Wow guys, just got in from work with my 3000 piggys and find there have been a heap of replies through the day! Thank you all so much for putting down you're thoughts.
I'll give you all more of a broad view of what I want to do.
Farming run of the mill bacon pigs means it near impossible to make a profit, its all done through volume rather than profit per kg. I mean we wean over 1000 piglets a week and still dont make a heap of money as a business, and this is in Australia where fresh meat imports are banned, if you want to buy fresh pork it has to be Australian, thats the law. So even without the competition from imports its still hard to make a buck.
However, in the UK where imports are huge and can be very very cheap because of the production systems used in the rest of europe, all the million euro liquid feeding systems that make FCR fantastic. They do not however have the flavour of meat from Tamworths, OSB, GOS or any other rare breed pigs. So this is really where you have to create you're own market. If you were to compare a pork chop from a PIC line C29 mass market pork production pig to that of a rare breed pig there would be a clear winner. This is really where I want to make my market. I want to make people realise how much more flavoursome this product is compared to the pork we all accept as 'top quality'.
The problem is the cost, people may well know how much better the product is but they simply cannot afford to choose this meat over that of the cheaper more economical choice, especially in the current financial situation. So what I intend to do, through both low cost production methords and selective breeding to increase productivity of the sows is try and produce this rare breed meat for a cost close to that of the run of the mill pork. The main barrier to this of corse is the productivity of the sows. PIC, JSR or Keffen have bread these super productive animals to get the 13 and 14 PBA litters, producing more pigs using less sows. I think that its possible to get a rare breed animal, keep the bloodline pure yet still manage to breed producivity into the animal.
Look at the way PIC started, they took a batch of sows and recorded PBA, if the sow managed to have a littler of 12 perfect piglets twice in a row her piglets were selected as breeders, and so on the cycle continued. I think there is a possibility of doing this.
So to be able to bring fantastic, pure bloodline, rare breed pork to the market at a more competative price I think it will force people to re-think the age old dilema, quality over quantity.
This is a long long term project for me and I have been working towards it for many years, 10 years infact, when I was 16 and really got into the production side of pigs. So I have been saving to be able to support this 'pipe dream'
In th meantime I plan to do other things, as you have said in the comments to support the farm. We want to grow veg and do a pick your own kind of thing, the farmers markets for our pork and other value added products such as pies, sausage rolls and other dishes made from pork. There has been money made from educating todays children on what farming is. Running educational days on the farm, doing school visits with animals and so on. It breaks my heart to hear these stoires from teachers and community workers where young children are asked where things such as eggs, milk, cheese and meat come from and they answer they give is Tesco or Asda. My 4 year old son has more of an understanding of where his food comes from than some kids twice his age.
I cant thank you guys enough for the response my original post as got, I never thought I would meet so many people who are as passionate, if not more, about pigs than me!
You all need a pat on the back for keeping these rare breeds in our country and keeping the farming dream alive or so many others.
Maybe you can all come and work with me and we make it the biggest co-oprative business in the world! lol
