Pig Farming Glossary
The terms Filipino pig raisers actually use, in plain language and with local figures. 28 definitions across production, breeding, feeding, health, and money.
Production
- Average Daily Gain(ADG)
- Average weight a pig gains per day over a period. A healthy grower-fattener gains 600–850 g/day. Tracking ADG is the fastest way to catch a feed or health problem before it eats the margin.
- Barrow
- A castrated male pig. Males raised for meat are castrated young to prevent boar taint and reduce aggression, which is why almost every male fattener is a barrow.
- Farrow-to-Finish
- A system that keeps the whole cycle in-house: breed the sow, farrow, then grow the piglets to market weight. It needs more capital and skill than buying weaners but captures the full margin.
- Fattener
- A pig being grown for slaughter, typically from weaning (around 8–10 kg) to market weight of 90–110 kg. Most Philippine backyard raisers run fatteners rather than keep breeding stock because the cycle is shorter and the capital risk is lower.
- Wallow
- A mud or water area pigs use to cool down. Pigs cannot sweat effectively, so in Philippine heat a wallow or sprinkler is not optional above roughly 30°C — without it, feed intake and gain drop.
- Weaner
- A piglet recently separated from the sow, usually at 28–35 days and 6–10 kg. Weaners are the most common starting point for backyard fattening and cost roughly ₱2,500–₱4,500 depending on region and genetics.
Breeding
- Boar
- An intact adult male pig kept for breeding. Many small farms skip keeping a boar and use artificial insemination instead, since one boar serves few sows and eats year-round.
- Body Condition Score(BCS)
- A 1–5 visual and hands-on score of a sow’s fat cover. Breeding sows are kept near 3–3.5; too thin lowers conception, too fat raises farrowing problems.
- Crossbred
- A pig from two or more breeds, bred to combine traits — for example a Landrace × Large White sow line for mothering and litter size, terminal-sired by Duroc or Pietrain for growth and leanness.
- Farrowing
- The act of a sow giving birth. Gestation runs about 114 days — the old "3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days" rule. The farrowing window is the highest-risk period for piglet mortality.
- Gilt
- A young female pig that has not yet farrowed. A gilt is usually first bred at 7–8 months and 120–140 kg, after showing two to three regular heat cycles.
- Native Pig
- Indigenous Philippine pig types (such as the Q-Black or local black pigs) that grow slowly but tolerate low-input systems and command a premium for lechon de leche and heritage pork.
- Sow
- An adult female pig that has farrowed at least one litter. A well-managed sow produces about 2.2–2.4 litters per year in Philippine backyard conditions.
Feeding
- Creep Feed
- A small, highly digestible ration offered to suckling piglets from about 7 days old, in a space the sow cannot reach. It eases the weaning transition and lifts post-weaning ADG.
- Feed Conversion Ratio(FCR)
- Kilograms of feed needed to add one kilogram of liveweight. A backyard fattener on commercial feed typically runs an FCR of 2.8–3.5. Lower is better; feed is 65–75% of total cost, so FCR drives profit more than any other number.
- Swill Feeding
- Feeding pigs food waste or kitchen leftovers. It cuts feed cost but is a known ASF transmission route when the swill is not boiled. Several LGUs restrict or ban it in ASF-affected zones.
Health
- African Swine Fever(ASF)
- A highly contagious viral disease of pigs with near-100% mortality and no widely deployed reliable vaccine as of 2026. There is no treatment; control is strict biosecurity, movement restrictions, and culling. ASF has reshaped Philippine pig farming since 2019.
- All-In All-Out(AIAO)
- Managing a pen or building as one batch — all pigs in together, all out together, then clean and rest before the next group. It breaks disease cycles and is one of the highest-return biosecurity habits for small farms.
- Biosecurity
- The set of practices that keep disease out of a herd: footbaths, restricted visitors, quarantine of new stock, and not feeding untreated swill. In the ASF era, biosecurity is cheaper than any single pig you would lose without it.
- Mastitis-Metritis-Agalactia(MMA)
- A postpartum sow syndrome — udder inflammation, uterine infection, and milk failure — that appears within 12–72 hours of farrowing. It is a leading cause of pre-weaning piglet death because hungry piglets fade fast.
- Withdrawal Period
- The minimum time between the last dose of a drug (antibiotic or dewormer) and slaughter, so residues clear the meat. Skipping it is both a food-safety and a legal problem; the period is on the product label.
Money
- Break-Even Price
- The liveweight price per kilo at which a batch exactly covers its costs. Knowing it before you buy weaners is the difference between a planned business and a hopeful one.
- Contract Growing
- An integrator supplies piglets, feed, and vet support; the grower supplies housing and labor and is paid a fee per head or per kilo gained. It lowers price risk but caps upside and ties the farm to one company.
- Dressing Percentage
- Carcass weight as a percentage of liveweight, usually 70–78% for pigs. It matters when a buyer pays by dressed weight instead of liveweight — a lower dressing percentage means less money for the same pig.
- Farmgate Price
- The price a raiser receives for a pig at the farm, before any transport or middleman margin. PSA and DA Bantay Presyo publish weekly farmgate hog prices that vary widely by region.
- Liveweight
- The weight of the live pig at sale, before slaughter. Most Philippine backyard pigs are sold by liveweight at the farm gate; farmgate price per kilo is the figure that decides whether a batch made money.
- Paiwi
- A traditional Filipino arrangement where one party supplies the animal and another raises it, then they split the proceeds (hatian). Common for native pigs; the split and who covers feed and losses should be agreed in writing before the pig arrives.
- Shrink
- Liveweight lost between the farm and the scale at sale, mostly from gut fill and stress during hauling. Shrink of 3–7% is normal over a long haul and quietly reduces the price you actually collect.