Is my (not so) minipig pregnant or just a fatass

[RiverOtter]

That’s interesting. I don’t know anything about pigs but wanted to see what IS the right age to breed.

Full size pigs can breed between 8 and 10 months and generally won't breed if they're too small/young. But "mini" used to mean "when compared to 600-1000# adult pigs", and so meant pigs who maxed out between 200-300# full grown. Those can and will bred at the same age and be fine.

Now, people think microscopic when they think of mini pigs and want 3yo pigs that weight 30#, That is a really, really recent development in pighood and we're going to have to be really careful breeding for that for at least the next 50 generations (roughly 75 years) while we work the kinks out of that.

 

[chickentrains]

I t's unfortunate that the Op hasn't been seen since Jun 20, 2020

this is probably the stupidest thread I've read through

guess we will never know how those inbred piglets turned out

 

[Cecisflock]

this is probably the stupidest thread I've read through

guess we will never know how those inbred piglets turned out

Very sad.

 

[KrystalD]

Dude, no. You know what isn't found in nature?
Mini pigs.
I don't know what "research" you did, but I've been breeding mini pigs for 9 years and since humans - not nature - bred them small, humans are responsible for their safety. Mini pigs have potbellies because a lot of their internal organs didn't shrink with their bone structure (similar to dwarfism) and there's just not enough room in there. Adding pregnancy to that in a young pig who's still growing can cause permanent - and sometimes fatal - internal damage.

You know who doesn't care one tiny bit about that? Nature.
See, Nature's entire point of reproduction is to keep a stable population - to replace the parents. So, in order to keep 2 reproducing pigs, Nature pumps out a litter of 10 every 5 months .... because that's how many pigs Nature expects to die without successfully reproducing. Nature is perfectly content for your pregnant-way-to-young pig to suffer or die, because to Nature, heck, crows and maggots gotta eat too and there's other pigs.

That is NOT how ANYONE who keeps animals should think. But because there are too many people who want domestic animals to be "natural", instead of taking proper care of them or just not keeping them at all, decent, responsible people had to pass laws and create animal control officers to take care of domestic, unnatural animals after someone lets too many get hit in the road, go feral and reproduce unchecked.

That was so well said, loads of information without coming off rude. I personally, just couldn't even imagine someone letting their babies breed at 3 months old! We raise minis too and our girls are never exposed to a boar until at least 2 years old.