The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: rispainfarm on December 01, 2012, 06:44:20 pm
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As folks :wave: as you would have seen under market threads, we were discussing the pig crisis. It just so happens i have been asked recently to write an article for PP by a BPA rep on this very subject. I obviously have my own thoughts but would really like to hear from everyone on here who keeps pigs as to why they think people are selling up, thousands of unwanted pigs at markets either selling for pennies or not selling at all etc etc. We all know the cost of food is a huge problem, but I honestly believe that this is not the main problem, I think it goes alot deeper than that, but over to you lot.
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I think feed costs, rising fuel costs, and the bloody awful weather we've had this year might be a lot to do with it :-\ Commercial units seem to be closing or downsizing in droves too. :(
I know that the EU sow stall ban early next year is being heralded as a great thing for UK pork (and it is) but it's something we've been doing in the UK for years (and having to shoulder the increased costs of), while the vast quantity of EU pork which is imported is cheaper because it doesn't have the same high welfare standards. It's all well and good telling folk prices and demand will go up soon, but how many folk have a never ending money pit to keep them going til that day comes ???
At Yonderton we're making a shift away from a 50/50 split between 'big' pigs and Kunekunes to one which has more Kunekunes in an attempt to keep costs down but quality and quantity of pork up, while still letting us do a bit of conservation work with the Large Blacks (they are a heart over head option at the moment if I do the sums - so I just don't ;) :innocent:))
That's just my thoughts though, and I'm not sure how much sense they make :roflanim:
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I agree karen, I think people are literally running out of money, that with not reading the market and still beeding amongst other reasons for the surplus of pigs that no one wants
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I think in the past a lot of people kept a few pigs on a sort of hobby basis and these people are now getting rid as without any serious business planning their hobby has become too expensive. There's no money to be made selling a few weaners or indeed selling half pigs or whatever on a sort of wholesale basis. Anyone sticking with pigs now needs to have a business head on.
As for the commercial pig farming industry they are totally at the mercy of wholesale buyers, supermarkets and suchlike and are unable to set their own prices, and so like many other sectors in farming are stuffed.
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i have seen this same scenario in the 80's with my parents and neighbouring pig keepers one of them had 3000 almost over night it went from in my parents case 10 - 20 pigs off a week to 0 they were lucky they managed to sell all theirs. vowing never would pigs be kept again (until i had a :idea:) some 5 or 6 farms local to me still have the empty pig sheds etc one still has the troughs in situ its a bit weird walking through sheds with only pigs missing but in reality no pig have been their for almost 30 years. i am sure things will turn around but how many breeders/keepers still in there who knows everyone has their limits and with feed prices rising pork sales flat and the cost of slaughter and fuel its not easy.
we have 3 litters due January fingers crossed the weaners will sell and we will have a good choice for the shows, in our case its a hobby for the preservation of a breed we wanted to help (and a good social life) other things help subsidise the pigs else we could not do it but we purposely keep numbers down its just too easy to get carried away.
one friend had 300 sows this time last year he now has 0 he just fattens for another farmer in one unit the others are empty. after 40 yrs of pig breeding he says he should have got out earlier but he also adds he has had some good years that evened out the bad.
i think in the interest of the article you are working on it would be beneficial to talk to someone selling up or sold up we can all speculate and assume its x y or z but until the final decision has been made by any of us who knows the ins and outs of why they really packed the pis in.
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As a newbie pig keeper (we had 2 weaners earlier this year), I was prepared for the food cost but wasn't prepared for the b****y awful weather we have had.
I only ever intented to keep them until 26/27 weeks and to be honest it was a relief when they went because of the mud.
For those who keep pigs all year round it must be a nightmare trying to keep them free of some of the mud at least.
Sally
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I'm not commercial about my pigs, they're for the love of pigs, pork, sausages and bacon. But even I have had to face up to being unable to keep it going over winter without a big rethink. For now we are going to try to keep one breeding sow and breed her once a year - but if we can't get that to work, then I'll have to go back to buying a couple of weaners in twice a year. Expensive pork, I know - but we've just started the bacon from the last baconer and Oh . My . Goodness... it's soooooo worth it! :yum:
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That was the plan sally to talk to a few people who are giving up as to their reasons why as like you say its all surmising otherwise. Apart from the usual though such as feed costs, weather etc, have any smallholders on here come across other types of pig problems that has made them think about giving up
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The pig industry has always been cyclical - I can remember covering it at Uni, 30 years ago.
I agree that for those keeping a few pigs as a hobby, it's probably just become too expensive. I suspect it's a bad time of year as well - folk like us, who raise a few weaners aren't looking to buy at this time of year.
I do hope those with rare and traditional breeds can hang in there to protect the genetice though.
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We're planning to hang in there and keep our Rare Breeds going (had a litter of 12 Berkshires last night :thumbsup: ). The main problem around here is the lack of decent abattoirs. We have to travel for about and hour and three quarters to take our porkers in for killing and cutting although we use a more local abattoir to supply the restaurant that we've been supplying carcases to for the last couple of years. HOWEVER, that particular abattoir has had its problems and the word is that once the hot water thingy breaks down, they won't replace it and will stop doing pigs. They have already hiked up the price of killing to a ridiculous level in the hopes (I think) that people will go elsewhere giving them even more reason to cease doing them. Another comparatively local one and to which we take our lambs, was given a grant some years back (by the Welsh government) to kill and cut pigs. They took the money, installed the equipment and then (apparently) got a big order from one of the BIG Supermarkets to supply all their lamb and so they took out and sold off the pig equipment :rant: :rant: .
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We gave up keepling pigs last year mainly because of the awful weather and having to see them stand in knee deep mud and also partly because our son had started working for a big commercial pig farm. They would be concerned if we had pigs due to cross contamination.
My Hubby is at market most weeks and said it is and has always been a very up and down trade. Some weeks you can pick a sow and pigglets up for mere pence and other weeks young pigs and porkers would go for silly money. We mainly wanted to rear our own pork and have a few to sell in market to make enough to cover some feed and a few extras, but now it's just not viable.
Our son's farm obviously sell direct to the supermarket so suppose prices are set for them.
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The continuing weather I think is quite a problem and is a big factor towards giving up.with some people. How the garden pet brigade are doing I don't know. Trouble is smallholders don't usually have masses amount of land to continually move pigs about on. I know when we lived in Devon, we used to get mud but not like in scotland. i used to be so embarrassed sometimes running pig courses. The pens were large with trees but they would be knee deep in mud continually even in the summer. When we rotated them to fresh ground, the pens would be turned to mud within a week or so, it was a losing battle.
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Well, we are a way off selling up, but we are counting the pennies rather than the pounds and scavenging and foraging for about half of the pigs' feed at the moment - while we can and before the hardest part of winter settles in. I have also put our pigs back on sow and weaner, taking them off grower and finisher pellets as we sell by the pig rather than by weight.
However, owing to the rain and consequential mud, and lack of space to rotate them further afield, we are shifting for the time being to one litter a year for each of the sows. We sell them for a high enough value to make them worth while doing - covering the cost of keeping them and also the cost of a couple for our own freezer - but only with the extra work in finding 'free' food.
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I try to remain positive that things will get better but as with everything there are always people who jump on the band wagon and think they can make a quick buck from something whether it be pigs, property etc and then go in to deep and get their fingers burned. A lot of crisis are of their own making.
My pigs are my hobby and originally started off as being self financing but then i got into breeding & showing and it became a more expensive hobby as i now have pigs all year round. Main costs for me are feed and abattoir/butchering costs. Feed has gone up so much and so have my butcher costs, whereas before half a pig sale covered my costs it now more like a whole pig.
The weather this year has been the worst i have experienced (going into my 9th year of pig keeping) land has been continually wet & muddy and not being able to prepare this autumn for next spring will have knock on effects next year (pray for dry winter)
i am down to my lowest number of pigs ever for a winter but like KJA we have litters due in January & March for the show season and hope there will be people out there wanting to take weaners to rear thro spring & summer.
Like Polished Arrow i am unlikely to get out of pigs and continue looking at ways to improve & manage my cash flow.
Mandy :pig:
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I try to remain positive that things will get better but as with everything there are always people who jump on the band wagon and think they can make a quick buck from something whether it be pigs, property etc and then go in to deep and get their fingers burned. A lot of crisis are of their own making.
I think you are spot on mandy, certainly that was the case with the pet/micro saga. I also think many people buy pigs and don't really understand what is involved, costs, mud etc etc. They buy cheap for whatever reason with no understanding of pigs and the market. Many of these are crossbreds that are bought which really don't have any sell on value except to be bought by the meat man. Its these cross breeds that are showing in markets rather than pure breeds
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Having done meat pigs for years (just small batches) I am now breeding as I should be able to give myself a small part time job this way. We only have 4 sows but I can allow myself a basic hourly wage and can manage this small amount of pigs plus litters day to day by myself. No more than that, but in these times it's not bad and I get to be outside doing something that I really want to.
I am incredibly fortunate in that I have access to good land and lots of it, outbuildings and brilliant extra help. We also have enough money to buy in feed ahead which means that we don't have to sell weaners necessarily, and can make our money on half boxes.
I would have to give up if my back got knackered or if I didn't have access to help especially when moving arks or doing the more physical stuff. We are also very grateful for 'cover' when we go on holidays....if we didnt have this, it would become an issue.
We are very careful with our costings and have very good business heads. If our pigs do not pay me a wage then it is a no go. Will try my damned hardest though to make it work. There aren't so many Smallholders around here and people are very interested in the prospect of buying direct. Weaners are still selling here, I was recently put in touch with 2 disappointed customers who had lost out on some large blacks.
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Crikey i don't know of anyone who keeps this number of pigs paying themselves a wage, how on earth do you manage that. :thumbsup:
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Crikey i don't know of anyone who keeps this number of pigs paying themselves a wage, how on earth do you manage that. :thumbsup:
my thinking too
btw i was in the slaughterhouses butcher shop today special offer of the week 1/2 lamb £60 1/2 pig £78 some poor sod has lost out on his pig rearing costs for them to be selling at that. the butcher in question is a very old fashioned family butchers selling quality local produce very sad.
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It does depend
- on a min 10 for cross breed litters and 8 for large blacks and keeping sows for 4 years only :'(.
- selling by half box for the vast majority.
- ruling out set up costs such as trailer and houses and electrics which we we keep or resell
OH is an accountant so believe me, all my sums are checked and rechecked. What I do is kind of a partnership with a local landowner so it has to work as a viable sustainable enterprise.
My hourly rate is a 'work hard' rate ie: truly, if I just got on with it - feed, water, do straw, fences etc as opposed to stroking bellies, digging up veg, chatting etc which I do alot of :eyelashes:
I went on a pig paradise course years ago and have always based my costings on most of what Tony York lays out. I also noted what the abattoir chaps had to say abut my carcasses - sending them earlier rather later ;)
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the fact people are shocked that anyone can earn a wage from pigs, highlights the reasons why keeping pigs is difficult at the moment.
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has any smallholder ever being able to give themselves a wage through pigs :thinking:
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We have been breeding pedigree Gloucesters since 1995, inherited a pedigree herd of Large Blacks after my Father died and also have some saddleback crosses that were originally rescued from the abattoir. At the moment we have 22 sows, 3 breeding boars and approx 220 others - litters to finished pigs. Currently use 7-8 tonnes of food per month - a mixture of sow rolls and bulk finisher ration.
In Feb 2010 a sow sent to the abattior was thought to have bTB and 8 weeks later our holdings were placed under restriction when the sample tested positive. Since that time I have been unable to move any live animal apart from direct to slaughter, cull animals cannot be sent to Cheales and have to be put down on farm. AHVLA were supposed to pay to have them tested but changed their minds when a request to do so was made, We have 2 options- 2 x 60 day clear cattle tests or slaughter all our adult stock neither of which I have been prepared to do.
The only way I have been able to keep our herd is to step up the meat business we have always had and in order to keep up with demand also buy in from another 4 or 5 breeders of traditional breed pigs with same ethics as ourselves. We pay them a good price which enables them to keep more sows whilst knowing they have a guaranteed market for weaners they are unable to sell for breeding.
At the moment we slaughter 20 or so pigs each week. Much of the carcases are turned into sausages and dry cured bacon and we have won many awards from BPEX, Great Taste Awards, tatse of the West Awards etc. We have a large demand from chefs in pubs, hotels and restaurants even though our prices are much higher than our commercial competitors.
It's very hard work especially juggling it with 3 children and other family commitments. We emply a stockman, 2 part time butchers, our student daughter on a part time basis and my Husband and I have a salary. I work 7 days a week and on average would spend 60-70 hours a week working and with this nightmare weather do question my sanity.
However, I will not give up my pigs without a huge fight. The Large Blacks were lucky to survive the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001. A friend only a mile and a half away lost all his animals including pigs a week before my Father died but at the time the contiguous culling had not begun so his herd was spared. I will not allow the rare lines of pigs to be taken by AHVLA and although it has had a huge impact on our family especially our 2 youngest who grew up from babies showing pigs I will win this battle.
I remember how difficult it was to sell weaners in the late '90's- you couldn't give them away. I then started fattening for half pigs and found that became difficult and so started at Farmers markets and it has grown from there. Fortunately, I have ever a very long suffering Husband who plays his part - makes sausages, butchers the meat, delivers the finished article and sells at a weekly Farmers market.
The price we pay is the lack of time off especially holidays which we hope to address when our daughter joins the business next year after graduating.
To ensure our traditional pig breeds survive we need to get the mesaage across that our products are the best, are high quality and value for money. My customers know that our bacon does not shrink, our sausages contain the best meat and although the base price might be higher they do not need to use as many rashers/sausages so no worse off.
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Primrosepig, its sound fantastic what you are doing and well worth your hard work. You sound passionate about your animals as well as having a good business head on. It is a pleasure to hear about somewho who is making a success of your business. Well done :thumbsup: :trophy:
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hear hear!! :thumbsup:
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Just been on the GOS website and there are so many pigs for sale all over the country, there are some good pigs to be had but i fear a lot of them :'( will end up as sausages. The GOS breed looks good on paper 1600+ but 800+ of those are in one herd (M&S supply) and its the smaller herds that are selling up and that is the real worry. It just shows how fragile the traditional breeds of pig are, my breed is one of the larger numbered so its not threatened yet i fear for the breeds that are small in numbers like the lops, large blacks & whites which are already low. When the breed surveys are done next year i think there will be big number reductions across the board. :gloomy:
Mandy :pig:
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Just been on the GOS website and there are so many pigs for sale all over the country, there are some good pigs to be had but i fear a lot of them :'( will end up as sausages. The GOS breed looks good on paper 1600+ but 800+ of those are in one herd (M&S supply) and its the smaller herds that are selling up and that is the real worry. It just shows how fragile the traditional breeds of pig are, my breed is one of the larger numbered so its not threatened yet i fear for the breeds that are small in numbers like the lops, large blacks & whites which are already low. When the breed surveys are done next year i think there will be big number reductions across the board. :gloomy:
Mandy :pig:
i think the nubers will be desperate when they are out next year i have advertised a lop sow for a while now a couple of i could do with a good sow comments from local breeders but no follow up one guy down south has shown interest but has not got time to come and look. she is 2 yrs old and has produced some fantastic pigs inc a gilt and boar in the poy the gilt going down to the last 2 traditionals, its a shame but we are now breeding from her daughters and we want to keep our prefix so she is going to be weighed in next week not the way we wanted to go but we need the space with 3 gilts farrowing next month. she is not the rarest line but there are not many of them either.
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You are right mandy, people don't realise how fragile these lines are and how quickly the number of traditional breeds can decline. No matter how "up" the numbers are, it can very quickly go the other way. It really gets my goat when you get veggies on some sites saying we shouldn't breed and we certainly should not eat them. If we didn't they would die out.
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Without a doubt some rare lines will be pushed to the brink due to the economic crisis. Our saddlebacks are fairly common bloodlines I wish now that I'd taken the trouble to find rarer ones when we started.
That's really worrying about the GOS having so many of the herdbook all on one farm especially knowing the pressure that the supermarkets apply to their suppliers.
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Last time I was in a supermarket, (might be a few months ago) I struggled to find any British bacon, only some fancy wiltshire cured, I just wanted some nice plain back. the rest was Danish. Both Te**o & A**a, didn't get my bacon :( .
If the supermarkets aren't dealing with british farmers and making known what good produce we have, majority of people in urban areas probably don't know you exist.
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Last time I was in a supermarket, (might be a few months ago) I struggled to find any British bacon, only some fancy wiltshire cured, I just wanted some nice plain back. the rest was Danish. Both Te**o & A**a, didn't get my bacon :( .
If the supermarkets aren't dealing with british farmers and making known what good produce we have, majority of people in urban areas probably don't know you exist.
our local butcher imports his bacon from denmark.
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One of the guys I rent grazing off sends on 500 pigs a week...I keep meaning to ask him if it pays, but it must because hes still doing it.
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Danish bacon......Bit of a story here folks. My husband's late grandfather was the Chairman of the coop during the 70's, when it was massive and oversaw the import of cheaper Danish bacon which knocked the British producers for six. When we emptied out his house q few years ago, we found huge amounts of silver gifts from the government, cutlery sets, engraved plates, jewellery etc. My husband even remembers wearing T shirts with some sort of Danish bacon cartoon on it as a kid. Skip a generation, and you find his grandson's family working to keep large blacks, and selling British Pork - the irony!
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Wasn't it the Danes who invaded and stole much of Britains Gold and silver? - more irony?
(Can't remember details - never much good at history)
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Cleopatra, have you ever asked why he imports, thats unbelievable. i thought butchers sourced locally or at least in this country.
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Cleopatra, have you ever asked why he imports, thats unbelievable. i thought butchers sourced locally or at least in this country.
i asked our slaughterhouse / butcher the very same question ...............................price came back
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Cleopatra, have you ever asked why he imports, thats unbelievable. i thought butchers sourced locally or at least in this country.
i asked our slaughterhouse / butcher the very same question ...............................price came back
its a small local butchers, smells lovely when you go in. they are great at cutting so i asked them to cure the bacon etc for me. he got really upset and refused. after discussing it he said it would cost alot for him to do it and he hadnt done it before as all their bacon is imported from denmark because of price.
i was niave as i just presumed the bacon would be local.
we have another butcher who sells danish bacon as his main choice but also sells homecured which is twice the price but very lovely.
he did infact do my back bacon but charged £75 per pig as opposed to the first butchers £30. that works out as expensive bacon as it was only the loin that was done.
we will do it ourselves next time but havent yet.
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i do a lot of our own bacon but if we have customers wanting bacon gammons etc i send them to a guy that charges £96 to cure whole pigs smoked or unsmoked, sliced bacon netted gammon joints & vac packed i just pay £20 for the kill we usually have a couple done at a time......although this time not much got sold as we decided it was so good we have almost munched through 2 pigs in bacon form this year with a little help from my family :roflanim:.
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:wave:
I am so glad we have Lincolnshire Co-op! They sell Lincolnshire pork and beef including sausages and bacon.
Otherwise I would be trawling through the farmers markets for British produce, as many supermarkets are driven by the prices people are willing to pay.
If only the general public understood more about food production and cost!
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If only the general public understood more about food production and cost!
Joe public in general don't care where their food comes from as long as it's as cheap as possible. It's an impossible situation really as if everyone wanted high welfare/free range/rare breed etc it would be impossible to supply them with it. The population as a whole must have an efficient and cost effective food supply, hence the supermarkets and the modern intensive farming methods. The minority who do care where their food has come from and do care about animal welfare etc are our customers or potential customers and they understand for the most part that small scale production costs more.
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Joe public in general don't care where their food comes from as long as it's as cheap as possible. It's an impossible situation really as if everyone wanted high welfare/free range/rare breed etc it would be impossible to supply them with it.
Rant warning :rant:
From a livestock farmer's perspective, Joe Public wants his high welfare livestock in the fields but wants to eat cheap meat. So we have very high welfare standards which add enormously to our cost of production, and import a very significant proportion of our meat from countries with lower - or less well-enforced - animal welfare standards. (Note to self - really must find out what proportion it is that is imported.)
Our butcher majors on local, traditional breed beef. His pork is also locally-produced, and he buys a lot of his lamb from us ;D and the rest from the local abattoir, who will have bought them in the local markets. He cures bacon to sell as home-cured, but for the customers who want the cheaper stuff, he says he's tried and tried but he cannot source locally, or even from the UK, bacon of the quality he needs at a price his customers will pay - so the non-home-cured stuff is from Denmark. :( Once we knew that (he doesn't advertise the fact but will tell you if you ask), we have only ever bought his home-cured, of course.
I could go on ... and on .... and on ... :rant: :rant:
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A butcher's shop will have a completely different set of customers to those who buy their meat from asda or wherever, especially if it's a high quality establishment that has what we would consider ethical values. The joe public in my previous post was the supermarket variety.
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A butcher's shop will have a completely different set of customers to those who buy their meat from asda or wherever, especially if it's a high quality establishment that has what we would consider ethical values.
I agree, however, there are many more people out there who want to buy the non-supermarket meat and who care where their meat comes from but just can't afford the higher price so therefore buy cheap meat from the supermarkets. i feel as long as this recession goes on, the people buying our pork will become less and less.
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A butcher's shop will have a completely different set of customers to those who buy their meat from asda or wherever, especially if it's a high quality establishment that has what we would consider ethical values.
I agree, however, there are many more people out there who want to buy the non-supermarket meat and who care where their meat comes from but just can't afford the higher price so therefore buy cheap meat from the supermarkets. i feel as long as this recession goes on, the people buying our pork will become less and less.
in reply to hughesy i dont think for 1 minute the butchers and supermarkets never cross paths we have a friend that owns a butchers shop nearby and as the recession has got hold of purse strings very often buys in supermarket over orders from wholesalers to sell as the weeks offer she says its the first time in over 80 yrs the family butchers have had to lower prices to hold onto customers. they used to rear their own livestock but have scaled down its cheaper to buy in.
in reply to rispainfarm we decided to sell weaners after pork sales dropped but weaner enquiries went up we used to send off about 50 pigs a year prior to the recession numbers have dropped as people seem to be struggling.
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I went to Tescos yesterday for part of my christmas food shop. I spent just over £100 (no drink included on this shop) and you know got absolutely bugger all for it. I thought it would come to at the most £70-£80 when i got to the checkout but it came to nearly £120. The price of food is ridiculous, even at a supermarket it rips holes in a budget. Our actual spare cash is getting less and less. We try and stick to a budget with everything and never ever use an overdraft or stick things on a credit card. I have got alot harder business wise nowadays. If things don't pay their way or look as if they will pay in the long run they will be abandoned sooner rather than later, rather than keep throwing money at things in the hope they work eventually or things pick up which is what we have done in the past. Not everyones way of working but for me I have an absolute fear of not having cash to enable us to live on a day to day basis comfortably which has only come on in the last few years as the recession bites. We try and buy all our meat from local producers, but because of the cost of everything - and I have no complaint as i have been a pork producer myself, so know the costs involved - we are unable to buy as much local produce as we would like. I suspect that goes for alot of people. :(