Hello all,
We have had 4 litters of pigs born in the last week. Our two American Mulefoot sows farrowed with 11 pigs total. Our two Berkshire sows farrowed with 18 piglets total. Our Berkshires had some interesting piglets. It turns out that one of the Berks was bred to our Large Black boar Bubba and the other to our American Mulefoot boar Cletus. The half Mulefoot piglets turned out to look a lot like a fullblood Mulefoot. They all have non-cloven hooves, but, with some of them, you can see a line where it looks like a split should have been. The Large Black crosses have me perplexed. The Berkshire female is fullblood registerable Berk and Bubba is a fullblood registerable Large Black, but, some of the cross breed piglets are spotted!! I don't get where the spots came from. None of the Mulefoot crosses have spots. Here is a photo of the different colors that we got in this litter. These piglets are all half Large Black.
James - found your blog. We exchanged emails few months ago. I'm raising mulefoots also, and am in Jeffersonville, GA. Congrats on your litters! We had three litters (7-7-6) about 7 weeks ago. We know have 3 Sows, 2 unproven Gilts, 1 Breeding Boar, 2 Boars we are feeding out, and 16 pigs. 2 of our Sows farrowed pigs with brown on them, so at this point we're going to assume a feral pig got in the fence (we'll know for sure in another four or five months as they farrow again). The other Sow farrowed all black pigs. Depending on how the next few months go may need to start adding new blood to the herd. Let's stay in touch.
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