A system was designed to allow a small swine farm in a nothern latitude to use its own boars for artificial insemination (AI) conveniently. Semen was collected twice weekly for 3 day use (days 0,1 and 2), extended in an egg yolk extender and stored at 5ºC. Farm personnel were trained to manage the entrie AI programme. For simplicity all semen collected was used for insemination. In the first test 47 gilts and 15 sows were inseminated with semen from four boars. One boar was subfertile with a farrowing rate of 36%. The averages for the other boars ranged from 71 to 100%. Then semen was collected from seven boars and all was used to inseminate 70 gilts and 55 sows with 3 x 10 9 or more per litter. Litter size for sows was 1.5 piglets larger than for gilts. There was no difference in farrowing rate when more than 3 x 10 9 sperm were inseminated. The feasibility of initiating a complete AI programme within a small herd using herd boars was established. However, selection of the boars, use of only high quality semen, and experience with detecting oestrus was required to increase the farrowing rate. The use of various agents to protect sperm against cold shock below 15ºC is worthy of further investigation. a new type of electronic probe, which measure the conductivity of cervical mucus, could be helpful if a boar is not available for conventional detection of oestrus