The 10,000 Foot View
Helpful vocabulary
Weaning: When piglets switch from being with their mother and drinking her milk to being on their own on a diet of solid food.
Sow Farm: The farm where piglets are born and where the sows (moms) live.
In my last post The Birthing Process, I gave all the details of labor and delivery at a sow farm. In that post I failed to cover a very important question! What happens to the piglets after they are born?
Today I want to zoom out to and give a brief overview to answer that very important question.
Stage 1
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Size at day 1 (3 lbs)[/caption]
After they are born, piglets stay right in the labor pen with their mother. Some pigs may be fostered out to a different mother, but that is a topic for another post!
During this stage, piglets eat a diet consisting entirely of their mother’s milk.
They nurse on and off throughout the day and night. When they aren't sleeping or nursing, they play with their siblings in their pen.
In three weeks on their mother’s milk, most piglets will triple or even quadruple in size!
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Size at day 21! (12 lbs)[/caption]
Stage 2 (Nursery)
Weaning day is the day the piglets switch from a diet of their mother’s milk to eating solid food. In most cases the piglets leave the sow farm (farm where they are born) and take a ride on a truck to a completely different barn (nursery).
Barns for newly weaned piglets are outfitted with special heaters and mats to keep the piglets warm. The food in their diet at this level is sweet, which helps with the transition from milk to solid food. I don’t know what it tastes like, but sometimes it smells like oatmeal!
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Yum![/caption]
Stage 3 (Growth & Finishing)
Eventually piglets get to a point when they “graduate” from the nursery phase. I think of it as Kindergarten graduation. They have learned to eat and drink a diet similar to that of an adult. They no longer need mats and special heaters to keep warm. They are growing up!
When piglets reach this stage of maturity, some are moved to another location. The new location will have larger pens, more space for food and water, and diets made specifically to help them grow. Some barns are made to transition from small piglets into mature piglets. If the barn is made for all ages the piglets may stay on the same site.
Wherever they end up, they continue to grow!
In less than one year, pigs will go from a birth weight of 2-5lbs to 250-300lbs! If people grew that fast, we would reach around 420lbs before our first birthdays. I’m amazed every time I walk into barns at how different the pigs look since my last visit.
When pigs reach 250-300lbs they are finished with the growing phase. They are the ideal weight to make the best end product. Bigger pigs would mean pork chops much too big for your plate. Smaller pigs would result in less bacon and tiny tenderloins.
If pigs are healthy, (and meet a long list of other criteria) they can enter the food supply and will provide safe, healthy, and nutritious meals for people in their local community, the United States and the world.
And that is the 10,000 foot view!