A Pig Learning Experience

Years ago as a younger lad growing up in southern Illinois, my family occasionally raised hogs.  My dad would buy 10-20 Berkshire, or Duroc, or Hampshire piglets as feeder pigs for market and personal processing.  He didn't do it that often because it wasn't a very lucrative farming venture.  Markets have been controlled by large scale operations and processors that supply the supermarket food chains, making it difficult to make a profit in that sector.  There are niche markets for smaller producers that cater to specific upscale restaurants or provide local organic stores with a unique pork product, but that requires some significant effort and attention to establishing relationships and the ability to process your own pork product for resale.  Those challenges haven't stopped people from trying, in fact, it's fairly common for homesteaders and small farmers to raise pigs if for nothing else it's a personal rewarding experience.

We opted to give it a try on our new farm, hoping that we could at least break even or sell enough to cover the cost of grain and provide some pork for our freezer.  We researched breeds and looked for local deals on feeder pigs, finally opting to try our hand with some heritage Gloucetershire Old Spot piggies.  We found our piglets on craigslist offering them for $125 each, or $80 if you bought four or more.  We intended to get at least four, and compared to other prices we thought we found a deal.  We didn't know at the time that the piglets we were getting were actually racing pigs!  Yep, turns out the seller uses cute little piggies to perform races for entertainment at fairs and events, the All Alaskan Racing Pigs (http://www.pigrace.com ).  They were cute and healthy so their racing background didn't deter us, we brought them home.

Racing Pigs at the Trough

Research told us that production operations feed their pigs about 600-700 lbs of feed per pig to get them to market weight (~250 lbs live weight) in 4-5 months, so we had an idea of overall cost.  We talked with a local feed store, McKenzie Feed, and checked prices at the bigger box farm supply stores and found that feed would cost us about $14 per 50lb bag if we purchased a ton (40 bags, $560/ton).  We thought a ton would get the pigs most of the way, but it didn't quite work out that way.  The colder fall weather and early winter months meant they'd need a bit more feed to put on weight and stay warm, so we ended up buying another ton of grain.  Feeder operations don't give their pigs room to roam and they're kept in enclosed buildings which keep the pigs warmer, so they require less feed in general.  I expected a difference, but was a little surprised how much difference since our pigs consumed a bit more than 1000 lbs of feed per pig before we took them in to process.  So with cost of piglets and feed, we invested $1,500 into the pigs by the time they were ready for market.  Keep in mind that doesn't take into account the 5 months of daily care, like: watering, feeding, and pen cleaning work.

Once they're at market weight, processing is the next step.  Honestly, this is the most difficult part and it's why most small farmers sell their pork and let the customer deal with processing.  Unfortunately we wanted to offer a simple experience for our customers and chose handling the work with the processor.  Our lack of experience here showed because we weren't prepared with cut orders in advance, the processor we chose didn't assist with that in any way, and that put us in the middle.  If the processor does a bad job, it would make us look bad.  Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.  There aren't that many processors in the area to choose from, and reviews are mixed.  We finally settled on nearby processor, Mohawk Valley Meats, and scheduled two months in advance.  I know that our lack of experience didn't help, but the processor's lack of communication made things worse.  Not only did they not keep their schedule with us, but they didn't get the cut orders right.  We dropped off the pigs first week of January and didn't get the finally order back until March.  I understand it takes longer to process the cured and smoked meats, but that should be no longer than 3 weeks after slaughter, not 3 months.  The biggest concern with a processor is trust, do you trust that the pig you brought them is the meat you're getting back, and if it is your pork are you getting all of it back?  How do you know if the hanging weights are accurate?  That was our biggest failure, putting ourselves in the middle of that trust relationship with the processor and customers.  It's also not cheap, processing gets expensive and adds a lot of cost.  It was nearly $200 per pig overall just for processing.

Things will be different when it's time to process the beef, customers will work with processor directly.  We haven't given up on raising some hogs, we hope to do it again, at least for ourselves.  If and when we do though, we'll be processing our own pigs to ensure we're getting our own pork and won't have to worry about being shorted, or the cost.  If we raise any pork for sale, customers will choose their own processor and work directly with them and we'll stay out of the middle of that relationship.  We'll simply feed them up and deliver.

A life lesson learned, we're moving on.  It wasn't a horrible experience and hopefully the few customers we had understood the issues with the processor wasn't us.