The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: harry on September 24, 2012, 08:37:34 pm
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took my last 2 pigs for slaughter today. what will happen next spring,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, i heard on the radio this morning how pork is going to double in price next year,,,,, feed which is now £100 a ton will be £200 a ton in 2013 as feed is 70% of rearing cost prices will rocket...... many large producers have killed their breeding stock and are ripping down buildings already..... for people like myself with a handfull of pigs i suppose the trick will be getting feed free or cheap ie veg etc. so i also think i will stick with my free range kune kunes timing may also be a consideration ie when carrots beet and apples are plentifull, and no winter pigs.
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I'm sure a lot of people, myself included, would like to know where this £100 a ton pig feed can be got from? Or indeed the £200 a ton stuff for that matter.
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just imagine the kunnies feeding the nation :roflanim: maybe harry is living in the past with his feed costs :roflanim: sorry cant help it :roflanim:
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I'm sure a lot of people, myself included, would like to know where this £100 a ton pig feed can be got from? Or indeed the £200 a ton stuff for that matter.
add the 2 prices together and your nearer the mark my last price was £317 a ton
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My last lot £330/tonne bagged & delivered. Ouch.
Sunday papers had all this doom & gloom for the pig industry in them too, makes you wonder if theres a PR machine somewhere in govt trying to get rid of the British pig herd or is that me just been a conspiratoral theorist!
mandy :pig:
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at the present time British pork is dearer to produce than foreign pork just wait till there is next to none in Britain they will find out how cheap the foreign pork is then
beef when they had BSE every time the price recovered to a reasonable return all over the TV again price dwindled i think this happened 3 times :farmer:
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My last lot £330/tonne bagged & delivered. Ouch.
Sunday papers had all this doom & gloom for the pig industry in them too, makes you wonder if theres a PR machine somewhere in govt trying to get rid of the British pig herd or is that me just been a conspiratoral theorist!
mandy :pig:
I agree with you Mandy - tho my OH says I'm a conspiratoral theorist too :eyelashes:
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Everything is cheaper to produce abroad robert. Look at all our clothes that are manufactured abroad and then brought back to the uk whilst british manufacturing companies are going out of business. Look at the call centres in india etc as it is cheaper to run. But then we know the uk government never look after their own
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funny you should mention the call centres i get a very friendly Asian that keeps calling me :roflanim:
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Everything is cheaper to produce abroad robert. Look at all our clothes that are manufactured abroad and then brought back to the uk whilst british manufacturing companies are going out of business. Look at the call centres in india etc as it is cheaper to run. But then we know the uk government never look after their own
You are absolutely correct that lots of things whether it be clothes or services are cheaper elsewhere. At the end of the day their is a reason for this, cost are lower and in many instances this is because of poor working conditions and or low labour rates.
My day job is in IT and we have people from India working alongside us for a limited time before returning to India. I know first hand the conditions that they live and work in. Even when they are in accommodation here, it is several people living together in a room that to our standards is totally unacceptable. (without naming names, the IT company I work for is a household name and everyone reading this will know them)
Look at the pice of clothes manufactured around the globe, whether we like or accept it or not, lots will have been made by children or at least people working in extremely poor conditions.
In the engineering sector (another household name I could mention) with bases around the world (US, Brazil, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong etc), in the far east cost rates are very low. Working conditions are good but the hours they work are excessive.
Cheap goods or services comes at a price somewhere along the lines ....
Pete
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Everything is cheaper to produce abroad robert. Look at all our clothes that are manufactured abroad and then brought back to the uk whilst british manufacturing companies are going out of business. Look at the call centres in india etc as it is cheaper to run. But then we know the uk government never look after their own
british manufacturing comapnys arent 'going' out of business theyve GONE out of business, that went years ago. along with steel and everything else.
now the labour costs in india and china are increasing we may start getting some of it back. as has happened with the call centers.
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P6te, yes that maybe so, unfortunately though they bring in the business through the reasons you mention :rant:
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If the big pork producers are packing up then despite rising food costs will there not be an oppotunity for the smallholder who can keep just a few pigs? I say "few" pigs because I am thinking a small plot of land could produce a most food with only the protein nuts bought in.
It is a lot of work to plant up enough pumpkins, spuds and veg to support 2-3 pigs and you need the time to gather fruit, chestnuts and acorns but that was the way of it some years ago,
I do the above and do not overwinter.
I hope to collect some brewers grains this Friday and make that a regular thing.
next year I will plant up a larger area with pumpkins ( collected the seed already), use more of my neighbours land and her tractor for spuds and get the flour mill going.
Can those of you who keep large numbers of pigs suggest ways to reduce the ammount of bought in food ?
Tthere must be a model for feeding a couple of pigs that makes economic sense ( especially if you can save on expensive butchering and sausage making costs).
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It is a lot of work............................ especially if you can save on expensive butchering and sausage making costs.
In a nutshell, most of us have other jobs that we work at besides keeping our pigs and there sometimes just aren't enough hours in the day as it is. I would love to have time to do all the things you suggest MAK but unfortunately that won't pay the mortgage or the bills, i DO grow as much food as i can weather permitting :gloomy: been dreadful this year, our pumpkin harvest is about 10% of what we got last year and i do go foraging for the pigs but this year again Mother nature has had a tough year too and theres very little in the hedgebacks to forage certainily no damsons & sloes around here. I won't save on butchering or sausage making as i sell my pork on and want a professional job done and don't want to poison anybody! One of the things i have done is reassess my measuring scoop and i've found i was giving my stock pigs way too much food so have now put a mark on the tin and they are getting what they should be which now means i'm using a bag of feed every 3 feeds instead of every 2.
Commercial farmers have economy of scale but even that doesn't seem to be able to help them in the current climate.
Mandy :pig:
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Totally agree with Mandy. We grow as much as we can for the pigs but this year has been hopeless. We'll be solely on bagged feed from now on and it's frightening. I've just rang round our three local suppliers and the best I can get now is £350/ton. As Mandy says definitely worth checking your scoop sizes out I found that I was giving them more than I thought too.
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Where I keep my pigs there is a fair amount of land to use and the farmer is willing to plough and seed. We had a plan to let our pigs strip graze, however upon lots of discussion about what would be suitable, it really seemed that green veg was the only way forward and only for dry sows. Mangels or sugar beet would have been a disaster as the pigs would have put on fat in no time at all, especially out large blacks. If ONLY they took what they needed :roflanim:
Anyway we will be putting our pigs out on a 2 acre veg area after most of it has been harvested (tops cut etc) and I am going to ask the local farmers if I can have a small sugar beet load, to supplement some nuts (super carefully :) ) I am foraging too but the apples don't seem to be that great, nor the feed carrots either.
I am keeping most of my pigs on very low protein anyway which is helping costs. I'm phoning my BOCM Paul supplier today to see what is what.....i am dreading the news! Loose feed would be great....it is just getting around the storage issues.
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Can I just ask a question for Mak and mandy and anyone else who feeds alternative feed, how do you keep check on protein levels etc and what benefit the pigs are getting. Are you feeding this alternative feed in conjunction to bagged feed and do you notice a difference in how your pigs are thriving. Or are you feeding this feed as an alternative to bagged food
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I feed in conjucnction with bagged 16% protein nuts, i aim on 3-4lb of adlib alternatives equals 1lb of nuts, i use it mainly with my stock pigs and feed to eye which of course comes with experience, i have one or two lardies who need to lose weight anyway and two sows dry at the mo getting back in condition to go back to the boar, i think you have to know your stock well to feed like this.
Mandy :pig:
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mandy sending you a pm :)
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Sorry if I was a bit naive and did not take on board that many have jobs , children and many other things to fill their day. It is of course a lot different when one has time on their hands.
In answer to the above question I too add nuts or a compliment flour to their veg, bread, eggs or potatoes. I titrate thir nuts based on what mix they are given. Nuts are reduced if they have protein from other stuffs. From October I have to cook up the spuds/swede on an open fire and I will add pig flour to swell overnight before adding whatever veg we have grown for them.
Pigs are very competative when they eat and they are also good at selecting what they can eat quicker and what has greater nutritional value. My 2 pigs eat at diferent rates so I lean over their trough and scatter nuts at different rates for each pig - this is not always succesfull though ;D . They eat from the trough twice a day, graze/root outside and get weeds, rosehips, apples, walnuts as treats. Although sisters the more energetic eater of the 2 is of course bigger. They will get Chestnuts and acorns soon ( and maybe some brewers grains) as I prepare them for a December kill.
So the bottom line is that I do not weigh their food as it is impossible to guess how much an individual actually consumes. I try and ensure each gets the same and I adjust what they get from feed to feed based on how they appear and what we have available. I can not control what the old ladies in the village feed them although they have all kept pigs and they know not to include the naughty stuff from their kitchens.
I am unsure if their growth rate is different to pigs fed on just nuts and I can determine the size rather than age that they are ready to be killed. The fat content seems just right for us. My neighbour, who breeds Limousin pink veal, must like it too as he has asked me to keep a pig for him next year.
Rather a long post but maybe this answers your question rispainfarm.
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A long post MAK but very interesting reading, i see you also feed by eye which again is down to experience. thanks for lots of good feeding info and before anyone says it yes i now he's in French France!
Mandy :pig:
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My last lot of bagged feed came in at £395 a ton, the one before was £335! I think we can just about make the pigs viable at £400 a ton by passing on a lot of the price increase to customers but given it may go higher I can't see many people buying half a pig at £200+
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I've just telephoned our supplier (Argo Feeds) and the price has gone up, I was initially quoted £8.18/25kgs but when ordering a tonne it comes down to £7.95/25kgs
The last order a month or so ago I paid £7.65/25kgs
Therefore the price per tonne has gone from £306 to £318
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last weeks delivery was £317 a ton 7 weeks before that £312 so not as bad as we had thought....although this is just the start of the rise, i cant help but think some of the increase is due to greed our local feed merchant was telling everyone feed will rise buy upto £100 before the new year due to poor wheat harvest ok i understand that but the following week my grass nuts had gone up by 90p ???? we are inundated with grass hay is not selling as there is so much of it around here, i am just glad i dont buy anything other than grass nuts from them.
predictions for 2013 is pork will rise by 31% due to eu & uk supplies being out stripped whilst beef will rise by 8%.
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If the supermarket price of pork goes up as predicted we can more easily increase our prices. Wether Joe Public will still buy is a different matter. It's a fact that costs are rocketing and we have to react one way or another. No one was ever going to get rich selling half pigs to friends and neighbours anyway. You've got to find a way to get proper prices for what you produce and/or add value in some way to increase your margins.
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Hope you got my email mandy :wave:
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If the supermarket price of pork goes up as predicted we can more easily increase our prices. Wether Joe Public will still buy is a different matter. It's a fact that costs are rocketing and we have to react one way or another. No one was ever going to get rich selling half pigs to friends and neighbours anyway. You've got to find a way to get proper prices for what you produce and/or add value in some way to increase your margins.
Whenever I sell halves whoever to, I make sure I make a profit. I just remember all those dark mornings in winter, with a pick axe getting through ice in the troughs. If feed prices go up, I just explain and give them a rise in price. When I sat to sell, I always give an estimated price anyway. My next move will be to ask for deposits, so I am not left with halves to store, and to use a proper invoice book!
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Thanks for your long reply, as mandy says interesting reading. One last question, what is pig flour.? :)
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I am always amazed that when you sell to neighbours (not family, they know!) they think their pork should be cheaper, after all you get it all for "free" ::) ::) Same for eggs etc.
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£100 a ton going up to £200 a ton...... thats what they said on a farming prog radio 4 5.45am.... not my figures but a large pig producer...... maybe he buys 50 ton at a time??.... so after this years grain is in then i suppose the 20 klo bag will double as well..... lets see in 6 months time if that pig farmer was bluffing.
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Hughesy, I am pleased if I get our pork etc. for nothing, having covered costs. I don't cost in my time and effort.
I hope these price increases won't lead to folk feeding pigs illegally :-\
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Hughesy, I am pleased if I get our pork etc. for nothing, having covered costs. I don't cost in my time and effort.
I hope these price increases won't lead to folk feeding pigs illegally :-\
Hi Sylvia :wave:
This was the reason I started the Poll last week - I think putting "waste" food into landfill is just crazy, both ecologically & economically - I, for one, would like to see the regulations change :fc:
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Well iv read all naw 1940s farm on the telly they never had all the food mentioned they had a pig club .Iv made my mind up Whit i will do to help .The lads that take barley at £120 a ton IL keep to that for 12 months .As said the sheds have been burnt on some holdings as well as chickin huts i can say it will be very hard if winter comes in October having no rest in September The big problem will be the cheaper foods so ya grain etc will make bread and stuff expensive .But in war time they done it of a recession the first world war .SO members don't give in just like that save our lovely British pigs .
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Yes "Pig for Britain" or was it "Dig for Britain". :pig:
I tried to look up "Pig Flour" on the sellers web site as asked by Rispain farm. No ingredients are listed but they call it a supliment as it contains minerals ( good for calcium) and essential proteins.
We have a pig club . No rules or agreements but he neighbours drop off stuff as they know they get stuff back ( including pork chops and a small roast). Yesterday we got 2 buckets of peaches for the pigs BUT we kept one for ourselves ( nice jam). :eyelashes: i
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Hughesy, I am pleased if I get our pork etc. for nothing, having covered costs. I don't cost in my time and effort.
I hope these price increases won't lead to folk feeding pigs illegally :-\
That is very much how we've looked at it up to now. We've thought long and hard though and decided to get things onto a more businesslike footing. Keeping pigs is too much of an investment in time and money to just be a hobby.
We ought to be buying meat pigs at the markets instead of rearing our own but that'd be cheating.
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hughesy is the first one with any seance Debbie and Andrew sausages did rear there own to start with then the light was switched on and get everybody else to produce to there standards fix the price and it is proffit all the way except for the pig rearer :farmer:
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I am always amazed that when you sell to neighbours (not family, they know!) they think their pork should be cheaper, after all you get it all for "free" ::) ::) Same for eggs etc.
Tell me about it. I have one friend who despite the very fact that we have an honesty box outside our house, comes to the back and very carefully puts the money in my hand, counting it out. I know she is expecting me to say don't bother.
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Looking at various websites there a helluva lot of pigs for sale at the moment, especially sows & weaners. It seems to be nationwide as well which is very worrying. I fear there will be a lot of pigs culled, on the GOS website alone there are four sows from one of our rare bloodlines that if not sold will end up as cull trade. Very worrying times ahead. :gloomy:
mandy :pig:
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You can all shout me down if you want, but I believe that too many people are breeding. Piglets are sold for very little because they can't get rid, this in turn does the reputable breeders who think about their strategy for breeding and often can shift piglets quickly no favours at all, as customers then think they should sell for the same cheap price as others. Plus there are so many pigs out there which are absolute c..p being used for breeding, its worrying. Like anything there are highs and lows in selling piglets but rather than wait until the market picks up, pig owners keep breeding and breeding even in the low periods.
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You're probably right rispainfarm. The root of the problem is that there are too many pigs, too many breeders and when people sell out of desperation for a very low price everyone thinks that's the going rate and want to buy at that price all the time. Trouble is who is to say who should and who shouldn't. It's a free market and we all have to find our way through it somehow.
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no probablys about it rispainfarm is correct meat weaners kept on to breed from because they bought them cheap then crossed with whatever is available then the reality of 22 piglets to feed and shift and they are glad to get shot of them at any price
even on this forum you read about the new into pigs breeders don't know what drugs they are on no matter what you say to them they think the pig path is paved with gold and yes there is one hell of an amount of crap out there :farmer:
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no probablys about it rispainfarm is correct meat weaners kept on to breed from because they bought them cheap then crossed with whatever is available then the reality of 22 piglets to feed and shift and they are glad to get shot of them at any price
even on this forum you read about the new into pigs breeders don't know what drugs they are on no matter what you say to them they think the pig path is paved with gold and yes there is one hell of an amount of crap out there :farmer:
If you are referring to me, yep I kept on the store pigs to breed. They looked sound and the sow produced big litters. I also kept them because the abbotoir thought the boars carcasses were excellent and the offspring crosses should finish quickly. I am not daunted by shifting the finished pigs. I may be a bit green breeding but selling I am not.