Independence Homestead

We continue our piglet series where we highlight the care of piglets. Today we’re talking about ear tagging piglets.

Why

Why would you want to tag a piglet? Because you don’t want to tag a full-grown pig! If you think you may ever want a pig tagged, tag the pig as a piglet. Trying to hold and tag an adult pig is not something I’d ever want to do.

Why put an ear tag on a pig in the first place? Ear tags identify pigs, and there are several reasons you may want to do that. If you’re planning on keeping the pig as a breeder, the ear tag will allow you to track that pig. You’ll be able to keep records on that pig and its breeding: when it farrowed, the number of piglets born, etc. If the offspring will be registered, ear tags are invaluable in ensuring accuracy on the pedigree.

If the pigs is a feeder pig, destined to be meat, the ear tag can be a helpful identifier at the processor. Sometimes you want different pigs processed differently. Maybe you want one to be primarily sausage, while another is destined to become roasts and bacon. The ear tag allows you to communicate to the processor what he or she should do with which pig. If you’re selling half or whole hogs, the ear tag allows a buyer to claim a certain hog and get that selected animal’s meat.

How

First, get your supplies. We use an Allflex Total Tagger from Jeffers. Since our American Guinea Hogs are smaller than conventional hogs, we went with Allflex Sheep/Goat Ear Tags. While there are all kinds of personalized tags possible, I just went with basic numbered tags. That’s enough to tell the animals apart, which is all I need. I chose yellow tags since it’s a bright color that’s easy to see.

Now that you have your tools, you’re ready to go. Compared to castrating, ear tagging is a piece of cake! It is still a two person job, though.

First, use feed to distract the piglet. One person then grabs it. The other person uses a tagging gun and tag, holds the ear, and tag! Then release the pig. While it’s simple enough, it doesn’t give extra hands for picture taking, so sorry there are no pictures of the job!

In the picture below you can see one of our piglets with his yellow ear tag.

I wish I had started ear tagging when we first had piglets. We ended up regretting it later when the pigs were adults. Hopefully this little post shows you just how easy it is!

Read all of the posts in our piglets series here.