Breed Advantages

Advantages of Gloucestershire Old Spots
The Gloucestershire Old Spots is a traditional breed suited to extensive production systems. Its lack of suitability to intensive systems served to turn it into a rare breed for almost all of its history.

The advantages can be summed up as follows:

GOS make excellent mothers.
GOS make excellent mothers.
  • Docile – making it a suitable choice for first time pig keepers and an important consideration for larger operations.
  • Hardy – the breed is kept in many parts of the UK where extremes of temperatures and weather patterns are experienced.
  • Good dams – the GOS is a milky breed and a good dam. In many cases, sows will continue breeding at a greater age than many other breeds and hybrids.
  • Quality Pork & Bacon – there is a huge demand for the high quality meat produced by GOS pigs. Experience shows that good management can produce good quality carcases without excessive fat coverage (more…)
  • They make an ideal crossing breed. Put to a white breed, the offspring will be white with the advantage of hybrid vigour.
outside
GOS are ideally suited to non-intensive systems
snow
GOS are a tough and hardy breed able to withstand extremes of climate in the UK.

 

Did You Know? The most expensive pig in Britain, according to the Guinness Book of Records, was Foston Sambo 21, a Gloucestershire Old Spots boar, which sold at auction in 1994 for 4,000 guineas (£4,200).

Foston Sambo 21st - Britain's most expensive pig!
Foston Sambo 21st – Britain’s most expensive pig!