I have questions about raising pigs for meat

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smoking shawn86

Meat Mopper
Original poster
Jun 13, 2011
244
12
southern Ca,
recently it read a magazine called hobby farms.They had an article on raising pigs for your table.I have been wanting to raise a pig for some time.A question I have is it wroth it, does it cost a lot,and does the meat taste way different from the meat in the stores.they say you can ask restraints or stores if you can have their scraps to help feed them.
 
If you're looking to do it to save money, forget it!
But if you're looking for MUCH better pork than you can buy in a grocery store, then it's the way to do.
The ultimate quality of the pork will depend on genetics and the quality and composition of the feed.


~Martin
 
Impossible question to answer.

It'll depend on the cost of the feeder pig and feed.
Depends on whether you count your time or not.
Gas required to fetch feed.
Butchering cost.

Usually the answer is no, but if you have a source of real cheap high quality feed, then that would certainly make a big difference.

General rule of thumb:

It takes ~1000-1200 pounds of high-quality well-balanced feed to grow a quality feeder pig from 30 lbs. to 230-250 lbs. (usual butcher size).


~Martin
 
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Pigs today are grain fed. I thing profitability would hinge on getting feed cheaply. A full grown hog can be one hell of a mean critter.

Go to search bar and type in "Hog eats man"
 
 
My grandfather used to have a 55 acre "hobby farm" after he retired from Nabisco.  He raised cattle, pigs and chickens plus had a certain amount of acreage in corn and other crops.

He would sell a few head of cattle each year to make enough money to pay the taxes and put up supplemental feed to get the animals through the next year, but we also took a large quantity of the corn to the local mill for feed on the cheap.  Not much went to waste between the chickens and the hogs. Only had a few hogs mainly for food, but he did raise chickens for sale as well as a personal food source.

I do remember the cautions about working around the larger hogs and yes they will eat pretty much anything you throw in their pen. The larger boar hogs can be downright mean too.

He made it work for decades until his health went south (when he was in his 80's).  So I guess it is possible to be mostly self reliant upon self farmed crops and animals if you have the space, time and proper equipment.  Of course this was before the advent of hybrid and genetically engineered crops which are either sterile or cannot by contract be kept to be reseeded for next year. 
 
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[h2] [/h2]
http://[h3]How much does it cost to raise a pig: July, 2010[/h3]
Question from email:  "I'm interested in raising my own pig to eat.  What will it cost me?"

For pigs, the cost of raising is pig is the cost of the newly weaned pig + the cost of the feed to bring the pig to market weight + the cost of the pen to keep it + the cost of the labor.


In western Washington, where I farm, a weaner pig will cost you $85. It will take between 600 and 800lbs of feed to get that pig to market weight at $290/ton (July 2010 price). Using the higher weight, that's $116 in feed, giving you a hard-cost of $201.

having someone come to your farm and kill the pig will cost $55, and for that price they will shoot the pig, skin it, gut it and split it down the backbone. For an additional $0.55/lb they'll cut it into your pork chops and roasts and so on.

Adding it all up, you'll pay $201 for the pig and feed, $55 for the kill, and $110 for the cut-and-wrap, for a total of $366. This will yield approximately 150lbs of meat, for a cost per lb of $$2.44

I'm not calculating any labor in this and I'm ignoring the price of your pigpen.

People do this all the time. You know exactly what your pig was fed, you have the opportunity to get closer to your food, and you can reduce these costs by using food sources other than purchased feed (surplus bread, expired dairy, etc)
 
My grandfather used to have a 55 acre "hobby farm" after he retired from Nabisco.  He raised cattle, pigs and chickens plus had a certain amount of acreage in corn and other crops.

He would sell a few head of cattle each year to make enough money to pay the taxes and put up supplemental feed to get the animals through the next year, but we also took a large quantity of the corn to the local mill for feed on the cheap.  Not much went to waste between the chickens and the hogs. Only had a few hogs mainly for food, but he did raise chickens for sale as well as a personal food source.

I do remember the cautions about working around the larger hogs and yes they will eat pretty much anything you throw in their pen. The larger boar hogs can be downright mean too.

He made it work for decades until his health went south (when he was in his 80's).  So I guess it is possible to be mostly self reliant upon self farmed crops and animals if you have the space, time and proper equipment.  Of course this was before the advent of hybrid and genetically engineered crops which are either sterile or cannot by contract be kept to be reseeded for next year.  
  You can sure get a lot of farmers riled up on that can of worms. SORRY Monsanto, i didn't mean it.
police2.gif
Don't take my farm.
 
My grandfather used to have a 55 acre "hobby farm" after he retired from Nabisco.  He raised cattle, pigs and chickens plus had a certain amount of acreage in corn and other crops.

He would sell a few head of cattle each year to make enough money to pay the taxes and put up supplemental feed to get the animals through the next year, but we also took a large quantity of the corn to the local mill for feed on the cheap.  Not much went to waste between the chickens and the hogs. Only had a few hogs mainly for food, but he did raise chickens for sale as well as a personal food source.

I do remember the cautions about working around the larger hogs and yes they will eat pretty much anything you throw in their pen. The larger boar hogs can be downright mean too.

He made it work for decades until his health went south (when he was in his 80's).  So I guess it is possible to be mostly self reliant upon self farmed crops and animals if you have the space, time and proper equipment.  Of course this was before the advent of hybrid and genetically engineered crops which are either sterile or cannot by contract be kept to be reseeded for next year.
  You can sure get a lot of farmers riled up on that can of worms. SORRY Monsanto, i didn't mean it.
police2.gif
Don't take my farm.
What does this mean
 
Again, it depends on what your goals are as far as quality and what you feed.
Yellow corn is relatively cheap, but it's inferior pig feed, it's the reason so much supermarket pork is crappy.
Heritage breeds are less efficient at feed conversion, but the the quality of the pork is much better.


~Martin
 
Here is an article on feeding Plate Waste from Restaurants and other institutions in addition to non-meat waste from Bakeries and Grocery Stores. I bring it to your attention since while feeding the pig scraps from what you eat is safe that which comes from Restaurant, Hospitals, Etc, MUST be cooked first to eliminate disease causing bacteria and avoid Trichinella Spiralis, the parasite that causes Trichinosis. It also goes into Scrap nutritional value and steps to take to make sure your " Little Piggy goes to Market " healthy and Safe to eat...Pretty good read...JJ

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/an143
 
Anytime my Friend!...JJ  
241.png
 
  You can sure get a lot of farmers riled up on that can of worms. SORRY Monsanto, i didn't mean it.
police2.gif
Don't take my farm.
And rightfully so IMO.

And as to the question "what does that mean"....  Monsanto produces a range of genetically engineered crop products that they patented and "own".  If you buy their products that are engineered to be more productive, more resistant to xyz disease, insects, fungus, etc... or resistant to Roundup (which is another argument outside of this), as part of your purchase contract you must agree not to save seeds you produce from their crops to replant in future years.  If you don't agree, the distributors are not supposed to sell you the product.  Monsanto wants a captive audience forced to buy their product year after year as a return on their investment in engineering a "better" product.  Yes, Monsanto is even hiring retired police investigators to investigate if farmers are saving seeds and will try to recover their "losses".

Now throw the roundup resistant crops into the mix.  They insert genes to make the crops resistant to the chemical defoliant Roundup (which Monsanto also owns) so you don't need to weed anymore, just plant their magic seed and hose it down liberally with their magic weed killer which kills everything but the magic seed plants.

Then they started inserting BT genes into the plants themselves to make them resistant to leaf eating insects.  BT has been used for decades as an external spray with no problems, but now it's in the cellular level of the plant which means it is also in all parts of the plant including the pollen. So how do you keep airborne pollen from cross pollenating with other plants?  You can't.  So GMO crops end up cross breading with heirloom crops and suddenly do you even have any more non-GMO crops available?   Some crops that are GMO can only be used for feed and not human consumption, no export, etc...  Start to see the problem.

Then there is the problem of honey bee colony collapse disorder.  Odd thing is it started not to long after widespread use of genetically modified BT containing products went into distribution.  I have not seen any scientific discussion, but if BT kills insects that eat it and BT is now in the genetic makeup of the pollen, does it not make sense this could be related?  Previously the BT was sprayed on the leafs and only the crop eating insects ingested it.  Now it's at the genetic level in all parts of the plants. Bees did not eat the leaves but the do eat the pollen.

And yes, we end up eating it also if you eat a GMO crop....

Ok, franken-food rant over, back to your regularly scheduled thread on raising your own hogs (but the above is an excellent argument on why someone would want to raise their own and a great example of you know what's in your meat, assuming you can find non-GMO grains for feed).
 
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