UPDATES as of August 25, 2021  

Well it has been another interesting spring of 2021. A lot has happened this year and will try to put it all in chronological order. Lucy lost her litter in January. We retired her.  

Ayita, Daisy, Coco and Penny all had litters. We had a total of mid- twenties in weaned piglets. CoCo will be taken out of the breeding pool again with possible retirement. She has been a super mama sow at 5 ½ years old and 7 litters.

Chalupa unexpectedly developed issues and had to be retired.  He produced some really good looking piglets.  

We have a new boar. He came from Shaffers Goldrush in Indiana. We named him Sampson. He is a grandson of Taco Truck on dam’s side and his sire is Transformer. He was born in December 2020. He is just now beginning to fill out and is looking good.

We have brought 2 new gilts into our breeding program. They are Nikita and Cheyenne. They are full blooded sisters out of Penny and War Cry and were born October 2020.

Ayita and Penny will be used as our breeding pairs for this fall. We used some different bloodlines for our fall litters. Ayita was bred with Deep End semen from Upperhand Genetics in Indiana. Penny was bred with our new boar Sampson. Nikita was bred with Sampson. These 3 females if they take will give birth the first week of October. Cheyenne is bred with Sampson and should give birth the first week of November.

We have a new picture of Sampson on the Breeders page.

 UPDATES as of December 2, 2020  

Hello everyone.  Hopefully everyone is healthy.  Earlier this year we added a vertical mixer and small hammer mill.  We are now able to buy ingredients for our feed recipe in bulk and mix everything from scratch.   We know without a doubt, what all is in our feed.  I taste each batch of feed to help ensure consistency from one batch to the next. This includes taking whole corn down to a corn meal and whole oats down to oat flour.  This is drastically reducing our cost for feed.  

We added another duplex farrowing hut, 8 ft by 16 ft.  It is partitioned down the middle with fencing in one corner so piglets can get away from mama.

We have had four litters this fall.  It is the most litters we have had in a season on the farm so far.  We had a total of 30 live piglets and deposits for nearly all of them.  Daisy was bred with our boar Chalupa.  Ayita had her first litter.  She was bred with Chalupa.  We brought CoCo out of retirement.  She was bred with Chalupa.  Penny was Artificially Inseminated with War Cry semen from Shaffer’s Goldrush in Indiana.  We have had a few deposits for breeding pairs.  Those pairs are coming out of CoCo and Penny.  We are looking to keep a couple of gilts from Penny as possible replacement gilts. 

We are very pleased with the way the piglets look.  Lucy did not take with the breeding.  We bred her again in September.  If she took this time, she will give birth in January.  

We bred CoCo and Ayita with Chalupa.  We bred Daisy with Okie.  We artificially inseminated Penny with War Cry semen from Shaffer’s Goldrush in Indiana.  We did the same with Penny for our fall litters and got some really good looking piglets.   All pigs were bred within a 10 day period.  If all sows took, we should have piglets in the middle of March.  Lucy is a wildcard.  We bred her in September.  If she took, she will have piglets the first week of January.  

New pictures have been added to Piglets for Sale and updated pictures of Chalupa and Ayita on the Breeders Page.  There are new pictures of the stages of building for the new duplex hut.  There are also new pictures of our "new to us" vertical mixer and hammer mill on the About page

 UPDATES as of April 8, 2020  

Rain, rain, rain, please go away and come back in July and August when we will really need it.  We hope and pray that everyone is staying safe and healthy.  It has been a little while for an update and everyone who visits our webpage deserves to know how things are going.  We bought a new boar in December of 2019.  His name is Chalupa.  His sire was Taco Truck, who also has a son named Taco Supreme.  Taco Truck is no longer living.  You can see pictures of these two at shaffergoldrush.com.  Chalupa was born in August and we have never had a pig on our farm that looks like him.  We are very pleased.  He is very broad in the shoulders and wide in the hips with huge hams.  We believe he will be a game changer in a good way for our farm. Pictures of Chalupa will be added to our Breeders page in the very near future.  We have had lots of compliments on our pigs at the farm, with several winners at the County and State fairs.    

We kept one of Coco’s piglets from the October 2019 litter as a replacement.  Her name is Ayita.  The name Ayita is Native American meaning First to Dance and is pronounced aa-YIY-Taa-.  Her sire was War Cry from Shaffer’s Goldrush.  We plan on breeding her in May or June for fall piglets.

Now onto our spring piglets.  Daisy was Artificially Inseminated with Taco Supreme semen from Shaffer’s Goldrush.  She gave birth to a total of five piglets with four alive on March 24.  There is one female and three males.  All have been spoken for.  Penny was bred with our boar Chalupa.  She is due May 26.  It is later in the spring than we usually like to have piglets, but we are needing that second litter.  

Lucy has had some trouble coming back into heat.  We will try her one more time in May or June.  

Okie and Rosco are both for sale.  Okie is 2 years 7 months old and Rosco is his son and is 1 year 4 months old.  

We bought a vertical mixer this year.  Just recently, we were able to start using it after putting new bearings on the auger and new seals everywhere to keep the dust from getting out.  We are very pleased with it and it cuts some of our labor in half.  We have plans of adding some additional equipment so we can do even more mixing of our feed at home to further reduce our cost each month.

  UPDATES as of November 18, 2019

This spring we sold a gilt to a girl in Caddo Parish, Louisiana. She won 1st Place in Purebred Division in her class, 3rd overall, 1st in class in Showmanship and 2nd overall Showmanship. We sold another gilt to a young man in Perry County, Arkansas. He won First Place in Purebred Division, and 2nd in Market Division. We sold another gilt to a girl in Clay County, Arkansas. She won 1st Place and Grand Champion in Purebred Division. We had a total of 4 gilts sold from our farm that went onto the Arkansas State Fair in Little Rock. We are very proud of these young farmers and Congratulations to all of you. Pictures will be coming soon to the Winners page.

We have 3 new litters on the ground right now. Penny was bred with our boar Rosco. She had a total of 14 born and 10 alive. CoCo was artificially inseminated with War Cry semen from Shaffer’s Goldrush in Indiana. She had a total of 5 born and 3 alive. Daisy was bred with our boar Rosco. She had a total of 12 born and 12 alive. We had a few that were either stepped on, layed upon, or just simply did not make it. At current count we still have 19. There are a total of 7 females and 12 males. All females have been spoken for with deposits. There are 3 boars and 4 barrows not spoken for so far.

CoCo will be retired after this litter. She had a hard time farrowing. She will be 4 years old in January and weighed 720 pounds after farrowing. She had a total of 5 litters with 46 born and 43 alive. She has been an absolute joy to raise and have on the farm. We will be keeping one of her gilts as a replacement. She will have piglets a year from now.

We kept one of Penny’s spring gilts, Lucy. We showed her at the South Logan County Fair. Our plan is to Artificial Inseminate her this month for spring piglets. Daisy and Penny will both be bred this month. Hopefully all 3 litters will be born in March.

        UPDATES as of September 16, 2019 

Penny and Daisy are both bred with Roscoe.  He is an offspring of Okie and Duchess, born November 17, 2018.  CoCo was Artificially Inseminated with War Cry semen from Shaffer’s Goldrush in Indiana.  We are expecting litters from CoCo and Penny the first week of October.  Daisy’s litter is due the third week of October.   As of this writing, we have 15 deposits with only 2 for feeder pigs.   We have customers coming from Virginia and South Carolina as well as several in Arkansas.  We are hoping for between 24 and 36 piglets.   If you are interested in our piglets please contact us and send in your deposits to hold a piglet in your name.  We look forward to meeting all of our customers in person.  

        UPDATES as of June 11, 2019 

Once again we would like to thank all the people who have bought our pigs from us. Good luck to all the kids at your County, District and State Fairs. We look forward to adding more pictures to our Winners page. This spring we had two litters. One from Penny and one from Daisy. All piglets have been sold and picked up. As of this writing we still have a boar that was born November 17, 2018. His dam and sire are Duchess and Okie. We may be using him this spring for fall piglets. Still to be determined. We had a storm a few weeks ago that dropped 20 trees on our property. Our house, shop, extra building, all hog huts and all pigs made it unscathed. We do have to replace 4 fencing panels at the pig pens. We are currently in the process of breeding our 3 females. Our plan is to have two different bloodlines for this fall, so customers interested in a breeding pair can be accommodated. We are working on Artificial Inseminating CoCo. Daisy and Penny are full blooded sisters. They will either be bred with our boar Okie and or his offspring born November 17, 2018. We have had a lot of interest in our fall litters, so send in your deposits early to hold a piglet in your name.

        UPDATES as of February 18, 2019 

Thank you to all the visitors to our webpage and to those who have inquired about them.  Penny had her first litter on February 6, 2019.  She had a total of 12 with 9 still alive.  Of those 9, 6 are females and 3 males.  As of this writing, none of the females have been spoken for.  All males have been spoken for with deposits.  It is sometimes difficult to tell when a pig is pregnant.  Daisy did not take, her first two breedings.  Currently, if she has taken, she will farrow the first week of April.  Coco did not take with the Artificial Insemination.  We bred her with Okie.  She had some complications as well.  If she took, she will farrow around the second week of April.  Sadie, unfortunately, developed health issues and had to be retired.  We were hoping for some really good piglets from her.  She will be missed by all who knew her.    

        UPDATES as of November 20th, 2018 

Fall is a busy time of year with litters being born, breeding for spring litters and getting ready for winter with extra hay or shavings in huts for warmth and heat lamps for little ones as well as a whole host of other chores. Yes our pigs are spoiled and pampered to the core! We wouldn’t have it any other way and that is why they are HAPPY HEREFORD HOGS.

Our first fall litter was on October 11, 2018 with the parents being CoCo and Okie. She had a total of 8 piglets, 5 males and 3 females. All have been spoken for except for one female as of this date.

Our second litter was on November 17, 2018 with parents being Duchess and Okie. She had a total of 4 piglets, 3 males and 1 female. None have been spoken for as of this date. We will leave the largest one or two males intact as boars to be sold as breeders.

One of the gilts we sold in the spring went on to the State Fair in Little Rock, Arkansas and won Grand Champion in the Market Division Hereford Class and Grand Champion Purebred Division Hereford Class. Her name is Sadie. We bought her back and she is currently bred with Okie and will have early March piglets from her. Another gilt was sold to a 10 year old girl in Louisiana. She won Grand Champion at a county fair and was used by her owner to win 2nd place in Showmanship with only a 10th grader beating her. CONGRATULATIONS TO THESE WINNERS. Pictures will be coming soon on the WINNERS page.

Penny and Daisy are both bred with Okie and expecting piglets from them early February and mid March.

We Artificially Inseminated CoCo with Taco Truck semen from Shaffer’s Gold Rush in Indiana. We are expecting piglets from her in mid March.