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In recent years, pig breeders have become interested in bacon breeds. With proper care and feeding, you can get a large yield of meat products. The meat of bacon pigs is not too fatty, tasty. Of course, there are some specific features of raising animals.
Among breeds, which are purchased for fattening for meat - Landrace pigs. If pig breeders with extensive experience know how to care for animals and receive young animals, then beginners often experience difficulties. We will try to answer the questions that beginner pig breeders have about the peculiarities of Landrace pig feeding.
Description
The Landrace pig breed is not new. By nature, it is a hybrid bred by breeders in Denmark over 100 years ago. The parents were a Danish pig and an English white pig. Pig Landrace took good conformation and productive qualities from its ancestors.
Experienced pig breeders, looking at the animal or its photo, can immediately determine that it is Landrace in front of them. They will never get confused because they are very familiar with the description of animals.
Features of the Landrace breed:
- On a long torso, similar to a torpedo or a log, there is a small head. The ears are medium in size, drooping. The video and photo clearly show that they close their eyes.
- The neck is long, fleshy, the chest does not differ in width.
- The body of the pig is powerful, knocked down, stands out with a straight back and fleshy hams.
- The legs are short but strong.
- The coat is sparse, white. Pink thin skin shines through it.
In their description, Landrace is a bit similar to the Duroc breed. These American pigs also have a strong body, a small head. But their coat is red-bronze in color, thick.
Characteristics
Landrace is a breed of meat pigs with high productivity. Pedigree animals are raised in many countries. Pigs are popular due to the meat with a small amount of greasy interlayer. According to the reviews of pig breeders, young animals are gaining weight very quickly, on average, the weight gain per day is up to 0.7 kg.
What other advantages do Landrace pigs have? A large yield of meat products in a short time is one of the important advantages:
- an adult boar is 1 m 85 cm long, sows are 20 centimeters shorter;
- boar chest coverage - up to 165 cm, in a pig - 150;
- the weight of three-month-old piglets is about 100 kg, the boar is about 310 kg, the uterus is 230 kg. Look at the photo of what an adult Landrace boar looks like;
- at slaughter, the yield of pure meat is at least 70%;
- sows are fertile, in one litter there can be up to 15 piglets. They have a good survival rate. In a sow of the Duroc breed, the litter does not exceed 9 pieces. Pigs of the Landrace and Duroc breeds are good mothers, as you can see in the photo.
We will not be silent about the shortcomings of the breed, they mainly relate to the special conditions of keeping and the choice of feed. But in general, if you look at the characteristics of Landrace pigs, it is beneficial to keep them for fattening.
Breeding features
Raising a Landrace pig is easy if you know the conditions in which you can keep it and know the diet. The fact is that animals are quite capricious. If you do not follow the rules for growing the Landrace breed, then you can be disappointed.
Premises
As experienced pig breeders note in the reviews, for animals of this breed, you need to equip comfortable housing:
- In the shed where pigs are kept, there must be a stable temperature of at least + 20 degrees. Drafts are not allowed.
- The litter must be changed constantly so that it is not soggy. You need to clean the pigsty at least every other day.
- Young and adult pigs do not survive well in high humidity. If the pigsty is cold, you will have to install a heater.
- The Landrace pig room should be spacious, because pets with a lot of weight need a lot of space.
- If there is not enough natural light, you will have to take care of backlighting, especially in winter.
Although the Landrace pig breed loves warmth, today livestock breeders have learned to raise them in regions with harsh climates. They only heat barns at very low temperatures. In addition, the pigsty should have deep, dry bedding.
How to prepare deep bedding:
Despite the seeming sluggishness and large mass, the representatives of the breed are distinguished by their mobility. Even adult pigs are not averse to frolic.
If these requirements are not met, the animals may get sick. At the first sign of malaise, you need to seek help from a veterinarian.
Feeding
Landrace are capricious pigs, they are very picky about food. What to feed the animals with? The diet of animals should contain dry, succulent feed and compound feed. The food is diversified with hay, cake, pumpkin, various vegetables, silage. Only a balanced diet allows you to get tasty lean meat.
Pigs of meat breed Landrace and Duroc are often raised free-range. Pasture maintenance in spring and autumn provides animals with fresh grass, nettles, clover.
For pigs, feed must be specially prepared. Kitchen waste can be used, but it must be boiled to kill disease germs. Adult animals are fed twice a day, they need up to 2.5 buckets of feed per day. As for the nutrition of the young, the first three months are fed three times a day.
Landrace pigs are clean animals, they cannot be kept in a dirty pigsty, they must be bathed. If there is no possibility of a "pool" device, in the heat you need to water them from a watering can.
Obtaining offspring
Pig breeders raise Landrace pigs for lean, tasty meat. Thoroughbred pigs are expensive; buying young animals is unprofitable every time. Therefore, they breed a sow to produce offspring at home. In order not to lose the quality of the breed, both parents must meet the characteristics. In large farms, Landrace pigs are often crossed with the meat breed Duroc. Mestizos turn out to be strong, hardy. They inherit the best qualities of their parents.
To get healthy viable offspring, the pregnant sow needs to be fed separately from the rest of the animals. Her food should be nutritious, rich in juicy food.
Pregnancy in pigs lasts 114 days.
Landrace - large animals, often during childbirth, the uterus has complications, she needs help. But that is not all. Piglets need to cut the umbilical cord, wipe it with a dry cloth. Piglets weigh 600-800 grams at birth.
Each pig should be brought to the sow's teats no later than 45 minutes after birth and given colostrum. This is a mandatory procedure, it must be performed even if not all offspring have been born yet. When a baby sucks milk, he not only receives the necessary trace elements with breast milk, but also reduces the pain of contractions in the mother.Newborn Landrace piglets should be placed under a heating lamp.
If there are weak piglets in the litter, they are either placed next to the nipples each time, or transferred to artificial feeding. But you need to do this for a limited time, otherwise there will be difficulties with normal feeding.
Landrace and Duroc sows take care of their offspring. They always have enough milk to feed their piglets.
After all, the sow has a rather large body weight, it can accidentally strangle the young. Piglets are immediately moved to a separate pen and released for feeding after 2-3 hours, when the uterus has already settled.
In this state, she can eat her offspring.
The pig feeds the piglets with its milk for 28 days. If there is not enough milk, young animals are gradually transferred to regular feeding. The diet must include dairy products, bran, vegetables. At 4 months, piglets weigh more than 100 kg.
Pig breeders reviews
Conclusion
Livestock breeders prefer to breed Landrace pigs, despite some difficulty in breeding. The meat of bacon pigs has excellent taste and is highly appreciated by gourmets. It is high in protein and low in fat. Pigs grow quickly, the output of finished products is over 70 percent. As pig breeders note, keeping bacon Landrace for fattening is beneficial.
