Correspondent
IRON RIDGE
Pork producer Duane Westphal was surprised to find one of the 13 sows on his family’s Iron Ridge farm delivered 23 piglets.
“She started having the babies at 2:30 on Tuesday (Oct. 27) and had the last one about 7:30,” Westphal says. His dad was on hand to monitor the process but she was able to deliver them all on her own without a problem.
Of course feeding a family that large can be a challenge for a new mother. That’s why Westphal has solicited the help of another of his new mothers who had fewer pigs.
A couple of the new babies are small and will likely struggle, but most of them are energetic and playful. When they aren’t fighting for a spot to eat they are playing with each other and climbing around on the sow.
Westphal says the sow had her first litter of 11 about a year ago and in May she had another litter of 11.
More typically a sow will have about 10 babies. He says he’d rather have fewer babies per litter because they generally start out bigger and are more vigorous.
He likes using farrowing crates to protect the babies from the sow accidentally laying on them. The bars allow the babies to get nourishment and play around without danger.
The sow is a Hampshire cross and the boar is a four-way cross of York, Duroc, Spot and Hamp. That accounts for why each piglet has different colors and markings.
Westphal’s parents were in the hog business for 45 years so Duane grew up with them. His family previously had 75 sows and raised feeders and some for meat. Duane now works off the farm and keeps 13 sows as a hobby in his dad’s barn.
“I’ve improved the quality of my breeding stock in recent years,” he says. “I’m selling more of them to 4-H and FFA kids now for showing.”
