Steve Cobb York Gilt

CHOPSTER · Post by **CHOPSTER** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:08 pm

I purchased a York gilt from Cobb Farms. She's about six months old now. I'm starting a small breeding heard so i want my sows to be top notch. When I puchased the gilt she looked incredible, but now i'm unsure about her. She has good genetics and structurally she is great, excellent feet and legs, tall fronted, level top, square hip, and exceptional skin and hair. She never developed the width, center rib, and muscleing I thought she should have. Actually I feel she is really lacking in these areas. I want to keep her and maybe breed her to an exotic to see what happens. But if her barrows look anything like her I'll be wasting my time and money. Anyone with some of Cobb's gilts have a similar experience or thoughts on what I should do?

hampy622 · Post by **hampy622** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 6:19 pm

its going to take several breedings to get anything out of her worth much then. I would take her to with and power something from shipleys or hipoint would probably work great. Shipleys boars are all wide and have great depth from the pictures ive seen. I would also go with immortal he has width and power. try getting some good gilts out of her and if you dont send her down the line no sense in feeding her almost 5 dollar corn if your not getting anything good out of her.

magnumPIG · Post by **magnumPIG** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:46 pm

i would not sell her short. from your description, sounds like a sound, functional, and attractive gilt. if the pedigree is there, you may surprised what she can produce. just an opinion. Mark

CHOPSTER · Post by **CHOPSTER** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:03 pm

she is a very attractive gilt with alot of style. her sire is ARK5 TNT. I'm new at breeding but have been on the show pig scene for several years. my first litters are due in march and i have much to learn. i have heard some of my breeders state that most babies look like their mommas. i don't know if this is true or not. some of their sows that i have seen weren't much to look at, but the offspring were great. its just that the gilts that i have seen in the breeder shows like Duncan looked like mack trucks with feet. i bought 2 hamp gilts there this year. i guess my next question is that does a sire have the ability to have a radical influence on the offsping or will most look like their dam? what i'm hoping for is that the offspring will have the skeletal structure, style, and stride of my gilt and the muscle, width, rib design and bone of the sire. maybe their are some boars out there that more strongly influence these qualities in there offspring than others. or is more common that i will have to wait a few generations to get these traits? any thoughts?

hampy622 · Post by **hampy622** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:54 pm

chopster the best thing you can do is make some calls to some boar studs they will help you in any way they can. Sure the babies will look like their mother but they will also look like the father its same with people its all about genes. Alot of breeders dont pick the best gilt they pick the littermate that is more functional that will farrow and breed easier. You could have a great litter of pigs just make sure you breed her right the first time so you have something better to work of off next year.

ctcm · Post by **ctcm** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:23 am

We have 4 cobb sows on our place. 2 just farrowed in November and WOW!! We bred them to Overload & Dive-in and got a great set of piglets.
Make sure you breed to a really good sound boar. We luv Top Cut boars. We have used Top Cut for years they have proved to have a great selection to choose from. I hope that you have a great litter of pigs.

buckeyeguy · Post by **buckeyeguy** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:36 pm

She sounds like she has some really good basics. How long have you owned her. If purchased recently, maybe she's just going through adjustment and not eating as much as she should You also don't mention what you are feeding and how much. She has a ways to go before breeding and maybe you will see her differently in a month or so. Good luck to you and the gilt!

CHOPSTER · Post by **CHOPSTER** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 9:55 pm

Thanks for everyones advice. ya'll have pursuaded me to give her a shot. Hampy i have read several of your posts and your advice always seems to be right on. so now i have a question for you. it seems your a big proponant of powerfill and i think it could help us here. i have never used it and know very little about it. what we have is a tremendous york barrow headed to San Antonio. he is very powerful, wide based and big boned. its really hard to find any faults in him, we are very excited. he weighs 225 with 25 days to show. he is very heavy muscled all over and never had an once of paylean and has no problem with mobility. what we need is more cover to smooth him out. you can slightly see his loin edge at the top of his rib. he has been on 6#s of 16% for a week with a pound of filler and 12oz of fat. seems to be working, but with this pig i think he will benefit with as much added cover as we can put on him. but we need to watch his weight. he easily gains 18-20#s a week. we have cut his ration back to 5#s. what i would like to see is 12 and no more than 14#s a week weight gain while putting as much finish on him as we can get and keep his rib blown apart. will power fill help? how do i feed it? whats it used for?

DerekMyers · Post by **DerekMyers** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 11:11 pm

Chopster-if you get too down on that TNT gilt I'll take her off of your hands.........seriously

Remember you are buying the genetics.........not what is on the outside. You want what this gilt can produce for you. Another thing to keep in mind is that that gilt is not done growing.......also she most likely wasn't fed to be a show pig and I bet you aren't feeding or exercising her that way either. Take a couch potatoe and change their diet and get them to the gym 6 days a week and their look will change alot......same with a showpig.

It sounds to me like you have a nice maternal yorkshire future momma. Personally she sounds like a pig to raise superior yorkshire breeding stock, maybe not crossbred barrows. Alot of times those super wide heavy muscled more masculine looking females don't produce the best.....tougher to get bred and smaller litters at times.

I think you should call Steve or Aaron Cobb and see who they think you should breed her to.

Best wishes-Derek

hampy622 · Post by **hampy622** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 12:34 am

chopster you are at the perfect point with that hog I think you can do a lot to make him compete at a very high level this is what I would do. Give him 3lbs of the regular feed, 2lbs powerfill and then 9grams of paylean I know you say he is really heavy muscled but I would try it on him start him slow at 4grams. Then I would get some soy oil and give him about 5-8oz a day start slow with that also. You have 2lbs a day to work with and you should be able to push him all the way to the show. I would also walk the crap out of him 1-2 hours a day if you can just to keep him mobile like he already is and it also will make him easier to push because he will burn some of what he has and you can get even more feed into him. Just keep weighing him every day if you can also and adjust the feed. You and if you want even more fill you can go up to 3 or 4 lbs of powerfill to blow him apart even more. Good luck sounds like you are in a pretty good position right now.

CHOPSTER · Post by **CHOPSTER** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:51 pm

thanks again everyone. Hampy i'll keep you updated on the barrows progress. Oh, by the way, I'm keeping the gilt.

hampy622 · Post by **hampy622** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:13 am

Ok let me know if you have any problems I will try to help if I can. Glad to hear your keeping hear just remember if she isnt producing anything after a couple litters and your not happy with her get rid of her but with her genetics if you match her up right you should have some good pigs

CHOPSTER · Post by **CHOPSTER** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:41 pm

hampy i've got another powerfill question for you. i bought a few bags and noticed the high protein and fat levels. looks almost like a starter ration. barrow weighed 235 today 21 days out. if i feed him 2#s of this stuff a day plus 3#s of feed what kind of weight gain should be expected. if i go down on feed level should i go up on powerfill level to hold his weight a little? or does the more powerfill he gets the more weight he gains? i've also got him on 4oz of paylean. you said to feed him 3-4#s of this stuff to blow him apart but i'm worried about weight gain. he gains weight easily. i guess i'm getting nervous, this is a special pig.

hampy622 · Post by **hampy622** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:01 am

Do you have easy access to a scale. But I would feed about 4-5 lbs total of feed a day. If he gained that much in the past couple days then I would go with 5lbs a day. I would go 2lb of regular feed and 1lb of powerfill two times a day then the 9g of paylean and 5-8oz of soyoil. If he gets to big to fast cut him back. What weight do you want to show him at. You have a pretty good barrow to feed if he can gain a lot of weight fast because you can hold him harder and get him filled back out easier.

hampy622 · Post by **hampy622** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:03 am

I meant to say 1.5lb of feed per feeding. Might be a good idea to get a scale and weigh your feed out per feeding also