Castration at 4 months?

Hi, I'm brand new to Permies (first post), homesteading, and raising swine.

I picked up four Tamworth piglets yesterday that are about four months old.  Long story short, one of them is an intact male.  In hindsight I should've left him, but he was clearly the biggest piglet and I figured worst case is he turns into freezer meat as soon as puberty hits.  But I'm raising these pigs to root up a pasture full of thistle and blackberry, so would much rather have him alive.  In theory I could still castrate him - it seems to me the key issue is getting him immobilized so I can perform surgery on his scrotum.  The best idea I've come up with so far (not saying it's a good one) is to drive two t-posts in the ground slightly wider than his hindquarters, then with a team of 3-4 people haul him upside-down between the posts and strap each hind leg to a post.

Any thoughts on my situation would be very welcome

Edit: I could also try to find a vet, but would prefer to save the $.  I'm also intrigued by this method of getting him intoxicated first: Permies reply

Hi Olaf;
I highly recommend taking him to a vet.
14 days or less is the recommended time to castrate without anesthesia.
Getting him drunk might help with the struggling but his squealing bloody murder is going to affect neighbors miles away...
The chance of infection is high...
The chance of him escaping mid "surgery"  is very high...
The chance of aspiring vet Olaf getting hurt is very high...
It could make a viral YouTube video of "Do Not Try This At Home..."

The money will be well spent taking him to a vet.

To add to Thomas’s comments, be sure to ask for the price when you call the vet. I have heard $10.00 ….And, I have heard $150.00.  

Be sure to call a large animal vet, if at all possible. A small animal vet surely hasn’t castrated an older pig, nor they really want to deal with a screaming, dangerous, pooping pig in a cage…..thus they will charge accordingly to compensate for the danger, mess, and aggrevation.

You could opt to leave him intact for now, allowing him to breed your sows when the time comes. Then you could be the one selling piglets to other people.

If left intact, I’d suggest taming him down a bit. But most people do that anyway. Get the pigs used to coming and following you. I borrowed a boar once, and when he jumped over the fence, I had no problem getting him back into the pen by him following his little yellow bucket full of cracked corn.

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Olaf;
I highly recommend taking him to a vet.
14 days or less is the recommended time to castrate without anesthesia.
Getting him drunk might help with the struggling but his squealing bloody murder is going to affect neighbors miles away...
The chance of infection is high...
The chance of him escaping mid "surgery"  is very high...
The chance of aspiring vet Olaf getting hurt is very high...
It could make a viral YouTube video of "Do Not Try This At Home..."

The money will be well spent taking him to a vet.

You're not wrong  I'll check around but figure it will be either difficult to find someone or very expensive or both.  I'll ask my only neighbor about local vets, they have a small zoo of farm animals including around 8 roosters, so doubt they'd be all that bothered by a squealing pig.  I was also gonna build him a separate secure pen with no mud and covered in hay where the operation would occur, and he can recuperate in a (relatively) clean space.  But yes, something could go badly with the DIY surgical operation.

P.S. "Quote" is how people reply here, or is there a better method?

Su Ba wrote:Be sure to call a large animal vet, if at all possible. A small animal vet surely hasn’t castrated an older pig, nor they really want to deal with a screaming, dangerous, pooping pig in a cage…..thus they will charge accordingly to compensate for the danger, mess, and aggrevation.

You could opt to leave him intact for now, allowing him to breed your sows when the time comes. Then you could be the one selling piglets to other people.

If left intact, I’d suggest taming him down a bit. But most people do that anyway. Get the pigs used to coming and following you. I borrowed a boar once, and when he jumped over the fence, I had no problem getting him back into the pen by him following his little yellow bucket full of cracked corn.

Good tip about the vets.

Regarding letting him become a boar for breeding, all the piglets are siblings and I've read it's generally not a great idea to breed them (i.e. first-degree inbreeding).  He also has no registry or lineage information, so probably not very desirable to other farmers.  So I think either castration or the freezer.  Although he does look like he'd make a good boar, I'm hoping a good barrow instead.