Choosing and Breeding a Gilt: Selection, Heat, Service and Her First Farrowing

Many Kenyan pig farmers start with weaners for fattening, sell them at market weight, and then decide the real money is in producing their own piglets. It can be. A well managed sow produces litters again and again, and selling weaners to other farmers is a steady business in many counties. But a breeding unit lives or dies on the first decision: which gilt you keep or buy to become your sow, and how well you manage her first service and first farrowing.

Get it right and she can give you litter after litter for several years. Get it wrong, with a gilt that is too young, too thin, poorly built or served at the wrong time, and you face small litters, piglets crushed or chilled in the first days, and months of feed with nothing to show for it.

This guide covers how to choose a breeding gilt, when she is ready to serve, how to spot heat and time the service, how to count to farrowing, how to prepare the pen and the sow, and the first week with the piglets. It is written for smallholder and small commercial units, from one sow to a dozen.

Choosing the Gilt

A gilt is a young female pig that has not yet had a litter. You can select one from your own weaners or buy one from a breeder. Buying from a known, well run breeding farm usually gives you better genetics and a clearer health history than picking one at a market. Common breeds in Kenya include Large White, Landrace, Duroc and their crosses; crossbred gilts are often hardy and productive.

Look for these points when choosing:

Teats. Count them. A good breeding gilt should have plenty of well spaced, evenly sized, functional teats on both sides, commonly at least six pairs, starting well forward on the belly. Avoid gilts with inverted, blind or very small teats, since a piglet that cannot find a working teat will not thrive.

Legs and feet. She will carry a heavy body for years on concrete floors. Choose a gilt that walks freely, with straight, strong legs, even toes and no swelling at the joints.

Body and growth. She should be long, deep and well grown for her age, active and bright, with a good appetite. A gilt that grew fast and evenly as a weaner is a good sign.

Health and history. Ask about her mother's litter sizes and mothering ability, vaccinations and deworming. Look for clean skin with no scratching, clear eyes and normal breathing.

When Is She Ready to Serve?

Gilts usually reach puberty and show their first heat at around five to seven months of age. Being able to conceive is not the same as being ready to carry and raise a good litter. Most advisers recommend serving a gilt at around seven to eight months, once she has reached a good body weight for her breed, and many farmers wait for the second or third heat rather than serving on the first. Ask your vet or livestock officer what age and weight to aim for with your breed.

Serving too early, while the gilt is still small, tends to give small first litters and can stunt her own growth, which affects every litter after. Serving very late wastes months of feed. Use a weighing tape or a scale every couple of weeks to track her growth, so the decision is based on numbers rather than a guess.

Many farmers increase the gilt's feed for a couple of weeks before service, a practice called flushing, with the aim of improving the number of eggs she releases. Discuss whether and how to do this with your livestock officer, and return her to a normal ration after service; overfeeding in early pregnancy is not helpful.

Spotting Heat and Timing the Service

A pig's heat cycle is about 21 days, varying from roughly 18 to 24 days, and the heat itself lasts around two to three days. Learning to spot it is the key skill of a breeding unit.

Signs of heat include a swollen, reddened vulva, sometimes with a little clear discharge, restlessness, reduced appetite, mounting other pigs, and ears pricked up. The clearest sign is the standing reflex: press firmly on her back with both hands, or sit on her back, and a gilt in standing heat will stand rigid and still instead of walking away. Check twice a day, morning and evening, and the presence of a boar nearby makes the signs much clearer.

Service is usually timed for the period of standing heat, and many farmers serve twice, about 12 to 24 hours apart, to improve the chances that one mating coincides with ovulation. If you are using a neighbour's boar, take the gilt to the boar rather than the other way round, since a gilt in a strange pen is less likely to fight and the boar works better on home ground. Artificial insemination for pigs is available in some areas; ask your county livestock office.

If you miss a heat, you lose three weeks of production, so keep a simple calendar on the pen wall and mark every heat you see, even before you plan to serve. Knowing when her last heat was tells you when to watch closely for the next one.

Confirming Pregnancy and Counting the Days

Write the service date on a card on the pen and in your record book. Then watch her closely around 18 to 24 days after service. If she comes back on heat, she did not conceive, and you serve her again. If she shows no heat, she is probably pregnant, and a vet can confirm it with a scan if one is available in your area.

Pregnancy in pigs lasts about 114 days, which farmers remember as three months, three weeks and three days. Count forward from the service date and mark the expected farrowing date clearly. During pregnancy, feed her a proper sow ration at the level your feed supplier or livestock officer recommends; she needs to gain condition steadily without becoming fat, because overweight sows tend to have more difficult farrowings and are clumsier with piglets. Keep clean water available at all times; a pig nipple drinker set at the right height keeps it clean.

Preparing the Farrowing Pen

About a week before the due date, move her into a cleaned, disinfected and dry farrowing pen so she can settle. A farrowing pen needs three things that ordinary pens often lack.

Protection from crushing. Newborn piglets are small and slow, and a sow lying down can crush them in seconds. Farrowing rails, a crate, or guard rails fixed along the pen walls at a height that leaves space underneath give piglets an escape route. Our guide to pig farming equipment shows crate and rail layouts.

A warm creep area. Newborn piglets cannot keep themselves warm and chill easily, especially on cold nights in the highlands and wet weather in the short rains. A creep area is a corner the sow cannot reach, with dry bedding and a safe heat source, such as a heat lamp fixed securely out of reach with its cable protected. Piglets that are warm stay away from the sow except to suckle, which also reduces crushing.

Dry, draught-free bedding. A dry floor with clean bedding, out of draughts but with fresh air, keeps piglets healthy. Wet, dirty floors spread scours.

Farrowing and the First Week

Signs that farrowing is close include nest-building behaviour, restlessness, a swollen vulva, and milk that can be squeezed from the teats, often within a day of farrowing. Be nearby but quiet. Most sows farrow without help, with piglets arriving at intervals over a few hours. Call your vet if she strains hard for a long time without a piglet, if there is a long gap with piglets still expected, or if she seems distressed or ill. Do not attempt internal assistance without training.

Make sure every piglet suckles colostrum in its first hours, guiding weak ones to a teat. Dry off chilled piglets and put them in the creep. Piglets are commonly given iron to prevent anaemia, because sow's milk is low in iron and indoor piglets cannot get it from soil; ask your vet about this and about any other early procedures, and let them advise on products and timing. Identify the litter with ear notches or tags so your records can follow each pig.

Introduce creep feed from about the second week in a small piglet feeder in the creep area, so that piglets learn to eat solid feed before weaning. Weaning on smallholdings is commonly at six to eight weeks. Our guide to fattening weaners to market picks up the story from there.

Your Breeding Gilt Checklist

Breeding Unit Equipment, With Prices

These prices are from the Fuga price list at the time of writing; check the site or call a branch for current prices and stock.

Choose a sound gilt from a trusted source, serve her at the right age and weight in standing heat, count 114 days, and have a warm, safe farrowing pen ready a week early. For piglet feeders, pig nipples and ear tags, see our ear tags and the full livestock range, or WhatsApp 0716 961 018.

Frequently Asked Questions