If there’s anything you want to know about old breed pig genetics, just ask me. I’m not an expert, but after spending an hour working out whether Pilot of Ballarat was related to Bella and Rose of the Tamar, I’ve got more of an idea than I did before.
The closest our girls come to Pilot is sharing a great grand-daddy. Rosie and Bella’s piglets, however were sired by the same boar that sired their sire. Following? That means, for reasons that I understood on Wednesday but which stump me today, that we can’t really put our new Pilot boar over Rosie’s piglet Ruby, whom we intend to keep as a breeding sow.
The piglets we’d get would come from too close a union, and we couldn’t in all faith register them to the breed. We could, however, use them as bacon. That might be a possibility.
It also turns out that Bella should actually be called Beatrice, and Rosie is in fact Sunset, although we think we’re allowed to have pet names for them if we want to. All sows and all boars are called the same thing – denoting the line they’ve come from. Bella has come from a long line of Beatrice sows, so she’s a Beatrice also. It’s not as if it makes any real difference. She still only really answers to the call of the feed bucket.
Back to the boar. Pilot is being shipped from Victoria next week and we await him with much anticipation. His new lady friends are feigning indifference but we believe they’ll change their minds. Spring is in the air, and soon the aroma of boar pheromones will be also.
Well I'll be! I did not know that about the lineage names. Very interesting. Glad all are doing well.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused, but I think that's okay. I'll leave pig genetics to you, the same way I left pig nipples to you. Aren't I nice?
ReplyDeleteNot too sure about Beatrice for Bella (just look at Fergie's offspring) but Sunset is a lovely name for Rosie. They won't know themselves once Pilot arrives. They'll be just like pigs in the proverbial............
ReplyDeleteOur boar, apparently, has sixteen nipples! Which is important: a boar can pass on an impressive nipple count just as a sow can. And apparently he's very frisky too and has been trying to mount his brothers on the farm in Victoria. So, cometh the hour, cometh the man, indeed.
ReplyDeleteHi Guys. How's it all going? Did you get your Boar safe and sound? We were suppose to get a Saddleback Boar from Victoria a little while ago. He was suppose to come over with our Tamworths but he got delayed due to his farm being a bit flooded in. We got our Tammies ok and they have settled in nicely.
ReplyDelete