Glossary:Pig farming
Pig farming or pig husbandry, the raising of pigs for meat, may be organized in a more or less sophisticated way, but it can always be analyzed on the basis of the production cycle and is divided into two parts:
- farrowing sows for the production of weaned piglets;
- the rearing of those piglets, as future breeding animals or as pigs for slaughtering.
In a non-organized sector the genetic selection is managed within each herd, with the breeding animals being kept from the grown pigs (gilts) or purchased outside (boars) and used for natural service.
In a more sophisticated organisation the breeding animals are produced in specialized farms taking part in a thorough selection scheme (nucleus-multipliers-breeders). The sows are usually inseminated artificially and patch farrowed. Depending on the efficiency of the selection scheme, the pig fattening performance is improved. The functions of breeders, farrowers and fatteners can be combined and the fattening can be divided into growing and finishing.
The housing of pigs may vary from confined buildings for rapid standardized production to outdoor extensive production, as well as all the forms of organization in between. Most of the production is conducted according to optimized intensive methods, and extensive farming may either be in response to consumer demand (e.g. organic farming) or be used for own consumption. In such cases, the piglets grown and fattened in winter make use of cereals, food waste, by-products, buildings or labour force.