What's the best way to actually turn a profit with pigs?

[Old Boar]

Small production - birth to bacon - make a profit
Medium production - weaner to pork weight - make a loss
Huge factory production - birth to all weights - make a profit most of the time, but huge overheads.

 

[Newby]

Small production - birth to bacon - make a profit
Medium production - weaner to pork weight - make a loss
Huge factory production - birth to all weights - make a profit most of the time, but huge overheads.

What sort of numbers are you talking? Small, medium and huge are very subjective depending on who you speak to.

 

[roscoe erf]

At college we were taught about the Pig Cycle, where the value of pigmeat is driven by supply and demand, in the absence of perversion through subsidies.

Price is poor, producers drop out, supply drops, price increases, producers grow numbers, supply increases, price is poor etc etc

A bit like milk prices, but worse.

thats just a standard farming cycle

 

[dannewhouse]

I thought profit or loss was the difference in buying your corn on contract at the right time/ right price rather than anything else you do? <that's what a chicken man told me and I'm assuming the same applies?

 

[Greenbeast]

What sort of numbers are you talking? Small, medium and huge are very subjective depending on who you speak to.

We are 'small', 10-15 sows, all product sold direct (i've never taken anything to market), or through 'affluent' farm shops

 

[Suffolk Serf]

I thought profit or loss was the difference in buying your corn on contract at the right time/ right price rather than anything else you do? <that's what a chicken man told me and I'm assuming the same applies?

That's true. I take a risk managed approach to raw material buying. I buy my feed through a buying group and we pool our raw material requirements to get a big tonnage and then take a percentage forward cover in chunks at opportune moments.
This way we aim to even out the peaks and troughs.

 

[Pan mixer]

I buy half ahead, then I am half right.

 

[Chasingmytail]

We've done small scale had a few at one time Sows and hundreds of piglets which were a nightmare to get rid of. That's all gone now a few years ago bought in 6 to fatten. Sold 3 direct to butcher and had other 3 back and it was so hard to sell. No one want half a pig around here. I had a time waster who kept telling me he was on his way but never arrived. I sold 1 to a friend and ended up with 2 in the freezer. Being organic meant that we had to sell the whole pig for £360 to make £60 profit and that's a random figure that doenst account for so much.

We saved money by having them outdoors for sure. They had a massive area so wasn't a mess. Just filled the feeder and they rooted. Only a handful of straw used. Man hours iust a few. Issue with small scale is the buying feeds and being organic meant that paying an additional £50 on courier. All veg and whey when I had it.

Having pig on a hill worked but disadvantage is was too wet to get them back down! So the blighters were huge by the time it dried up to get tractor and trailer up there.

Coming up for BBQ season just make lots of sausages, belly pork slices, leg joints and steaks. But ensure you price it right otherwise you've done it for nothing. If you can get people to buy bulk then you are saving.

 

[Chasingmytail]

so we now only raise pigs for our own table - saying that if you can get quality sausages made you can keep the joints and sell the slower cuts for sausages.

 

[Woolless]

I've been finishing about 70 per week of pigs sired by Berkshires, for a niche deal with a local abattoir.
The meat is tastes absolutely superb, it has a lot of intramuscular fat and a lot of backfat, 30mm or so.
Due to the fat level, the stuff has been almost unsaleable, so the job is coming to an end. The shopper buys with their eyes and the meat trade has become very blinkered by low fat. The stuff tastes absolutely exceptional. Some of the worst pork that i've ever eaten was pure Gloucester Old Spot, lots of fat on the outside but none in the muscle.

Is it Durocs that have high levels of intramuscular fat?

Those pigs you've been fattening sound fantastic. Pity you're not just down the road!