solid fence and a very stout shock!). Be forewarned...it's not so much your trained pigs getting out as the untrained wild ones breaking IN that can be a problem, in our experience. So, this go around, we have the piggies inside a quick to install cattle panel and t-post fence with electric line run 1' inside it. The piglets learned the power of that zap in the first day, and haven't come near the cattle panels since. This weekend, we'll introduce them to the poultry netting, and we'll begin running cattle panels around our old garden site, so we can begin rotating the pigs through there with the electrified poultry netting. Then, later on when they are bigger, I'd like to run stronger periemeter fencing around the entire pasture so that we can rotate the breeders through the pasture with the cows.