It’s not always easy to add a sow back into your established herd. Every herd has a queen! There are a lot of factors that determine the success of integrating a full grown sow back into your herd. Here are a few tips to help make the process smoother.
It’s always good to know the pecking order, or chain of command, in your herd.
If you have an overly aggressive or dominant sow in your herd, it may help to first remove her, integrate your other sow, and then let the dominant sow return to the herd a few days later. When integrating, make sure you give them sufficient space so they can get away from each other! If you try to introduce full grown pigs in a small area, it’s highly likely they will fight and end up injured…and possibly not recover. Space, or sufficient room to retreat, is one of the most important elements of integration.
Besides ensuring integration happens in a large area, we also watch to ensure the aggression does not get out of control.
Keep your distance and be aware of the direction the sows are moving at all times – when they are fighting there is a high chance you could accidentally get injured, and you definitely don’t want that to happen! As you safely stand by (with a fence line barrier if you can), observe the level of aggression to make sure it doesn’t get out of control. You will need to use your own judgment, but know that fighting should end fairly quickly if they have sufficient space to retreat.
Fighting should not persist past a day, and from what we have found, they usually settle down within about 15 minutes. If you see that the fighting is not stopping, or it is too out of control, it’s time to move one of the sows out of the area they are in, to ensure they don’t end up fighting to death. If they fight, take a break, fight, take a break…catch them on a break and separate as soon as possible. If you need to – distract with feed if possible, so you can safely remove one of the sows.
We have heard suggestions of using a barrier to initially introduce a sow to the herd, which allows the sow to border the fence line of the herd, in order to let off some aggression before actually being face to face; however, in our experience, this has not eliminated or lessened the fighting that naturally occurs when a sow is working to get back in the ranks. We often farrow our sows on a fence line that borders the rest of the herd, and in that case they are always in view and able to smell one another, yet when putting the sow back into the herd, they still squabble just as much as they do when being far apart and then brought back into the same area.
Know that some fighting is natural, and necessary, to establish who is going to be in top command. Our Sally sow, Presleigh, recently farrowed a litter, and when it came time to wean the piglets, we integrated her back into the herd. She is top dog – so we knew to stand by and watch as she battled to get back into the top position within the herd. Emery, our Momona gilt had become the dominant one in the herd, and she fought her for the position. And Emery actually won. Presleigh lost a wattle in the squabble, but that has happened before, so we were not surprised that her last remaining wattle came off in battle. All is well, and the short fight ended with Emery in the lead. Thankfully, we have never had our sows fight longer than approximately 15 minutes. They work it out and then get back to business, foraging and living the good life!
Some sows are laid back and stay out of the fight, going on about their business, which is always nice to see.
It’s good to know the aggression level of your sows, keeping in mind who is bossy and who just rolls with the flow. Having a distraction, such as integrating at feed time, can help to lessen the fighting, but more than likely it will just delay what is naturally going to happen. Reintroducing a sow into the herd can be a smooth and successful experience. Just remember to give them plenty of space and watch them to make sure they settle down within 24 hours.