Chad Dreyer

AI is from what I've been told a pretty involved process, I looked into it as well when I first started. Vertical breeding isn't such a bad deal in the animal kingdom and farmers have done it for years to get certain traits passed down to the offspring but I do know after a certain amount of years it's best to get new blood into the gene pool. There are books out there covering the topic in great detail but starting out you're not going to hurt anything breeding back to the father. You might try AI but I'd read up on it and talk to someone who has first before jumping on board...nature always does it better in my opinion.

If you have a small flock I'd recommend having them "disappear" to keep your numbers in check otherwise your egg production will be so low that you'd be raising pet chickens and not producing any real outcome from the animal. Feeding an animal w/o a purpose is nice if you can afford it but in my neck of the woods if it doesn't have a purpose than it ends up in the freezer or worse. Sounds barbaric but to keep a productive farm you can't have critters eating out of your pocket book just to keep them around for enjoyment. However...I do keep my children around so who am I to judge!

Well I'll try and answer in order:

1. Butchering one pig will be quite a bit of food for your family. We have 5 and one pig with a deer or two and we're good for the year. Two would be ok but they take up a bunch of space so don't forget about freezer/storage space.
2. Selective breeding can be done with mixed breeds of pigs or crosses just as well as heritage breeds. See which ones grow faster and save those for breeding purposes. The boar has 1/2 to do with it so unless you get a good proven boar to start with you might find this harder to control.
3. Pigs unless rotated around in paddocks are hard to use to build up quality in soil. Stocking density is the key...and that varies a lot as well. Pigs are rototillers by nature so allow as much space per pig as you can and have some seed handy to follow rotations so the bare land they leave behind doesn't erode. If you're setting up your paddocks, get them set up first if that is your goal, and rotate by eyes...meaning if it looks like they need switched, do it. Otherwise you could have a pasture to raise them in but the nutrients will take longer to build up over a large area and pigs will not disperse "crap" equally for you...they'll typically pick a spot they prefer and dump in that general area.
4. Be careful of this. I've done this and unless you have every detail worked out (costs, butchering, packaging, delivery, which pig is who's) then it can get dicey in a hurry. On a small scale like ours I use an input method on charging...what goes into raising each pig from birth/bought to slaughter. Then I add my fees for raising the animal. Time is not free so don't sell yourself short. I typically charge about $100 plus input so I make $100 per pig at slaughter. People in my area have come out of the woodwork wanting pigs, chickens, and whatever else I have on the farm so be ready to say "no" if you get hit hard with inquiries.
5. Feeder pigs are what most do in my area and they bring in a good price...I'd lean heavy on that before selling breeding stock...but that's just me. If I have a good breeder I'm not selling her, she'd building up my own herd.

Hope it's clear as mud!

I've read so many books/articles about managing the flock that I gave up and just do what works for us. I have about 30 hens and a couple roosters. I let the girls go broody when they want to and we don't keep lights on in the Winter. We have several breeds (on purpose) and the oldest of the girls are two years old. We keep them in a coop with a large run and let them out to run the farm when I get home from work and lock them up at dark. The girls normally raise about 10-12 chicks to maturity on their own so we don't supplement with ordering new birds to keep the age demographics in balance. Once the oldest of my layers hit 4 years I'll start culling them for meat. I do get chick fever sometimes and will get a new breed just for the fun of it and I like to keep two different breeds of roosters around...just keep the ratio around 1 roo to doz hens and you should be good...they'll peck it out for a bit but will fall in their place before too long. I always learned more from asking others how they run their operation so I hope this helped a little.

So what are your plans with the pigs? Do you have a goal in mind? That will help narrow down your answers. I'm not an expert by any means but have been around pigs and raised a few to help you at least get started in the right direction.