The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: pikilily on October 07, 2011, 08:56:37 pm
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Just out of interest, I have costed out exactly how much it has cost me to raise two berkshire weaners, and what value of meat I have in return. The prices of the meat were the price the butcher put on them, and would be the retail price for his rare breed pork.
I hope this may help someone else take the plunge !!
Pork and Bacon costings
COSTS
Private kill ; 2@26 £52
Cut and Pack 74 +75kg carcass £156.45
Mince all Brock £ nil charge
Waste charge £ 4.00
Bacon curing 14kg £14.00
Purchase weaners £100
Feed £145 Total £472.45
RETURNS
Pork £510.00
Bacon and gammon 14kg £113.50
Sausages 20kg £152.00 Total £ 775.50
We have just had a supper of gammon steaks, eggs and chips, all home grown.... with home made tomato ketchup. Totally delicious!! ;D ;D ;D BIG feelgood factor.
Emma T
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Thanks for posting, the cut and pack price, did the butcher pre-pack and price for you?
We did our first two pigs this summer, I took prices from the Tesco website to get an idea, but think I did them too cheap really. Next time I shall up the prices slightly as everbody wants to 'know first' next time I have pork ;D
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That's really interesting info Emma ;) Thank you for posting it.
Can I ask - were 74 and 75Kg the deadweights ? and what age were your weaners when they went ?
Thanks,
Karen :wave:
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Whiteblazes - yes the butcher did everything except make the sausages. I did that myself because its fun and i love the idea of making up my own recipes....and OH bought me a magnificent mincer sausage maker last year! The butcher just minced the Brock for me, it took him litterally a few minutes to do what would take me a long time even with my mincer.
Happy hiipy - yes that was the deadweight of the pigs. They were just six months old.
Oh, I should add that the butcher was well please with the fat/meat ratio. The was generally just over 1cm of fat.....i put that down to the good breeding....plug for Lunanlife !!!
Emma T
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Having ended up with small/lean pigs after 6 mths, I am interested in understanding your feeding. You say the two cost you £145. How much were you feeding and what were you feeding please.
With escalating feed prices I am worrying about viability at the moment. Paying £350 per tonne for Marriages good quality cube feed.
Thanks
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hi Cris,
I was feeding Maxibreed Sow rolls 25kg bags @8.67/bag...there was one bag of BOCM at the beginning, but the feedmerchants changed suppliers thereafter. I was feeding at the normal escalating rate according to their age.
the piglets were collected on 20th April at 8 weeks old and went to slaughter on 22nd august at 6mths old.
I take it the weight of carcass the butcher received is what folk call the 'deadweight'. The butcher said the carcasses were 74 and 75kg.
HTH
Emma T
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i think thats quite impressive £50/pig/month profit. well done.
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the figures look impressive but am i right in thinking you did not sell the pork these prices are what your butcher would sell for :farmer:
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Would I be right in assuming that the price quoted for the pork is a retail price and somewhat hypothetical unless of course it's the actual prices achieved when you actually sold the pork? Selling all the cuts of a pig at the full retail price, with no wastage or discounting for declining quality would be quite an achievment in itself. Then of course there are all the retail overheads which must be taken into account.
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Those are good weights for 6 months old. Our first two went at 6 months and were 50kg each.
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I'm understanding pikilily to be costing rearing two weaners for her own freezer. It seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable comparison to value the meat at retail prices if it is all going in your own freezer and you would otherwise have bought all that meat from the butcher at those prices.
In pikilily's case, she's got a freezer full of top pork & sausages, had all the fun of rearing her weaners and has saved money over buying the same meat from her butcher. Result! :thumbsup:
(Ok, if you want to be pedantic she could have filled her freezer with top pork & sausages by buying home-reared meat from people on here and spent less than she would at her butcher's - but if she's enjoying rearing her own why rain on her parade?)
The basis for costings and returns equations would be quite different for breeder / rearers where weaners and / or butchered pigs are being produced and sold on, of course.
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Yes one could ask questions about accuracy of input cost, bedding, transportation etc. but I don't think Pikiliy went into this for a return on investment, she said it all.......Big feelgood factor = Priceless
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I don't cost out my meat production, the fact that we eat free-range, organically(as far as possible) pork, lamb and poultry from creatures that have had a good and happy life is enough for me. I hope that what we sell to friends and neighbours helps towards the cost of rearing etc. and I know we would pay a whole lot more if we bought meat of the same standard.
(Sorry, does that sound smug :-[ but I think if I started costing, I may despair and become a vegan :o :o)
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Yes it is all for my freezer. Not for sale to anyone. The prices are exactly what the butcher would be charging for this quality of meat from his own shop. Also, with the retail price printed on the labels the family have an additional idea of the value of what they are helping themselves to!
The £££ exercise was purely out of curiosity.... and to, perhaps, encourage other folk to have a go at having weaners...is that a problem?? The travel costs are two round trips of 50 miles, the straw was free, the water was free.
Last year I did it all the same but had no idea about whether the costs/returns were well balanced.... this year I know!! It is good to know that we are not paying crazily over the odds....I, for one, dont have so much money i can spend it willy-nilly on things without being careful. If the balance was the other way ie. it cost me £775 to get meat worth £472 i would not be able to do it!!
Sally your assessment is spot on!! ;D Yeh, I do feel a bit wet!
Emma T
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Having ended up with small/lean pigs after 6 mths, I am interested in understanding your feeding. You say the two cost you £145. How much were you feeding and what were you feeding please.
With escalating feed prices I am worrying about viability at the moment. Paying £350 per tonne for Marriages good quality cube feed.
Thanks
Is there no where you can buy seconds grain, minerals, tallow fish meal, soya meal, canola meal do you have access to a nutritionist?.
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Yes it is all for my freezer. Not for sale to anyone. The prices are exactly what the butcher would be charging for this quality of meat from his own shop. Also, with the retail price printed on the labels the family have an additional idea of the value of what they are helping themselves to!
The £££ exercise was purely out of curiosity.... and to, perhaps, encourage other folk to have a go at having weaners...is that a problem?? The travel costs are two round trips of 50 miles, the straw was free, the water was free.
Last year I did it all the same but had no idea about whether the costs/returns were well balanced.... this year I know!! It is good to know that we are not paying crazily over the odds....I, for one, dont have so much money i can spend it willy-nilly on things without being careful. If the balance was the other way ie. it cost me £775 to get meat worth £472 i would not be able to do it!!
Sally your assessment is spot on!! ;D Yeh, I do feel a bit wet!
Emma T
Water is not free, you lhave to pump it from some where to another place and that cost money in fuel or in power. I have the same thing but it cost money in power to bring it to the surface.
By looking around and getting seconds grain/ brewery waste, day old bread, and understanding your feed and your feed conversions you can grow meat cheap than your mate or your neighbour. I fyou get grain from the bin and you have a nutrionist on board or access to one you can obtain as a good a mix as you buy by doing your own. You can also add straw to your feed mixes as necessary
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Rainwater
ET
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.....but I suppose thats not free either, because i have to carry it, and i have to be fed and clothed!!
ET
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Hi Pikilily
For what it is worth, I think you've done a great job. We sell our free range pork at prices around those charged by our local butcher and what our nearest supermarket charge for their "higher welfare" pork. The beauty is that we know our pigs are truly free range and so do our customers - they can see the pigs and where they live and forage.
There is always something left over every time we sell our fresh meat, and this goes straight into our freezer. We see this as our greatest perk and eat the best quality, finest pork that money can buy, and we need only account for this in our trading records at cost - so we know we're getting a bargain! We know exactly what has gone into it - what our pigs have been fed, where their bedding has come from and how they have been born and raised. That knowledge is priceless! We will never be millionaires but boy do we eat well!!!
So don't let anyone rain on your parade, enjoy the (delicious) fruits of your labours and savour every mouthful!
Dee
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Pikilily, you have done an exceptional job on raising those pigs, I think there are very few people on this site, including me that could get those kind of weights at 6 months with such a low fat covering.
Good job
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;D ;D :thumbsup:
thanks guys!!
I really wasn't looking for high praise from anyone.... ;D ...just pleased that it has worked out well.....and hopefully it may encourage someone else to have a bash. After all that's what the forum is all about.....Encouragement!!
Emma T xx
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Go girl!
And I agree with RobbieM, so any top tips you have to share with us.............I'm all ears (or is it eyes?)!
Dee x
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I honestly dont know what I have done that would be special !!! They did get rainwater....apart from once or twice when I ran out. They got apples from the orchard when they ripened..vegetables from the garden when available..other than that I did exactly as I did last year ( got the same growing results then, btw, but dont have the facts and figures as evidence) and followed the general feeding pattern 1lb/month of age/ day/ pig < 6lb
Perhaps its the love and attention they got. I played with them with balls, including a pilates ball, groomed them and laughed at and with them. They got plenty of exercise galloping around their paddock.
Maybe they looked up each day and thought 'Oh goody here comes Emma'; as opposed to 'Oh chrims, here comes that bitter grumpy ol' goat'.... ........................................oops, just my imagination being fed by the tone of some of the replies ::) ::) ::) ::)
Emma T :wave:
Seriously, I think its probably has to be down to the good breeding line!! Speak to Lunanlife about that bit !
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if i have been following this correctly what you spent on feed equalled426 kilos now in month 5 that would be 30 days x5 kilos =150 kilos x by two =300kilos leaving 126 kilos for month 3 and 4 and 6
are you right or am i right
some may see this as being picky but i think it is important to correctly inform people :farmer:
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Oh yes - I stand most humbly corrected. That should have read lbs. we can always rely on you to find our errors and mistakes! ;)
Emma T
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it is not about finding errors or mistakes it is about putting pork on as cheaply as possible the holly grail :farmer:
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Hi pikilily
I absolutely understand your interest in working out your returns even though that's not your driver for doing it in the first place.
We've just raised our first two weaners and now have them secured in the freezer and are enjoying the pork and bacon.
We all want to know that what we are doing isn't costing us more than it's worth, although it's very difficult to value the enjoyment we got from raising the pigs and having them around. We will definitely do some more once we make the space in the freezer!
:thumbsup:
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Thanks for taking the time to post this pikilily, I've a business plan to prepare and it's helped me immensely (I've taken into account that the pork was for your own consumption).
You've done a great job with your pigs, I hope I'll come close with mine next year ;) :wave:
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Hey Lynn, before you give your costings to a 'bank manager' or someone of that ilk, it may be good to get a similar breakdown from someone else, or even a few others, then take the average figures.
hope your plans come to a happy conclusion!!
Emma T