[robert waddell]

although this is not a complete guide to rearing pork and its cost it does have some relevance as to what weight you kill at and the cost to keep longer
with feed costing £290 per ton just under £7.50 per bag what does it cost to put a kilo of pork on a pig ?
with our Hampshire gilts last year they were weighed constantly through out there growth(the other pigs were also weighed)they were consistently achieving 1kilo per day the lop was gaining 1/2 a kilo per day tamworths were just under the 1/2 kilo per day  
now what cost    one 25 kilo bag contains 16 scoops of feed and they were getting 1 scoop twice a day plus some fruit and veg rough figures is less than £1 per day to achieve 1 kilo at from £2.90- what ever you can get for your pork
now our observation of pigs reveals that once they get to 40-50 kilos that is when they really start to fill out and achieve there best
in the end it all comes down to preference breed/gilts/boars intact or cut/what the abattoir can handle what you are happy with etc etc
hope this helps and is understandable 

[Mo]

That's really helpful, thanks 

[littlemisspiggy!]

that makes sense...i keep meaning to do this with mine but i dont have any scales,can you weigh pigs with a tape like a horse?
if so where can i get a tape does anyone know?

nice to read your so can compare though i wonder what other peoples breeds are gaining per day?
sorry for all the questions but what size scoop do you use? we have 20kg sacks and get about 12/13 scoops out of it...we use a large round feed scoop 

[HappyHippy]

I use an SMA baby milk tin  It holds 3lbs of the Farmgate sow & weaner nuts (or anything of a similar size) Handy cos I've lots of them spare 
I've never really weighed any of mine, they just go when they look ready  Usually around the 6 month mark and achieve deadweights of 50Kg (but for the Kune Kune's it'll be later) 

Littlemisspiggy - there's no need for a special tape, just an ordinary tape or length of string will do. Here's the formula http://www.thepigsite.com/articles/541/weighing-a-pig-without-a-scale

HTH
Karen x

[Blonde]

I use an SMA baby milk tin  It holds 3lbs of the Farmgate sow & weaner nuts (or anything of a similar size) Handy cos I've lots of them spare 
I've never really weighed any of mine, they just go when they look ready  Usually around the 6 month mark and achieve deadweights of 50Kg (but for the Kune Kune's it'll be later) 

Littlemisspiggy - there's no need for a special tape, just an ordinary tape or length of string will do. Here's the formula http://www.thepigsite.com/articles/541/weighing-a-pig-without-a-scale

HTH
Karen x

I have  nver used the tape and wonder how accurate it really is.. I dont knkow the formula eithr and dont know that I could use it now that I am used to electronice scales 

[TheCaptain]

The formula is pretty much bang on and is quite simple to work out, and, amazingly you can do it in both lbs and kilos.

Unless you're an idiot.

[Billy Rhomboid]

I use an SMA baby milk tin  It holds 3lbs of the Farmgate sow & weaner nuts (or anything of a similar size)

That's a brilliant tip, thanks - we have a huge amount of those and that's a really handy gauge.

A lot of it depends on what you are going to use the meat for.

We make a lot of Italian salumi and Eastern European cured products, for which we need a.) well matured neat and b.) lots of fat - both marbled through the meat and as back fat - 3 inches of back fat is a good amount for us,a s we make lots of Lardo and need loads cubed. The main reason we actually started rearing pigs ourselves was that we could not buy in pigs with that amount of fat. Everyone wants lean animals as fat doesn't sell on roasting joints etc. Looking at comments on here and other pig-keeping forums i constantly see people throwing up their hands in horror at getting an inch of back fat whereas for our needs that would be too scant by far.
As a consequence we also take our pigs up to much larger sizes than the average porker. I would not consider slaughtering anything under 100kg and 120-150 is the usual weight we prefer. Obviously we are fortunate in having a local abattoir that will handle pigs of this size, I
know there are many that won't.

Consequently the investment in feed terms in each pig is pretty colossal. If we lose a pig to illness or accident close to full-weight it is a major blow financially.

[HappyHippy]

Billy what breeds do you favour ?
I would have thought a Large Black taken to the kind of weights you're talking about would give good results for fat coverage as well as fantastic meat. Kune Kune would give you marbelling and a good amount of fat if you taylored the feeding to suit (but they're only ickle and would take a while to get to 100Kg - sorry, got to mention my beloved Kunes every chance I get  )
But it's just me thinking out loud lol! and being nosey 
Karen x

[shetlandpaul]

you would have loved ours 150 dead weight 3 black bags of fat to be rendered down. i must have been feeding way to much 40kg for two pigs a week.

[Hilarysmum]

No dont think it would be too much certainly not for my Gossies.  I feed about the same each week - 2.5-3 kilos per day in winter and about 2.5 in summer.  However for the meat pigs I reduce the pig nuts (allowing for the weather) and increase the vegetables accordingly.  I aim for 2 cm back fat for customers but for ourselves I like a bit of fat.

[Billy Rhomboid]

Karen, Berkshires and Berks/Tamworth crosses work well for us as do Saddlebacks. Mangalitsas are ideal. I know of a Salumier who takes Mangalitsas up to hippo size, finishing them on double cream and acorns and produces exceptional tasting stuff. Sadly my Euromillions numbers did not come up last night so such experimentation is beyond me at the moment.

[HappyHippy]

I know I've said this already on the other thread - but consider some Kunes 
I've been told that the Berkshire crossed with Kune is a really good cross too - currently got a couple of Berkshire gilts in with my young KK boar, so we'll see how that goes..........................
Double cream  Bet that is fantastic pork !

[robert waddell]

the mangalitza cooked ham is fab the fat just melts in your mouth 

[Beewyched]

Bet the price of the double cream puts the cost up though 

Does their additional feed towards THE END really make that much difference in taste?

[littlemisspiggy!]

my boar is a berkshire x kk and he has just produced some cracking weaners to my gos x sow..the last lot we had came in with about 15-17mm of fat....yum yum!