Pig Farming Glossary

The terms Filipino pig raisers actually use, in plain language and with local figures — including the Tagalog and Bisaya (Cebuano) words you would hear at the pen. 57 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.
Backfat: Fat thickness over the loin, the main lean-meat indicator buyers and processors care about. Backyard pigs sold by liveweight rarely get measured, but an over-fat pig at heavy weight has already burned margin through a worse FCR.
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.; Tagalog: baboy na kapon · Bisaya: kinapon
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.; Tagalog: patabain
Market Weight: The liveweight at which a fattener is sold, in the Philippines usually 90–110 kg at roughly five to six months. Holding a pig much heavier rarely pays because FCR worsens once it starts laying down fat instead of lean.
Piggery: The pen or building where pigs are kept. Backyard setups are often a few square meters of concrete with a roof; siting it downwind and downhill from the house, with a plan for the waste, avoids most neighbor and LGU trouble.; Tagalog: kulungan · Tagalog: babuyan
Piglet: A young pig still nursing or just weaned, from birth to about 10 kg. The first three days carry the highest death risk from crushing and chilling, so this is where farrowing-pen attention pays back the most.; Tagalog: biik · Bisaya: baktin
Pre-Weaning Mortality: The share of piglets born alive that die before weaning, mostly from crushing, chilling, and starved litters behind MMA. Backyard farrowing commonly loses 10–20%; tighter farrowing-pen management is where that number drops fastest.
Stocking Density: How many pigs share a given floor area. Crowding raises tail-biting, heat stress, and disease spread; a grower-fattener needs roughly 0.7–1.0 m² per head, toward the higher end in Philippine heat.
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.; Tagalog: lubluban
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.
Weaning: Separating piglets from the sow, in Philippine backyard herds usually at 28–35 days. Earlier weaning frees the sow to breed again sooner but only works if creep feed and pen hygiene are good enough to avoid a post-weaning growth check.; Tagalog: pag-awat

Breeding

Artificial Insemination (AI): Breeding a sow with collected boar semen instead of a live boar. AI lets a small farm use better genetics without feeding a boar all year; a dose runs about ₱150–₱350, and most failures trace back to mistimed heat detection, not the semen.
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.; Tagalog: butakal · Bisaya: butakal
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.
Estrus (Heat): The roughly two to three day window when a sow or gilt will accept the boar, recurring about every 21 days. Standing heat — she holds firm when you press on her back — is the signal to breed or inseminate.
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.; Tagalog: panganganak
Gestation: Pregnancy in the sow, about 114 days. Marking the exact breeding date on a calendar lets you move her to the farrowing pen four to five days early instead of being caught out.; Tagalog: pagbubuntis
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.
Lactation: The nursing period from farrowing to weaning when the sow is producing milk. It is her highest-energy stage; underfeeding here shows up later as a thin sow that takes a long time to return to heat.
Litter Size: The number of piglets born in one farrowing. Total born of 10–12 is typical for crossbred sows here, but the number that pays the bills is piglets weaned, after crushing and MMA losses.
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.; Tagalog: inahing baboy · Bisaya: anay

Feeding

Colostrum: The thick first milk after farrowing, loaded with antibodies. A piglet has to suckle it within the first 6–12 hours or it gets little disease protection — getting every piglet onto a teat early is the cheapest survival tool on the farm.; Tagalog: unang gatas
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.
Feed Phases: The ration changes as the pig grows: pre-starter, starter, grower, then finisher, each lower in protein and cheaper per bag. Feeding finisher too early stunts growth; feeding starter too long just burns money.
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.; Tagalog: kanin-baboy

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.
Classical Swine Fever (CSF): A viral pig disease long known locally as kolera baboy, separate from ASF and, unlike ASF, preventable with a routine vaccine. Where ASF gets the headlines, CSF still quietly kills unvaccinated backyard pigs, so the vaccine is cheap insurance.
Deworming: Routine treatment for internal parasites that steal feed and slow gain. Pigs raised on soil or fed swill carry heavier worm loads, so a scheduled dewormer with an observed withdrawal period is standard practice.; Tagalog: purga
Iron Injection: An iron shot given to piglets within the first three days. Sow milk is low in iron and indoor piglets have no soil to root in, so without it they turn anemic and grow poorly through weaning.
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.
Scouring: Diarrhea, most dangerous in young piglets where it dehydrates them fast. Common causes are E. coli, rotavirus, coccidia, and abrupt feed changes; clean water and prompt electrolytes do more early on than reaching straight for antibiotics.; Tagalog: pagtatae
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.
Cost of Production: Total cost to bring one pig to sale divided by its kilos, expressed as ₱/kg liveweight. For a backyard fattener on commercial feed this often lands around ₱150–₱190/kg; you are profitable only when farmgate price clears it.
Cull: Removing a sow or boar from breeding for age, poor litters, or repeat breeding failure, then selling it for slaughter. Cull-sow income is part of the breeding-herd budget; a sow that no longer pays her feed should not be sentimental.
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 prices that vary widely by region.
Feed Cost per Kilo Gain: FCR multiplied by feed price per kilo. At an FCR of 3.2 and ₱40/kg feed, every kilo the pig gains costs about ₱128 in feed alone. This single number tells you fast whether a batch can work at today’s prices.
Gross Margin: Sale value minus the direct costs of that batch (weaner, feed, meds, hauling), before fixed costs like pen depreciation. Backyard raisers usually track gross margin per head because it reacts directly to price and FCR.
Lechon: Whole roasted pig, the centerpiece of Philippine fiestas. Demand spikes around town fiestas and December, and lechon-size pigs — often 25–40 kg, native or native-cross — can fetch a clear premium over liveweight market price.; Tagalog: litson · Bisaya: litson
Lechon de Leche: A roasted suckling pig, usually 5–8 kg. Native and native-cross piglets at this size sell at a strong premium, which is part of why some raisers keep slow-growing native sows at all.
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.
Net Profit per Head: What is actually left per pig after every cost, including mortality spread over the survivors. A common backyard result swings between a small loss and roughly ₱500–₱2,000 per head depending on price and feed cost at sale.
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.; Tagalog: paiwi
Payback Period: How long until cumulative profit repays the upfront spend on pens, equipment, or breeding stock. Backyard pen investments that pay back inside four to six batches are generally worth it; much longer and price risk eats the plan.
Return on Investment (ROI): Profit as a percentage of the money you put in for the batch. A four-to-five month fattening cycle returning 15–25% on capital is a decent backyard outcome; negative ROI in a price slump is just as normal and worth planning for.
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.
Suggested Retail Price (SRP): A government price ceiling on pork at retail, set during shortages or ASF disruption. It targets market pork, not the farmgate price you receive — a wide gap between the two usually means middlemen, not raisers, are taking the spread.
Working Capital: The cash you need tied up from buying weaners until the pigs sell, mostly feed. Running out mid-cycle forces panic selling at light weight, which is one of the most common ways small raisers lose money on an otherwise fine batch.

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