How to raise and manage breeding boars? These key points you need to know

The purpose of raising breeding boars is mating. Although there are very few of them on a pig farm, they are an important part of the pig farm. The quality of breeding boars is related to the productivity of the pig farm. Generally, a breeding boar can sire 400-600 piglets per year from the sows it mates with, and even more if artificial insemination methods are used. Therefore, only in order to give them excellent reproductive capacity, if we consider the productivity of the pig farm, their feeding and management are extremely important. Let's take a look together below.

1. Maintain body condition

When raising breeding boars, they should always maintain an upper-middle level of fatness, with strong limbs, especially the hind limbs. They should not be too fat or too thin, otherwise it will affect mating and cause sows to fail to conceive. Generally, when introducing or breeding breeding boars, the body weight is best around 90kg, and 6-8 months of age is optimal. This way, you can observe their libido and also have enough time for rearing and injecting various vaccines to ensure mating safety.

2. Raise in single pens

When raising them, breeding boars should be kept in separate pens. If raised in groups, they are very prone to biting each other, or mating randomly due to estrus, causing unnecessary losses. At the same time, single-pen raising also has certain requirements for the pen. First, there must be enough space. Each breeding boar's pen area is required to be about 8 sq m, and the ground should be level, with good lighting and ventilation conditions, to ensure healthy growth.

3. Sanitary environment and disease prevention

During breeding, attention should be paid to sanitation, and an environment suitable for the growth of breeding boars should be created. The suitable growth temperature for breeding boars is around 20°C, and the humidity is around 65%. If the temperature in the pen is too high, it will not only prevent normal growth, but also reduce sperm vitality and affect mating. The same applies to humidity; if it is too high, it can easily cause disease. Therefore, special attention must be paid in summer. Summer is already a high-temperature environment, so measures to cool down and increase humidity should be taken. Humidity can be increased and temperature lowered by sprinkling water. In addition, the breeding boar's pen should be cleaned regularly every day and disinfected regularly to prevent disease from affecting mating ability. Vaccinate with various vaccines in a timely manner, and postpone mating when sick, so as not to affect the piglets.

4. Feeding

To improve reproductive capacity, providing sufficient nutrition is necessary. Breeding boars are generally fed with more concentrated feed, and each feeding should not be too much, otherwise it can easily lead to body shape deformation and cause mating difficulties. Mainly feed them feeds with high protein content such as beans and bran. Especially before and after mating, attention should be paid to the supply of nutrition. During the non-mating stage, less concentrated feed can be fed, but it does not mean feeding only concentrated feed. Attention should be paid to the reasonable combination of green feed and minerals.

5. Proper exercise

To ensure the success rate of mating, breeding boars should maintain an appropriate amount of exercise to speed up their metabolism and maintain body shape and weight. They can be driven to move for 1 hour every day, or be put out to pasture so they can move while foraging. They can also be driven to an open area to move freely after feeding. Breeding boars lacking exercise have poorer mating results.

The above is all the content on the key points of breeding boar feeding and management. I hope it can help you. If you want to learn more about pig farming knowledge, please stay tuned to this site.