When I go pig hunting I prefer to catch boars as one boar can impregnate many sows but every sow that is killed knocks the pig population back. So we really need those sows to keep our sport going. With my training block I do not want to many sows as the pig numbers could get up high very quickly. In November 2011 I was giving an old sow that at the time seemed like she was pregnant. Within the first couple of weeks in the block she had aborted her litter. A couple of months later while in the block training the dogs bailed her up in a nest that she had made and there were a couple of aborted young piglets about the size of your thumb.
On her third time around she had one sow piglet that had survived. At the time of this discovery I was once again training a dog and as soon as I noticed the sow with the young one I took a photo and called the dogs off. This young sow was born in July 2012.
Her next litter was born in January 2013. In this litter there were three boars. I have been able to watch these pigs grow up in the block even with dogs in there regularly bailing the other pigs. It is only just in the past couple of weeks that my dogs have gone and bailed up any of the young boars as they are now getting up to ninety pounds. Up until this stage if the small ones were at a bail with another pig the young ones could walk in and out of the bail without fear of being targeted by the dogs. This was done because I always discouraged my dogs from chasing sows and wee pigs. On a number of occasions in the past year I have witnessed a training dog take off after the wee ones but none were successful at stopping them as they were just so fast through the tight stuff. This just proves to me that every time a pig gets away from a hunters dogs does not always mean that it was a big pig.
A couple of months ago the sow that was born in November 2011 aborted her first litter of which I saw no sign of. This did not worry me to much as she was stil quite young and a litter at this stage would have really sucked the goodness out of her. On the 20th of December when I went to feed the pigs I noticed that the boars were really worked up indicating that this young sow is coming back into season so three months, three weeks and three days (110 – 115 days) from then the sow should drop another litter. This time I am thinking of taking her out of the block when she is due to see if this helps.
As for the old sow she ended up dieing of old age. The three wee boars just sucked the goodness out of her and she got real skinny until the stresses were just to much for her.