Ear Notches

When pigs are born, they are usually born in a litter of ten or more. If there are many sows this makes for many, many piglets. Ear notching is a tool used for farmers that makes identifying pigs easy. A few days after pigs are born, they get vaccines, an iron shot (pigs are born with low iron), and they get ear notched. The right ear is their litter number (sows number on her own right ear), and the left ear is their pig number from the litter. Some breeders number randomly, or base it on biggest pig gets number one and they work their way to the smallest pig being number ten, etc. Some breeders do not notch at all because of time purposes, but it makes things much easier if there is a problem genetically, or just keeping track of piglets and pedigrees in the show line.

Each spot on the ear represents a different number:

This pigs number is 2-4, litter 2, pig number 4.

This is what pig's ears would look like if we did not ear notch.