I have been contemplating the costs of our hog raising operation here at Pure Water Hollow this morning. The piglets that were born last July have now run the course from tiny, helpless things eating only their mama’s milk, to full grown 230 pound market hogs. And next weekend we are taking those pigs we did not sell to the butcher to eventually re-fill our freezers with fresh pork chops, roasts, smoked ham, bacon, and sausage.
It is hard to believe how much feed costs have increased, just in these past 5 months. The end of August the pig and hog chow we buy from the feed store was $14.20 for a 100 lb. bag and now that same bag is $15.20. The corn feed meal has risen from $9.10 per 100 lb. to $10.25 per 100 lb. Thankfully we have continued to obtain plenty of old milk for free to supplement the feed costs, so that has helped very much.
So now for the numbers. Since the end of August, when the piglets were 6 weeks old and eating the purchased feed, we have spent a total of $665.00 on the pig feed from the feed store. That sounds like a lot considering it has just been over a 5 month period of time. In August we were feeding the 15 feeder pigs, 2 sows and 1 boar. Now we are still feeding the 2 sows, 1 boar, and 6 market hogs. After this week we will only have the 2 sows and 1 boar.
The pigs we have been raising have been bringing in some benefits, however, that largely cancel out the feed costs. I traded 2 of the feeder pigs for $80.00 worth of mechanic work on the truck and 1 of the feeder pigs for $100.00 of veterinary work when the FFA castrated 10 of the males for us. (Our vet charges $10.00 per animal, so I figure it would have cost $100 if I had taken them to him.) I traded 3 feeder pigs for $120.00 worth of straw that we needed for bedding. I sold another feeder pig for $45 and two shoats (bigger piggies) for $50.00 a piece. One of our market hogs has been sold for $100, with us finishing him out and taking him to the meat market with our others.
After adding those numbers up, the $665 feeding bill does not seem so bad. We have sold or bartered 10 of the pigs for a total of $545 and we still have 5 – 230 pound market hogs left. We could still sell some more this coming week. Last night we received a call from some folks who might want to purchase one of them for another $100 and they thought they had a family member who would be interested in buying 1/2 of a hog for $50. If that happens than we would be up to $695 the pigs brought in, which would mean that all of our pork for the freezer only cost us our labor (which has been considerable). We are talking about the meat from 3 and 1/2 hogs, which would probably be about 450 pounds of pork.
All in all, we are satisfied with our first experiment in raising pigs. From here on out it should get easier to raise future litters of pigs. If we can get a field in which we could raise some of our own corn for feeding, the costs could come down; and if we do a better job advertising and marketing our animals in the future, we may be able to sell them easier.
I will write more after next week to record how the final transactions go delivering the pigs to the butcher and our experience there. We are going to a different meat market than we took Porky to, just to see how different they are. This meat market vacuum seals the meat which should be much better than the paper wrapping.
{I wrote the above this morning and since they were on my mind I decided to take my camera with me when we fed them to get a look at how big they are now. I will post pictures of how these pigs have changed over the 6 months of their life in the next entry. I was going to put the pictures here, but it seems like they should go in a different little post.}
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5 comments
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sheryl on January 19, 2008 at 9:19 pm
You could butcher them your self and save on a butchering bill. lol Really it isn`t that hard. I told Sam after our experience raising hogs, I will rather find a local farmer and just buy one ready to butcher. We would just butcher it ourselves and the only cost we would have in it would be the cost of the hog. I am so happy for you all that everything is working out. I wish you the best of luck with this. Please keep sharing with us. I love reading the post about the hogs and I can`t wait to see the pics of them. sheryl
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faithfarm on January 20, 2008 at 6:31 am
Thank you! This has been a very helpful post. We are about to start the Hog adventure. We are blessed to have the ability to butcher any of our animals ourselves. So the butchering fee's can be taken out of our cost. The information on feeding them out is so very helpful since it has been years since either of us has done it. Thank you again-your blog is a joy to read, Blessings>faithfarm
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Trixi on January 20, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Thank you for sharing this. We are contemplating getting 2 feeder pigs in the spring. This gives me an idea of what our pigs will cost us to feed out.
Blessings,
Trixi
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LittleHouse on January 22, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Hello Uncle Eric! Ma and I just read your post before this one. The essay was really good! I have read a couple of literature stories by Jesse Stuart. He is a very good writer! I just recently read a little story by him called "Old Ben." It was about a boy that gets to keep a snake. Ma and I really enoyed reading the essay by him!
I hope everyone is doing well! I am praying for all of you! Please tell everyone "Hi" from all of us! I love you all!
Love,
Mary
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Shaune on January 23, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I love the pics of you land. We had a pig roast at the end of Dec.2007 ,for an early new years celebration .My friend built a cajun cooker ,with a built in steal top to burn wood to cook the pig. This was our second pig we roasted in the box. It turned our really good !!!! Very tender and tasted great !!! I am not a big pork eater , but cooked like that it was very good eatin', I must say. You can view the cooker and roasted pig in my blog album, if you would like. Nice meeting you on here, you have a lovely homestead ,Shaune
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