Ok guys, I'm going to try to finish up this story in one last post.

Thanks for bearing with me, there is more information in my head than I thought!

Assuming you have read Part 1 and Part 2 already, you know how we came to decide to raise these pigs and how it was progressing.
I left off with an adult, very MALE boar, and a pregnant, but laid back sow.
Roaming around, happy as can be, being pigs and killing our grass.

So far we were pretty happy with them.

They DID respect the fences. They were mostly friendly. They were healthy.
However, they were slow growing. They were slowly but surely killing off all our grass. They dug quite a few mud holes. And aggression was becoming an issue.

Finally the day arrived when the bacon bits were born!

Super cute, right?!

I have to say, even after becoming a mother, OinkyPig never did get nasty with us.

Sows are famous for being super protective of their young, and Oinky was, but not from us. We could hold up a squealing piglet near her, and she would be very alert, but never once show any anger toward us. Anything else mess with her babies, they would be in trouble, but the people were fine. It was definitely a relief.

Groot was a good daddy.

It was super interesting to watch the pigs parent their young. Many people will not consider allowing a boar near a mother and her piglets, but he was wonderful with them. He watched over his babies and the mother, and was very patient with the little boogers.

This part of the 'project' was sweet, if only because of the cute little babies. ♥
But the underlying issues remained. The grass on our limited acreage was dying. Groot was still untrustworthy. The kids were afraid to go outside alone. Something had to change.

We decided to sell Groot and OinkyPig as a breeding pair when the piglets were of weaning age.

Luckily, that was an easy task. We found a gentleman who wanted to surprise his daddy with them as a gift! Apparently his father used to have this breed of pig and raved about how great they were. They keep in touch from time to time. Groot and Oinky are living the good life and having lots of bacon bits.

After weaning the piglets, we decided to sell off all the litter, (8 gilts!), and keep two to raise to butchering size.
We still had not tasted any Guinea Hog meat!
That was also a pretty easy task, being that they were all female.

Now to the annoying part:

FINALLY, after the two remaining gilts were about a year old, we sent them off to the butcher.
Now, I know people usually raise this breed to 18 months before butchering, but we had had more than enough of the 'free range' pigs. We sent them in and only got about 25 lb meat per pig! All that work! All that time spent! Only THAT
much meat?! I have to admit, I was not shocked, because I saw the size of the pigs, but man!

The meat was not great. The cuts were tiny and super fatty. Talking itty bitty ribs and chops. The bacon was almost all fat. No meat in there. The 'hams' not worth even calling a ham. At the time, it felt like a HUGE waste of time and money. I see now in hindsight that it was a valuable learning experience.

Disappointing to say the least.

This concludes the saga of the American Guinea Hog project!

We were finally DONE with it. I cannot express how excited I was to NOT have pigs in the yard anymore.
The project was a disappointment, but very educational. We learned a lot, that's for sure.

Now Ill give you guys a list of pros, cons, and observations.

Not exhaustive by any means, but Ill try.

Pros of raising these pigs:

• small and managable
  Not difficult to contain or too huge to butcher at home.
• Mild mannered and calm
  Boars will remain boars though!
• A breed that is easy to sell if you are in the right area.
  Many homesteaders are trying these out so selling piglets may be a source of income.
• Grow well on pasture
• will hunt things like mice and snakes, so good pest control
• good with other livestock
  Ours never bothered our chickens or goats. I would not advise allowing pigs and goats together though, when goats are giving birth.

Cons of raising these pigs:

• marketed as a non rooting pig.
  This info is false. ALL PIGS ROOT. Yes, they are indeed less destructive than a commercial breed hog, but they absolutely WILL root and have a blast doing it.
• Docile does not equal safe yard pet.
  Boars can be dangerous. We got lucky with our sow, but many are dangerous as mothers.
• The meat is disappointing.
  They say it has a wonderful flavor and such. Maybe we had bad luck with ours, but it was just tiny, fatty pork.
• They take a long time to mature.
  You butcher a commercial hog at 6-8 months, and get LOTS of meat. You butcher these guys at 18 months, and get a small amount.

Some observations:

Most pigs are not safe around other livestock. They will happily catch and eat a wandering hen. These pigs never did. They were not interested at all, and other than taking an occasional snout-swipe at them when they were in the way of food, just ignored them.
They were fine around our goats too. Mostly ignored those as well. I've heard of pigs coming and eating newly born goats and afterbirth and killing a doe before, so I would advise not allowing them around birthing mothers out of caution. I have not experienced this though.
They definitely DID like raw chicken though. I would feed them the scraps from chicken butchering day and they LOVED it. I was worried it would make them go after live hens, but it did not.

These pigs were definitely safer to be around than commercial hogs. They were smaller, therefore less power to be directed at you. Still large, but not huge. They were also calmer and more cooperative than commercial hogs. Not to say these are safe yard pets in the least, but they are a safer option.
Generally speaking, they are easy to sell. Now, you would want to check your area and the market for them. In some places, the market is already flooded and the babies sell dirt cheap. In others, they are a rarity and quite expensive. Especially if registered.

Well, hopefully some of you out there found this informative, or at least, entertaining.

We will not be raising free-range pigs ever again.
I can see these guys being a viable option to someone who has lots of pasture space for them, and doesn't need a lot of meat. Perhaps someone in an area where they fetch a good price and they can use the pigs as supplemental income. They ARE sturdy and healthy things. They don't require anything much as far as medical care.
We were hoping they would be a good source of meat for us, but the time and energy it took to care for them and WAIT and WAIT for them to grow just did not end up being economical at all.
We still want an alternate source of meat, and this year are trying raising a lamb. So far so good! She is growing so fast and is a great addition to the homestead. ♥

Thanks for bearing with me!

This ended up being a longer story than I thought it was going to be!
If you missed the first two installments, they are here:

Part 1
Part 2

Feel free to comment and ask questions! Im sure I probably missed some details.... Mom-brain, you know... ;)

Have a wonderful day!

badges courtesy of @daddykirbs