Pigs: breeds and planning, step by step

1. Your goal and how many pigs

Before you look at a single advert, decide what you want.

1. Goal first — Meat and lard for the family, cured meats, rooting up a plot or your own piglets. Each goal needs a different breed and different work.
2. Two, not one — A pig hates being alone. Two together are calmer, eat better and grow faster.
3. Fattening to start — In your first year buy two weaners in spring and fatten them until slaughter. Get a sow only after you have been through one whole year.
4. How many pigs — A family of four usually has enough with two pigs of 110–120 kg live weight. A commercial weaner eats roughly 300 kg of grain and meal from 25 kg to slaughter.

Why: Breed, numbers, housing and work all depend on your goal. You work out the number of pigs from the meat and lard your family eats, not from the size of the pig house.

• Don't buy too many weaners at once. Two pigs mean roughly 600 kg of grain and meal, and every extra one another 300 kg.
• A pig eats twice a day, at roughly the same time. When you go away you need someone who knows how to feed and who keeps the biosecurity rules.

2. Breeds for a small homestead

Commercial breeds grow fast; traditional breeds grow slowly but are hardy and thrifty.

1. Commercial breeds — Large White, Landrace and crosses with Duroc or Pietrain: from 25 kg to slaughter in 6–7 months. They need feed with enough protein, and in summer shade and a wallow, because they burn.
2. Mangalitsa — Curly woolly coat, blonde, red or swallow-bellied. Slow, 12–18 months, but takes frost and mud and gives plenty of lard for salami and air-dried ham.
3. Tamworth and Large Black — The Tamworth is ginger, long-snouted and very hardy, a famous rooter that needs really good fencing. The Large Black is calm, with lop ears, and its dark skin doesn't burn.
4. Berkshire and crosses — The Berkshire is black with white points and famous for well-marbled pork. Many smallholders fatten crosses, such as Large White × Tamworth or Mangalitsa × Duroc: they grow faster than the pure traditional breed.

Why: Commercial breeds and their crosses give more lean meat in less time. Traditional (heritage, rare) breeds give fat and meat for curing, but grow up to twice as slowly. Figures for traditional breeds are rough and depend heavily on feed and management.

• Many traditional breeds are rare and kept alive by breed societies: in the UK the British Pig Association and the RBST, in North America The Livestock Conservancy.
• For a first fattening, commercial pigs are the simplest. Traditional breeds need time, an outdoor run and good fencing.

3. Buying weaners · Locked

Buy the Pigs: breeds and planning module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.

4. Transport and quarantine · Locked

Buy the Pigs: breeds and planning module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.

5. African swine fever · Locked

Buy the Pigs: breeds and planning module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.

6. Paperwork and your first-year plan · Locked

Buy the Pigs: breeds and planning module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.