How to properly raise pigs at home?

The peasant farm provides the family with food products of plant and animal origin. Pig farming is beneficial for many reasons. Obtaining meat after short-term fattening, disposal of food residues, summer keeping with grazing makes pork a cheap and affordable product.

Is it profitable to keep pigs and why

Pork production is beneficial for both the family and business development. In any economic situation, there will be a piece of meat on the table. With a small investment, you can start a pig breeding business on your own backyard. A unique animal will provide a stable income both when raising livestock for meat, and when keeping sows to sell offspring.

Objective data on the effectiveness of pig keeping:

• a rapid increase in marketable weight, for a year of keeping the live weight of a newborn piglet increases 140 times;
• carcass weight compared to live weight is 85%, while in cattle it is 50-60%;
• for farrowing, the uterus brings up to 14 piglets, depending on the breed, each of which will bring $ 100-200 in a month;
• pigs assimilate up to 30% of the feed composition, in other domestic animals this figure does not exceed 20%.

The correct choice of breed and small investment will allow beginners to breed pigs at home to create a successful business. To meet the family's need for meat and lard, it is enough to buy two piglets in early spring. Toddlers don't need a lot of storage space. In the summer, animals grow rapidly. With the onset of autumn, there are many plant residues in the courtyard, which are a good forage base. For intensive feeding of pigs for two months before slaughter, it will be necessary to increase the consumption of protein feed. Aside from the labor of caring for the pigs, a year's supply of pork is cheap. You don't need a warm pigsty. But there are requirements for fattening pigs that must be met.

Keeping pigs at home requires proper nutritional choices. So a baby at the age of a month needs:

• the predominance of dairy products and cereals based on milk or its substitutes;
• the use of special premixes for piglets containing special sets of vitamins and antibiotics, so that the babies grow up healthy;
• maintain a feeding frequency appropriate for the age and stomach size of the piglet.

When fattening a piglet from 2 to 4 months, do not include raw potatoes in the diet, only mashed potatoes or a jerk. Root vegetables are best served boiled and chopped. It is more useful to feed carrots raw grated, the grass should be finely chopped and boiled with boiling water.

After slaughter, the pig carcass is treated with a blowtorch to remove the bristles. A high pressure washer will help wash off the carbon deposits. A compact car wash is available from car owners. The use of this processing method increases the presentation of the product.

Pig breeding and fattening business

Any business requires planning. A pig breeding business plan should include an expenditure and revenue side. Pig breeding is profitable only if the requirements for the conditions of keeping and feeding the animals are met.

Therefore, the main item in the cost estimate is the construction of a pigsty based on an area of ​​4 sq. m per feed unit and 6 squares per sow. The room should include a den, a walking area and a canopy from the sun. A bathhouse should be provided for the pigs. If feeding is done in a shared trough, there should be enough room for each animal to approach.

The stable must be strong so that the pig does not go into the wild as a result of the digging. Provide in the pigsty:

• roof, excluding leakage;
• natural and combined lighting;
• capital walls, excluding freezing;
• floor with waste gutters and clean, dry underlay;
• ventilation of the room.

When placed, there should be a walking area, on which pigs spend most of their time in the summer. In the open air, muscle gain is faster, animals get sick less.

The expenditure part includes the acquisition of thoroughbred individuals. For commercial production of meat, the breeding of pigs of the desired breed must be carried out on the farm. This will reduce the cost of purchasing piglets on the outside and allow you to get healthy offspring for the herd.

If piglets are purchased from other farms, they must be quarantined before the herd is formed. It is necessary to budget for the vaccination of the herd at each stage of development. Without a certificate of veterinary control of the livestock, the legal sale of meat will be impossible.

The current cost item will be the purchase of special feed for pigs, premixes and vitamin complexes. However, feed is much cheaper than meat. The cost of production is traditionally high. And if the growing technology is observed, the business risk is minimized, but this cost item needs to be planned.

With a large number of pigs, dry feeding is preferable. The increased feed costs will pay off with a greater weight gain and lower costs for fattening. At the same time, it is important to provide animals with water at 6-8 liters per head per day.

The income part takes into account that one sow can give up to 14 piglets, whose fattening will provide up to 3 tons of marketable products. Distribute profits by the timing of product receipt. If the resulting balance does not give the expected profit, the business plan for breeding pigs needs to be optimized. That is, find cheaper feed or suckers. Successful pig breeders in a backyard receive up to 1000% of the profit in 2-3 years.

In order for raising pigs at home, as a business, to be successful, the following rules should be followed:

• observe hygienic conditions for keeping pigs;
• do not miss the time for the castration of pigs;
• to carry out preventive measures against diseases and avitaminosis of the livestock;
• observe the time and frequency of feeding animals, ensure constant access to water.

It is impossible to feed feed with mold and signs of acidification of liquid feed. Feeders should be periodically treated with boiling water.

When buying offspring from thoroughbred pigs, you need to know about the structural features of animals. You can get pork with a predominance of lard, bacon or meat from a particular breed.

Is it profitable to keep pigs? There is no other way to provide a family with meat at cost. To organize a business with a small number of heads, the sale of meat will take place without going to trading floors. Neighbors will become buyers.Livestock products are always in steady demand.

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Keeping piglets at home is a very profitable business, but quite troublesome. First of all, a correct balanced diet should be developed for the animals. There are several technologies for fattening pigs, which must be known for those who want to achieve good results in this matter.

What you need to know

Fattening of piglets for meat at home is made with the obligatory observance of the following recommendations:

• The stomach of pigs, in contrast to cattle, is single-chambered. Therefore, the basis of their diet should be not coarse, but concentrated feed. Since there is not so much protein in cereals, animals must be fed with oilcakes, special yeast, legumes, skim milk, skim milk and fish meal.
• The size of the portion prepared is determined by how much the raised pigs can eat at one time. The mishmash remaining in the troughs must be thrown out without waiting for it to sour.
• Concentrated feeds for these animals are usually given in crushed form. Whole grains of wheat, barley, oats, etc. are very poorly assimilated by them.

How to choose a piglet for fattening

When buying, first of all, you should pay attention to the development, breed and health of the animal. Good pig:

• has a wide back, long body and strong legs,
• during the run does not choke and does not wheeze,
• does not suck, but eats the proposed food with appetite.

How to choose a piglet for fattening, therefore, is not a particularly difficult question. Next, we will consider the actual methods of raising these animals in relation to the diet.

Types of feeding technologies

So, the basis of the diet of these farm animals is grain feed and vegetables. There are only two types of pigs fattening: meat and to fatty conditions. In this article, we will take a closer look at the features of the first technology. She, in turn, is subdivided into two more varieties: actually meat and bacon. Both of these methods can be used to feed all breeds bred in our country.

Features of the preparation of the diet at different periods of the life of pigs

The "menu" of pigs largely depends on their age. In this regard, only two growing periods are distinguished:

• Lactic. Depending on the age at which the pig was purchased, this period can last from three to four months. At this time, the animal is fed very often (5-6 times a day) and little by little. Until four weeks of age, the basis of the piglet's diet is cow's milk. At the end of this period, the animal is transferred to the removed one. Cereals are usually given in mixed form. Also in the diet of little pigs include boiled potatoes and carrots.
• The actual fattening. This period begins after the animals reach a weight of about 20 kg (as a rule, this is about 2.5-3 months of age).

Pig fattening

This technology is used most often in our country. When using it, you can grow pigs with very tasty tender and juicy meat, with a layer of bacon on the ridge of 2.5-4 cm, which is in high demand among the population. Piglets start feeding at home using this technology when they reach a weight of 25 kg (at the age of about 3 months). Finish - by 6-8 months. By this time, the weight of pigs reaches about 90-120 kg.

Features of the method

Fattening piglets for meat at home using this technology is divided into two main periods. Before reaching a weight of 70 kg, the pigs undergo an intensive growth of muscle mass. At this time, the lion's share of the diet of animals - in addition to grains and potatoes - should be food rich in protein. This can be, for example, peas, green mass of legumes, reverse, fishmeal, etc. After reaching a weight of 70 kg, the amount of crushed grain and juicy feed is increased in the pigs ration.In both of these periods, animals must be given 10-35 g of salt per head per day and 5-25 g of chalk.

Pig fattening

This method is a kind of meat technology. Its difference is, first of all, that with its use it is possible to grow animals with very high quality bacon meat, which has always been subject to increased requirements. When using this method, you can get pigs weighing 80-105 kg. It is mainly applied only to animals of special early maturing bacon breeds. Like the conventional meat method, this technology is divided into two main periods. Up to 5.5 months, pigs are fed so that the gain in live weight is about 400 g per day. Next, I develop the menu in such a way that this figure increases to about 600 g.

The ration of bacon-fed piglets consists of such feeds as barley, vetch, peas and other legumes, millet, as well as various animal additives. Particular attention is paid to the compilation of the menu in the second period. At this time, such deteriorating properties of feed meat as fish waste, oilcakes, soybeans, etc., are completely excluded from the pigs' diet.

Simplified diagram

Fattening piglets for meat at home using the technologies described above allows you to end up with a very high-quality product. However, their maintenance costs, in the case of the development of some special diet, is quite expensive. Therefore, very often the owners of household plots feed pigs according to a simplified scheme, choosing one of its two options: dry or wet. In this case, you can also get a fairly high quality meat.

When choosing a wet feeding technology, the pigs ration consists mainly of mash. They are prepared from boiled potatoes, vegetables, food waste and herbs. Also, the pigs are given crushed grain. At the same time, pea flour, vitamin and mineral supplements, cake are mixed with it.

Dry feeding is technologically simpler than wet feeding. Indeed, in this case, you do not have to cook vegetables and carry heavy buckets of mash. In addition, it is fast fattening of piglets and very efficient. However, dry technology has some disadvantages compared to wet technology. Pigs raised in this way, for example, are more likely to be constipated. Since they receive food only in dry form, it is necessary to ensure that the animals always have fresh water in the drinkers. When using this method, pigs are mainly fed with cereal mixtures. Cultivation using this technology is, of course, more expensive than using the wet method.

Supplements

It is possible to reduce the costs of keeping pigs by using special mixtures. Fattening of piglets on dietary supplements, among other things, improves the quality of meat. Basically, such preparations are a mixture of various vitamins, as well as macro- and microelements. The amino acids contained in them significantly increase the digestibility of the feed.

Frequency of food troughs

So now you know how to raise fattening piglets for quality meat. Next, let's see how many times a day it costs to fill animal troughs with food. Suckling pigs, as mentioned above, are given food 5-6 times a day. Juvenile pigs under 4 months of age are filled with troughs three times a day. Later, if the amount of cereals in the diet of young animals reaches 1.5 kg per head, they switch to two meals a day. With the predominance of mash in the menu, three meals a day are retained.

Maintaining the appetite of pigs

In order for the animals to eat better and, accordingly, gain weight faster, feed should be prepared. Usually, such additional measures are taken when fattening pigs. But in some situations, these techniques can be useful when raising animals for meat. Before feeding, for example, cereals, they are subjected to a malting procedure.It consists in pre-soaking concentrated feed with hot water (85-90 degrees) for about 4 hours. In this case, about 1.5-2 liters of liquid are taken per kilogram of grain.

In the event that the pigs do not eat the mash, the leftovers can be poured with pre-prepared oat milk. The pigs like this improved feed much more than usual.

To prepare such milk, one kilogram of oatmeal is poured with boiled cooled water and mixed. The chatterbox should stand in a warm room for about three hours.

Determination of weight

In order to determine the weight gain of a pig over a particular period of time, of course, the easiest way is to weigh the animal. However, unfortunately, it is not always possible to carry out this procedure at home. Therefore, private traders in private farms most often determine the weight gain approximately - using measurements of the chest girth and body length. In both cases, use a measuring tape. When measuring the girth of the chest, it is placed along a vertical line passing along the rear angles of the shoulder blades. Finding the length of the torso is also easy. To do this, the tape is pulled from the middle of the back of the head along the upper line of the neck, back and sacrum to the root of the tail.

Fattening piglets for meat at home using any of the technologies described above allows you to achieve good results in live weight gain and excellent quality of the final product. With these methods, large pigs can be raised as quickly as possible.

The lack of significant capital investments and stable profits make pig breeding at home for beginners a very popular activity.

The demand for pork is consistently high, so many people want to try to breed these artiodactyls to get not only fresh meat, but also to earn money.

Is it profitable to keep pigs, where to start breeding, how to care for them and what is generally needed for this? With these and many other questions, we will help you figure it out.

How to equip a pigsty

How to start breeding pigs? Of course, with the search for a suitable room in which you need to create conditions. Especially responsibly you need to approach this matter if you plan to breed pigs for sale in the future.

Room planning

The walls of a pigsty, in which it is planned to raise pigs for meat or sell live weight, should be made of non-moisture-consuming and heat-insulating materials that will keep warm in winter.

Building materials such as:

• wood;
• brick;
• porous gas blocks;
• cinder blocks;
• rubble stone.

The inside of the wall can be plastered and whitewashed or planked. A suitable microclimatic environment for keeping the pigs must be maintained in the pigsty. The attic must be insulated, and the floors can be filled with concrete or assembled from planks. In the outer walls, we need manholes with dimensions of 70x70 cm, through which animals can get to the outdoor area for walking.

Conditions of detention

The hardest part is raising young pigs, which need more comfortable conditions. Purchased piglets need to be left in a quarantine room for a week to identify sick individuals in the early stages of development.

Young animals need to be grown at an ambient temperature of 18-22 degrees and humidity above 70-80%.

Piglets should be kept in warm rooms free from dampness and drafts so that they can grow stronger.

The pig house should be kept clean and the animals should be allowed to walk outside. Change the water as often as possible, and clean the troughs after each feed. The pigsty requires disinfection treatment every month.

Pigsty lighting

The correct technology for raising pigs involves providing sufficient natural light indoors. Sunlight has a beneficial effect on the development of individuals.During the winter months, when daylight hours are shortened, artificial lighting is required.

Nursing females need lighting for 18 hours a day at an illumination level of about 15 lux, while fattening females need lighting of 5-6 lux for 12 hours.

Ventilation of the room

In the pigsty, you need to equip a ventilation system that will remove the processed air from the room, and instead drive in fresh air from the street.

Keeping pigs on a small scale is possible with a home-made ventilation system, and for breeding on a larger scale, industrial equipment will be required.

The main thing is not to forgetthat drafts are dangerous for piglets and young animals, therefore ventilation should not be too powerful. Optimal conditions for growing pigs are created with an air handling unit with performance regulation.

Which breed is better

To organize a home farm, you need not only to study and comply with the conditions for breeding pigs, but also to buy suitable livestock. All domestic pigs are divided into three categories, depending on the meat:

1. Bacon... Their meat contains the most layers of fat, but there is no layer of fat.
2. Greasy meat... They have premium lard, but also eat meat.
3. Meat-greasy... Mainly meat is obtained from them.

In Russia, about three dozen breeds of different categories are in demand, and among themselves they differ in terms of cultivation, meat quality and weight. When determining the breed of pigs in the backyard, be guided not by the specifics, but by the market demand in the region:

1. Large white. This breed was brought from England, but our selectors have made a significant contribution to the current appearance of animals. Competent breeding of white pigs allows individuals to gain 100 kg of weight in 7 months, and the mass of adult boars reaches 350 kg and females up to 250 kg. The breed is classified as meat-greasy.
2. In the bacon category, the most popular breed in the Russian Federation is the breed called Landrace. Animals gain a hundred kilograms in about six months, and the maximum weight is 300 kg for males and 220 for females.
3. It is difficult to single out the most popular breed among the lard-meat, since there are many of them. Among them is a large black one. Pigs gain a centner in 6-7 months, reaching a maximum weight of 310 kg for boars and 215 kg for sows.

If you are interested in raising pigs for the purpose of obtaining dietary meat, pay attention to the Pietrain breed. Such pork contains less fat, and the animals themselves do not require any special care.

How to feed pigs

How to feed pigs for rapid growth - this question is asked by all beginners. If pig breeding is a business for you, it is better not to save on feed. A balanced diet is the main factor affecting the weight gain of individuals, and the taste of meat also depends on the quality of the feed.

There are three categories of food in total, but we recommend using the first and second, or a combination of them.

It is not recommended to fatten with fodder of the third category, otherwise the meat will lose its taste. You can add it to the diet in rare cases, and exclude it altogether 2-3 months before slaughter. The feeds differ in composition among themselves:

1. Category I feeds are wheat, barley, rye, beans, peas, carrots and beets.
2. Category II includes alfalfa, clover and other herbs.
3. The III category of feed consists of potatoes, corn, wheat bran, beet molasses, buckwheat, etc.

More green fodder promotes meat build-up, while root vegetables, corn and barley increase the fat layer. Thus, everyone decides for himself what is the best way to feed the pigs.

How and when to feed

From 1.5-2 months, the piglet is ready for intensive fattening. During the first 6-8 months, each of them should gain 100-120 kg. For each individual, about 400 kg of feed will be spent for this. The peculiarities of pig breeding require feeding piglets five times a day up to 3-4 months, after which they switch to four meals a day.The main thing after feeding is to clean the feeders from food debris.

Pigs are considered omnivores, but the quality of the feed used will affect the meat, so we do not recommend feeding them table leftovers.

You need to include in the diet vegetables with fruits, a variety of grains and root crops. Additionally, you need to buy feed containing valuable trace elements.

Piglets up to 4-5 months are fed with boiled root crops with the addition of ground wheat and herbs (legume tops, nettles). Milk whey is mixed into the feed, and of the additives, 10 g of salt per day and a spoonful of ferrous sulfate are recommended (dissolve 2.5 g in 1 liter of water).

From the eighth month, animals fatten up, so it is recommended to add more legumes, fatty waste and zucchini to the diet, and the daily dose of salt is increased to 40 g.

Large-scale pig breeding per tribe will increase income if you grow feed yourself, and on small pig farms it is more profitable to buy ready-made food.

Features of keeping pigs in winter

The care and breeding of pigs in winter has certain characteristics that you should be aware of. To prevent the animals from freezing and getting sick, the premises need to be insulated and heated. It is recommended to drink them with warm water, and the feeding method is also different. Due to the lack of seasonal greens, more food waste, compound feed and bran should be added to the diet, also not forgetting about salt.

Often novice farm owners are interested in how to feed pigs to grow better?

Experts recommend in the warm season, harvest nettles and dry them for the winter. It is useful and nutritious for animals, especially in the cold season with a lack of vitamins.

Breeding pigs

Now let's find out, is it profitable to breed pigs for sale? It all depends on the seriousness of your approach. If you learn how to breed animals correctly, it will turn into a fairly profitable business. Physiological maturity in females occurs at 8-9 months, and at 11-14 the first offspring is possible. To be good, you need a sow weighing more than 100 kg, with at least 12 formed teats.

For one farrowing, the female brings up to 14 piglets (depending on the breed), and each of them is your profit. Whether this is a profitable business will depend on the demand and average prices for the breed being bred in a particular region.

To prepare the sow for gestation, enrich the diet with milk waste, lush green grass and compound feed. Use hay instead of green in winter.... When the pig becomes restless, refuses food and grunts characteristically, this indicates the onset of sexual heat.

After 10-12 hours, you need to organize a mating with a boar or carry out artificial insemination, and after the same time interval, repeat the procedure. After 17 days, you need to observe the female. If the symptoms of sexual heat recur, the sow is not fertilized, but the process must be repeated (it is better to choose a different boar). We told you how to breed pigs, but this is not the most difficult thing in breeding them.

How to care for new born piglets

Piglets that are born require special attention. What is needed here is not the usual care of pigs, but more reverent and attentive. The nursing female also needs extra attention. After farrowing, you need to give her a liter of water, and after another six hours, completely satisfy her need for fluid.

On the first day, the female needs to be given a liquid mixture of wheat bran or oat flour, and after a week, root vegetables should be introduced into the diet - they will provide milk flow. After farrowing, you will have to give food to the pig three times during the day at regular intervals.

As for the piglets, each of them after farrowing must be wiped off, rinsed with patches, ears and mouth, processed a cut of the umbilical cord and burned with iodine.

Pig breeding is serious business.An important role is played by the obligatory establishment of contact between the piglets and the mother during the first 45 minutes (you need to bring each of them to the nipples). If this is not done, the female will not accept them.

Calculating the profitability of pig breeding

Now let's find out whether it is profitable to keep pigs for sale and how much does it cost to raise a pig? To calculate the profitability, let's take a small pig farm of 50 heads.

Each pig costs about $ 40, which means that it will take $ 2,000 in total. Each individual will need 100 kg of compound feed and 180 kg of grain annually, that is, you will spend $ 170-200 per month on feed. In part, the profitability of raising pigs depends on the quality of the feed, so do not save too much.

In about six months, the pigs will gain almost 100 kg. With 50 heads, you can leave 3-4 for breeding, and sell the rest for meat. With them, you will receive a profit of about 10-15 thousand dollars.

At first glance, the breeding of pigs as a business seems to be a very profitable business, but take into account the costs of salaries for working personnel, utilities, purchase of equipment and feed, and as a result, one pig will have a net profit of 750-800 rubles per month.

With all this in mind, decide for yourself whether a pig breeding business is profitable or not.

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Content:

• Correct diet
• Causes and signs of piglet diseases
• A profitable business or a waste of time

Regardless of the breed, raising piglets at home goes through several stages:

1. Farrowing and suckling period. The duration of this stage is approximately four weeks: from birth and feeding exclusively on breast milk until weaning from the sow.
2. The period of weaning from breast milk and the mother in general. This stage passes in about 7-10 days, when the piglets begin to stay with the sow exclusively for feeding her milk.
3. The final period is piglet feeding. There are different types of feeding depending on the goals set, i.e. meat, bacon and greasy.
   • The purpose of fattening is to obtain young and juicy pork in 6-8 months.
   • Bacon feeding is more time consuming and more expensive, which produces pork that is in high demand for bacon cooking.
   • Piglets are fattened to greasy conditions to obtain selected lard from pork carcasses.

For raising and keeping piglets, certain conditions are necessary: ​​a room, a specially designated place for feeding, a place for walking, temperature regime, vaccinations, timely treatment, and so on.

Piglets are raised in small herds, preferably of the same age, sex, weight and physiological state. Pigs of different breeds tolerate stresses in different ways, both natural (heat, cold, pressure drops) and technological (transportation, vaccination, drug treatment).

To achieve good results (selected pork) when raising boars at home, it is necessary to castrate them at the age of one month. In order to fully develop and grow rapidly, young animals need to walk both in winter and in summer. Compliance with zoohygienic standards in pigsties leads to the receipt of selected pigs and, consequently, to material benefits.

Correct diet

Sows, boars and young animals should be fed with different food, taking into account their characteristics. The digestive system of pigs is formed in the first days of their life, so feeding of piglets should be taken under control from the very moment of their birth. In order to avoid diarrhea, constipation and other problems with the gastrointestinal tract, together with breast milk, the piglet needs feeding.

Table of approximate feeding of young animals

Warm water	from the 3rd day
Cow's milk, mineral supplements, concentrates, premixes	from the 5th day
Porridge	from the 8th day
Bean hay and dust	10th day
Juicy feed:
carrot	10th day
beet	20th day
potatoes	25th day
Green grass	12-15 days
Hay infusion	30th day

Piglets should be fed frequently and at regular intervals. Most of the ingredients for feeding pigs can be grown at home (vegetables, herbs, grains), which in itself will reduce the cost of the feed needed. To water, however, as well as to feed, young animals follow from a special container intended for this. For the diet of young animals, iron-containing preparations are of particular importance. They can be given to piglets with feed or by injection, which is easy to do at home. Premixes are used to enrich the piglets' diet.

Causes and signs of piglet diseases

General characteristics

Raising healthy piglets is the key to high productivity of the future pig population. Their diseases are always easier to prevent than to treat them later. Therefore, the success of the pig business lies in the timely prevention of diseases, the creation of decent conditions for keeping and feeding animals (premixes, vitamin complexes, etc.).

Piglet diseases can be divided into:

1. Non-communicable diseases (anemia (anemia), gastroenteritis, dyspepsia, bronchitis, etc.).
2. Infectious diseases (edema of piglets, plague, foot and mouth disease, dysentery, paratyphoid fever, etc.)

Common signs of disease in pigs include loss of appetite, increase / decrease in body temperature, rash, spots, dry skin, depression / agitation, diarrhea and other symptoms. Small pigs are more susceptible to many ailments than their adult relatives, which must be taken into account when raising them.

The main causes of the disease of piglets are improper feeding (abuse of premixes, concentrates), lack of vitamins and nutrients in food, non-observance of temperature and zoohygienic standards. The cost of all the above-mentioned shortcomings of the pig breeder is a decrease in the profitability of the business as a whole.

Types of diseases and their manifestations

Gastroenteritis, dyspepsia, acute gastrointestinal inflammation and poisoning are diseases of the digestive system. Signs of their appearance are diarrhea, lethargy, lack of appetite, convulsions and vomiting. In order to avoid these ailments when raising young animals, you need to feed the piglets with fresh food grown at home.

Pig catarrhal diseases (bronchitis, tracheitis, bronchopneumonia) are manifested by coughing, fever, and rapid breathing.

Disturbed metabolism causes diseases such as alimentary anemia, rickets, vitamin deficiency in the piglet, etc.

Infectious diseases of piglets affect their health and the health of the rest of the livestock more destructively than others. They require more radical methods of their treatment and elimination of the consequences.

Swelling disease of piglets occurs due to intoxication of the body with bacteria or food allergies. With it, the nervous system is affected and swelling of tissues and organs appears. Piglets of weaning age are exposed to this ailment. Growing young at home without a sow initially (with a “stranger” mother) usually eliminates the possibility of this disease.

Swine fever is the most dangerous disease caused by tiny microorganisms.

Dysentery is detrimental to piglets in that they rarely recover. A distinctive feature of this ailment is diarrhea with blood, which is accompanied by constant attempts.

Another deadly disease that piglets are prone to is foot and mouth disease. It is accompanied by high fever, watery blisters in various parts of the body, which, when bursting, turn into ulcers. As a result, the acute form of foot and mouth disease leads to the death of animals. When raising pigs, this ailment is a significant expense for the owner.

Most diseases require urgent professional care, so you should not neglect the services of a veterinarian who will provide the necessary treatment, otherwise its cost will significantly exceed the funds spent on prevention.

A profitable business or a waste of time

The well-known misconception that pig farming is the most profitable and easiest business can be quickly dispelled by any farmer involved in breeding and raising piglets. To get good results (income), you need to create the best conditions.Growing piglets at home brings a good income if they are raised in clean pigsties, eat good rational feed with premixes and biologically active substances, and are vaccinated on time.

In terms of ROI, this business is a good place to start, as you can start with a small number of pigs and build momentum over time. Young piglets (their meat, fat and skins) can be sold at a good price from 4 months of age. This is due to the physiological characteristics of pigs, namely their rapid growth, omnivorousness, high slaughter yield and distinctive qualities of meat.

Subsequently, the breeding of domestic piglets can be turned into a highly profitable business, if you follow certain rules:

• The choice of the breed should be determined by the desired goals.
• The selection and purchase of females and males should be carried out from different suppliers, paying due attention to the pedigree characteristics of the animals.
• Keeping a pigsty at a decent level (timely disinfection, destruction of pests, temperature regime).
• Close supervision of a veterinarian for regular vaccinations, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.
• Compliance with the peculiarities of feeding sows, boars and young pigs. They should be fed with high-quality, rational and nutritious feed (using premixes, biologically active substances, etc.).

Considering the above rules, it is possible to turn pig breeding into a truly profitable production, and not just a home business.