Have a cross gilt that has cycled three times before. She has cycled 21 days every time. Well naturally when i go to order semen she waits until about day 24 to show mucus but won't stand. She is mounting every other gilt in the lot too. I feel like her back legs might be a little sensitive to pressure on her back so this is why she wont consistently stand but her ears aren't going back at all. She just kinda stands there until you put too much pressure then she runs away. Should i just go ahead and stick a rod in her and breed on an 18 hour interval? Also, does the texture or color of mucus indicate when they are most fertile?

Some gilts are just that way. I have a Duroc, that won't stand, but comes into heat normally. I just fed and bred her this morning. Boar spray did nothing for her. I know I caught her at the end of her ovulation, because I checked her about every six hours with a Dramaski and I watched the numbers rise, which is the sign of ovulation. This was the first time to breed her and she was a August 2012 gilt. I thought with a little age she would be easier to breed. We went the Matrix (14 days) PG600 (15 day) came in 17th day. The crazy thing is that her mother was the same way. Some are just wired to not stand.

so if I have been noticing mucus since Sunday morning when should I feed and breed?

I am no expert in this area, so I hope others will chime in, but generally I look for a change of color on the inside of vulva, from a light pink to a dark color. Since back pressure does nothing - study the ears carefully. Even the down eared hogs have a slight rise to the ears. Study her behavior carefully is it different than normal? My duroc becomes more aggressive. Is the tail up? This duroc has her tail up, but as soon as you touch her vulva she brings it down. Three dose her, once every 12 hours since she is gilt and hope that you get her. If not, put some wheels on her, its not worth all the time and effort for a non-breeder. That is what I did with the mother of my duroc, two successful litters and a lot of other attempts. Got tired of it. Most likely shouldn't of kept one from her litter, if she is going to be the same way.

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. If you get the strand, the mucous is tacky.
The lining of the vulva is usually red, rather than pink, when they're in standing heat.
Do you have a boar to help with heat detection? Some sows and gilts just won't stand unless there's a boar present. If you don't have a boar, are you using boar scent?
Did she stand when she was in heat previously?
If she absolutely won't stand you might try the feed and breed technique when you see tacky mucous and a red lining in the vulva. Or, get a boar to help with heat detection. If you're using a boar and she still doesn't stand, you'll have to guess on timing, or cull her.
One final question: How does she react to back pressure when she's not in heat? It may be helpful to apply back pressure when you know she is not in heat; that might make it easier to detect subtle changes in her behavior that occur when she's in heat.
Good luck.

What is dramaski?

TDODD wrote:What is dramaski?

Ovulation/Estrous Detector. they make them for Horses, Cows, swine, dogs. They are about $500 each.

pulled from the website:

•Makes it easier to determine an optimum mating time for females with atypical estrous cycles
•It enables users to detect an asymptomatic estrous period (silent heat)
•Makes insemination more effective
•Improves the economic performance of farms
•Easy to clean and disinfect
•Water resistant casing
•Light and ergonomic casing

If it works, it would be a bargin with the price of semen these days!

I have found the Draminski to work, the issues still remain with sows and gilts. If they don't cycle perfect you still have to be there to measure them. I had a older gilt that just cycled real unusual. I would tend to believe it was a split cycle. Basically the unit works on numbers. As numbers fall the hog is coming into heat, as numbers rise she is ovulating, thus when you want to breed her. It works great if the sow or gilt functions normal. But this last gilt fell, and then went up over three measurements over 12 hours, so I bred her. Then it fell again 6 hours later and she stood the second time. So once again it is still good visual awareness of what is occurring over what the instrument provides. I will say I no longer use a preg-tone. This device is much better to use.

Just curious.. we had a sow that we could kinda... sorta... tell she was standing but we kept waiting for a really good standing heat and completely missed her. Does giving PG600 before an expected heat make detecting heat or standing heat any easier? Thank you!

PG600 will not work on a gilt that is already cycling. What some believe including myself, is that after using Matrix and giving them a shot of PG600 shortens the time that they will come back into heat. I also have noticed what seems to be a stronger heat cycle - more mucus mess. Although I will state that I have had mixed results this year. I follow numbers with a Dramski and I noted that within a day following the PG600 we had the beginning of what looked like a heat cycle on some gilts, followed my a rise of numbers (sign of ovulation) and then two days later another drop and rise (true heat cycle - day 3) It made me breed two gilts a day early. I wrote to the makers of Matrix to see if there is any research available concerning the use of Matrix in combo with PG600 and have not heard back.
It doesn't make it any easier to detect heat cycles. IMO

If you've got the time, see if you can illicit a stanfing response. Our draminski was telling us real strong that our spot sow was ready to breed but she wouldn't stand with pressure. So I worked that girl over....massaging/pulling her vulva, massaging and pulling her sides near her ham loin, rubbing her teats ....15 min. I was about to give up when all of a sudden she got rigid and flagged her tail big time. We bred her and she stuck.

Wow - for us, we definitely did not put enough effort into getting the sow to stand. With the gilts, a squirt of boar spray on their nose and they are rigid.

It's a 13-year old boy breeding his own pigs. He had the semen in his cooler, and then we ordered more, and he's blaming me because we couldn't really tell if she was standing. I'm going to tell him it's because he didn't love his pig enough :]

We've never found a suitable substitute for a teaser boar. It just makes the process so much easier. When you are spending $250+ per sow on breeding, purchasing someone's young boar at the state or county fair for a couple hundred dollars and then getting rid of him after breeding season, will save you a lot of time, headache and money!

If you don't have room for the boar, just keep him on the trailer and pull him out to heat check 2x a day. then just feed him a little when he's done. He'll jump right back in the trailer to eat!

A teaser boar is def worth it!!! I have 15 sows and keep the bOar about 100 yards from them and when he gets near them if they are in heat they stand rock hard... He runs down to the sows and then I get him to run back to his pen with feed!!! It's actually pretty comical

Our first full year we attempted to breed with just using boar spray, it was very very time consuming and the results were not very good to say the least. We kept a boar out of one of our litters and as others have stated in their posts this is the only way to go. I was stubborn in keeping one back at first, but it has made a huge difference!