Animals may not show all of the signs of heat when they come in. For example, the sow might not swell, but will ride other sows and eventually stand for back pressure. Some animals will show physical signs (swelling, etc) but won't stand. It's possible that your gilt is coming in without swelling. C...

You shouldn't (and in most cases, can't) inseminate a sow that is no longer in standing heat. Inseminating a non-standing sow most likely won't get her pregnant, and increases the risk of a uterine infection. If the sow or gilt stops standing within 12 hours or so after being inseminated, chances ar...

Grings bred him. Seems like he used to be at Mareks in Iowa?

Having an animal come in over the weekend is always a challenge. In this situation you might have fed Matrix for a few days to prolong the anestrus stage of her cycle, and stopped feeding it on Friday the 6th. That would have put her in standing heat the following Tuesday or Wednesday. Not sure if y...

I know one operation that cracks a faucet on the very end of their water line. The small amount of water moving through the pipe keeps the water from freezing, since the water is continually replaced by warmer water from the source. This works only if you have a place to dump water without making a ...

We plumbed a nipple into the side of a barrel with a submersible heater inside and didn't have many problems in a cold climate (extended periods with daily high temps below freezing). Water would sometimes collect and freeze in the nipple beneath the trigger, and this would stop the water flow until...

PG 600 can bring a non-cycling animal into heat, but won't change the cycle of one that's already cycling. You could feed Matrix to delay the next heat, but there's nothing you can do to shorten the heat cycle.

The Pregtone detects fluid, which is normally amniotic fluid. However, the swelling that we \ see when an animal comes into heat is caused by an accumulation of fluid, so it's not uncommon for cycling sows or gilts to read pregnant as they are coming into heat. We used to check hard-to-detect animal...

May be too late to help you this time, but mucous typically starts out slick (oily) and becomes tacky (sticky) as they approach standing heat. The "thumb test" for tackiness involves getting mucous on your thumb and seeing if you can draw a strand of mucous between thumb and index finger. ...

There are physical signs of heat (swelling, mucous discharge) and behavioral signs (growling, riding other sows, standing for back pressure). In an ideal world, gilts and sows would show both physical and behavioral signs of heat every time, in the same order. Unfortunately, they don't. Some animals...

Tip 10, We certainly want sows with capacity. The problem is, right now show pigs have to be short, wide, and coarse-shouldered to win. Throw in a sow that is small framed herself, and you have a recipe for farrowing problems. A blocky, square pig just doesn't fit through the pelvic opening very eas...

The only caution I would add is that you don't want the sow or gilt to have constant fenceline contact with the boar. You only want contact with the boar when you're performing heat check, or when you're inseminating. Standing rigid for a boar is tiring for a sow or gilt. If the gilt has constant ac...

There are studies showing a benefit to injecting a sow with oxytocin just before insemination (after the rod is locked in place, but just before you attach the bottle). However, the benefit was only for inexperienced inseminators. The oxytocin stimulates uterine contractions, which apparently aid se...

The swine showring is always driven towards the extremes because judges place so much emphasis on one or two traits--and because some breeders keep the fashion changing to sell more pigs. Lblue has summed up many of the problems associated with the extremely small-framed, wide pigs that are currentl...

Depends on the individual boar, the expertise and cleanliness of the semen collector and lab, the extender used, and on how you handle and store it. The boar stud can give you some idea of how well semen from a particular boar will keep. The ultimate test is to have a vet look at a sample under the ...