[violet]

I'm having a bit of a crisis 

Based here in the West coast highlands - it is becoming increasing apparant that weaners do not sell at this time of year.
As it's so wet & boggy I guess that's hardly surprising really.

I know that it's best to keep my sows pregnant or they'll get infertile, a fellow breeder has had personal experience of this happening too. But I cann't afford to overwinter 2 litters of weaners either. Not only financially, but the impact on the ground & the market for meat here is rather small too.
Having gone to some expense getting my breeding stock - I'm really quite gutted about it all. If I stop breeding I wouldn't be able to buy weaners!
Our nearest agricultural auction house ( Dingwall) don't sell pigs.
Stirling are making enquiries & my pigs were too young for Thainstone. Travelling to the borders or Carlisle - seems rather extreme right now & I think I have missed the deadline.
I have reached the point were I would rather sell at a loss then have to overwinter them, but then there is no point in doing it all then, is there?
It's becoming a bit of a vicious circle.

I have no problem at all selling my weaners in the spring - in fact some are already booked.
Having said that, locally there is some suspicion about the whole pedigree BPA thing - but that is quite normal for crofters

So I am now thinking that the best way forward for me is too sell all my spring litters and not hold any back for my own meat use/business. Then just keep the autumn litters for meat & sell the surplus if there are no buyers ( at a loss) through sales hundreds of miles and many hours away ( but still cheaper & less time consuming then over wintering them). To do this of course I need to alter my sows breeding cycles so that weaners are ready for the sales.

Would be really really interested to know others ideas, opinions & how you have solved similar problems. Please be gentle with me though 'cos like I said I'm having a crisis 

[robert waddell]

to tiered to go into this tonight(just back from englandshire) but could you expand on the suspicion about pedigree bpa thing?

[SallyintNorth]

I am kind of expecting the same dilemma - Meg's due to farrow this month and I am not holding out a great deal of hope that they'll be queuing up to take on weaners in these very wet parts in November...  And if I can sell any, they'll probably have to be going to a shed or stable, not to be free range - or at least not until spring.

We are near Carlisle but they don't sell pigs there.  The nearest to us that do are Lanark or Kendal.  Weaners don't seem to fetch very much money there...  and of course you've no idea what sort of conditions they'll be going to.

If we have to we'll foster out our spare ones (at our expense) and hope to sell the meat in the late spring - which could work out well.  Or not...

So, sorry I can't help - but I sure can empathise and will be watching with interest to see how you get on!

[Collie26]

Thats just about whats happening to us, appart from we cannot shift a single piglet not even cheaply and even then, by doing so isnt worthwhile. So we have cut down to one breeding sow from 4 and only have a litter ready for the chirstmas meat market because we simply cannot sell anything!! And relatives would rather pay a butcher for pork than buy ours, but thats another story and rant

We have tried selling to farmshops but it doesnt even cover the price of the food to raise them, so we raise a litter for chirstmas and our own comsuption

[violet]

Thanks for your replies,

I'm rather relieved that it's not just a west coast highland thing - but one that may be of rurality (by that I mean distance in time from major services rather than actual location).
Collie26 our families are the same! I have some wonderful customers who really believe in what I'm doing and are prepared to pay for it even though they aren't neccesarily that well off when my own blood..................... well like you say that's another rant! 
Oh dear Sally, I thought that Carlisle did do pigs! what a shame. Dingwall did do for a while, but then stopped - probably DEFRA issues. The fostering out idea seems interesting.
I have just 2 Tamworth sows and a boar. I have used AI before and am considering just keeping one sow and doing that. It's such a dilemma - I love my pigs 

Robert, I think it is the officialdom. I'm sure we're all familiar with those who contact us without CPH numbers  But here I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Profit margins are tight enough in livestock, through in the remoteness of where we are & once you have travelled to a sale room to sell your lifestock you can't really afford to take them home and often are selling at a loss - circumstances that the supermarkets & other big buyers have taken advantage of for years. Then the goverment offers this grant and that support but only if you do things in a certain way like get pedigree animals - which all adds to the cost - which is not really recovered because the big boys are still taking advantage.................. We're penalised every which way here really   Consequently Crofters have developed their own way of dealing with things, but progress is slow but steady ( the crofting label for example)  & pigs are just for the pot really, not commercial livestock.
 

[SallyintNorth]

The fostering out idea seems interesting.

At worst the piggies get a good life (and death) and I have to sell the meat.  I do have some orders already, but not a whole litter's-worth.

At best, some of the fosterers will be willing to eat each other's rearlings so I have increased the market for the meat! 

My local butcher will buy some if I can get the fat 'probe depth' down to around 12mm.  I think this must be achievable (and would mean feeding less, so reducing costs) but it could take me some time to get the knack of it...  Gaby was 20mm, which given that I had started rearing her for breeding so was not specifically aiming at a porker until later on, I thought wasn't bad at all. 

[violet]

I have a similar problem Sally, selling the meat too. My family expect freebies & though I've asked them ( & they live in the south-east), they simply haven't put word out round their friends & our extended family down there.
Here we have a really small community which consists of several villages strung along the coast & I've still managed to sell 8 of the pigs I overwintered which is double what I had ordered, but I still have 4 in the freezer. I've donated some as gifts/prizes to various good causes locally & to those who've been good to us along the way & even managed some trade exchange including massages & sheep hurdles ( having got too carried away with this in the past I will only do it if I know that both of us are happy to do so & would be buying the item anyhow).
I tried the 'adopt-a-pig' scheme but have had little interest to date.
We thought of a type of fostering where the pigs are used for clearing someones ground - personally I think that this is a service so the 'fosterer' should pay for the food though we would provide the fencing & shelter - this is where we came unstuck really as it could work out really expensive for us. I just haven't sat back down & thought it through again & how to market it & to ensure that they are being fed & looked after adequately.
But it is something to work on - I think 
My butcher was impressed with my last pigs, but hasn't offered anything & I haven't asked - I'll leave that to him..............he would need to register with the BPA really. But it is reassuring when they do make positive comments, 'cos you know that your doing something right.
12mm isn't much really is it, my o/w ones were about that after a very cold winter, personally I would prefer a bit more fat, but it is achievable - and a good option for you, I hope he's offering you a good rate.   
 

[robert waddell]

ok then not much help and assistance already  but here goes
the big thing with pigs is if you have 2 they can become 22 likewise 4 become 44 etc etc   2 does not take that much feeding and any field could support these 2 but when they become 22 that is when the feeding costs escalate and that green field quickly becomes brown and they are up to there tits in it  so breading is not to be gone into lightly
the slabber aspect well not all farms are suited to outdoor pigs so some concrete is necessary or indoor housing
only you can market your pigs and piglets            with you being a tamworth breeder why don't you make the effort to come to the agm you just might get some ideas as the farm visit is well worth the effort this year (coventry and not deepest darkest wiltshire sorry to all who come from there the chocolate box houses are very nice)
i would advise against bringing your pigs to lanark  save yourself the diesel and shoot them you will only be making some body else money this also applies to big pigs why sell for diddly squat and some body double there money with a phone call
now don't thing that all pig prices are down at beetson sale yesterday welsh pigs were selling well some others were not but quality and breeding had a lot to do with it 520 guineas top price
all pigs are for the pot do you think the make shoes with the commercially reared one
selling to butchers that is a skill on it own they would rather buy a commercial pig than buy yours as commercial pigs are cheaper and leave more proffit in it for them  as with all farming products just look at potatoes they were £80 a ton of the field can you get a 25 kilo bag for £2    no chance £8.50 a bag
now i may be in heaven with being in central Scotland and not that far to travel to these areas of rich pickings as opposed to you in the highlands but we all have to modify our ideas to fit in with our location
there is opportunity's you just have to create them there is confidence in the pig world with more new breeders starting every week
spare a thought for these commercial breeders that are moving 500 pigs a week and loosing £10-£20 per pig 

[violet]

i would advise against bringing your pigs to lanark  save yourself the diesel and shoot them you will only be making some body else money this also applies to big pigs why sell for diddly squat and some body double there money with a phone call

  Thanks Robert, my husband would agree with you wholeheartedly on this one.
And I am quite good at maths  It's the subtraction side I was more interested in though so everything became nicely balanced and I could remain in cloud cuckoo land   
Yes I know I'm feeling sorry for myself and would rather be somewhere with considerably less boggy - especially as winter is approaching - more rapidly that I expected - as I was still blissfully fooling myself it was summer...........................But that isn't going to happen because as frustrated as I may get I love it here really.
And I know that where ever you are & what ever you do that there a whole heap of different problems. I do feel for the commercial guys - supermarkets are a blinking pain - which is why I would rather sell direct & cut out the middle man.
So it's a case of cutting my cloth.    But I don't want to cut it so much that when/if things pick up I have to start completely from scratch. So either we ride it out, make cuts or find an alternative way of marketing them. Which is what I'm trying to work out.
I love pigs ( especially Tamworths) I love pork ( especially Tamworth). And I would be better off with just my chickens & sheep............. but just buying in weaners wouldn't be particularly cost effective and as I said I love 
So you see I keep going round in circles wondering what to do.     and yes concrete is very appealing................................
I would love to come to the AGM, but I have family as well as financial commitments/problems which are pretty much central to everything really.
Have the usual rounds of poultry & sheep sales, animals to slaughter, meat to sell between now & Christmas, as well as my veg boxes.............
But I will see what I can do. Cheers   

[calamityjane]

we were at lanark and 2 sales ago a kune sow n boar went for 90 the pair the white pig i think went for the same the last sale the pigs weren't selling any better 2 sales ago berkshire pigs weaners? were going as cheap as £25 pounds we didn't have our cph number at the first sale went for hens i was a tad disappointed at the prices

[robert waddell]

the two kunnies    the owner wanted them out the road  the guy that bought the boar was going to hire one for his girls so he saved some money the big problem with lanark is do they take them back home if they don't sell it is a vicious circle and one big reason why the cost of weaner's is so low everybody say o you can get them for a fiver at lanark  well fork of to lanark and get them
it costs about £700 a year to keep a pig what ever way you work it   it costs £40 -£80 per piglet to break even on just keeping sows
there is very little money in pig breeding even with pedigree breeding
there was a guy came down from the highlands to lanark and sold his weaner's and did not even cover half his diesel for the journey down
it is all a bit of an eye opener for them

[SallyintNorth]

We are near Carlisle but they don't sell pigs there. 

Well!  Turns out I was wrong!  There are OSBs and others being sold at the Rare Breeds Sale at Carlisle Borderway Mart on 17th September.  Funnily enough, the OSBs are from the breeder I got Meg & Gaby from!