Easy Fella!

Boars can be a touch pushy come the spring or, on very rare occasions, naturally aggressive. Michaela Giles provides some practical guidance on how best to deal with muscly males

I find young boars – whether for fattening or for future breeding stock – very amiable and interactive. Often they’re much more co-operative than females when you’re trying to do something with them, even when they’re not used to it.

This was made very obvious on one occasion last year, when I had to clean-off some muddy ear tags before showing a group of Japanese visitors our Middle White stock, which were for sale. Both the boars and the gilts had been out on the show circuit, and so were well used to being handled and bathed.

However, the young boars stood stock still while I scrubbed their ears, while the gilts fidgeted constantly; not wanting to comply without making their displeasure known. I’m convinced this obvious behavioural difference was a factor in them choosing to buy one of the boars for export.

Natural loners Non-domesticated boars live a solitary life once they’ve become sexually active, and only get the chance to interact with other pigs when the females come looking for them to mate. The boars have a defined area in which they roam, and the sows know where they are by the scent they exude; as do other boars when competing for the top boar slot in an area.

Working with nature, and to keep any domesticated boars as content as you can, it’s sensible to provide them with their own familiar pen, full of enrichment opportunities, and to bring the in-season sows to them. This is why most boars, when introduced to a sow, will always ‘have a go’. In nature, only receptive females will bother to find a boar but, as breeders, we often put them in a few days before we know a season is due.