Additional Swine Activities, years 3 and beyond
Choose three of these activities each year after the first two years.
Date done Signature
• Tell what to look for when choosing animals for breeding
hog projects.
• Name at least six breeds of swine raised in Pennsylvania.
• Identify at least six breeds of hogs from their photos or
from seeing live hogs.
• Describe the important characteristics of your breed of
swine.
• Visit a fair or show and listen to the swine judge give
reasons for placing classes of breeding pigs the way he or
she did.
• List three signs that a gilt or sow is in heat.
• Artificially inseminate a sow.
• Show a bred gilt at the Pennsylvania Farm Show.
• Visit a breeding stock sale to look for pigs that might
make suitable project animals.
• Visit a large breeding swine facility and learn about its
feeding and watering system. Also observe how the
owner keeps the pigs comfortable.
• Find out what veterinary examinations and documents are
needed to show a pig at a state show, such as the
Pennsylvania Farm Show.
• Describe diseases that can cause reproductive problems
in swine.
• Prepare a health management plan for properly
vaccinating your sow or gilt.
• Select a boar from an AI catalog based on performance
data. Defend your decision.
• Explain to your leader why lactating sows need more
feed than do gestating sows.
• Describe three signs that a sow is near farrowing.
• Start your own library of books, leaflets, and magazines
about breeding swine.
• Make a kit filled with first-aid supplies and equipment
needed to keep your swine healthy.
• Demonstrate how to correctly read ear notches.
• Castrate boars from a litter of baby pigs.
• Collect equipment needed to artificially inseminate a sow
• Collect equipment needed to process a litter of baby
pigs..