IsaanAussie

Andy,

Dont worry about the "well read" nay sayers. You offer a good product and source of knowledge on the birds you keep. Good luck to you keep up the good work.

For people who read this forum trying to learn or gain information, listen to those actually doing it. Give those who offer uninformed opinions and caustic doubts the big air swing. As JC stated, there is no easy money in farming here, or anywhere else. It has me stuffed why anyone would try to limit the opportunities of someone else giving it an honest shot.

Female Engineers from Renault and Ford are working on a new small car for women which should be far less susceptible to theft.

They are mixing the Renault Clio and the Ford Taurus and calling it the "Clitaurus."

The average male thief won't be able to find it, let alone drive it!

WS,

Yours is a valuable story for anyone thinking of seriously investing in the pig industry here. As in any industry, often circumstances will stop the best of plans and personal application dead in their tracks. Those of us in pig farming here have had a rare opportunity to get a good return for 9 or ten months, some did, RBH for instance. I am just one of the struggle town guys I'm afraid but already ready to learn and adjust.

Good luck in your current activities. Hang tough.

IA

The floods and pigs and chickens, whats the difference? Chickens cannot swim.

Stop kidding us --- thats you and the kids in the pond

OK you almost got it right. Thais will bet on anything, even flies crawling up a wall, so why not piglets in a pond? No actually the situation for livestock is pretty grim(ley). Perhaps this picture shows it better.

The floods and pigs and chickens, whats the difference? Chickens cannot swim.

KW,

You are one of the long time, real people here on the forum. I am no enemy or adversory of yours. But I lost one of my best sows to a sporpion bite a month or so ago. Tonight waited while a side winding snake crossed the road in front of me while I walked home from the sty. On this, it is economics, not heart beats that rule, see a risk eliminate it. My sty has manure outlets behind each pen, they are cool and damp snake refuges by their nature not by design. I have no cause to tell you, in your circumstaneces that you are wrong, nor you in mine. Enjoy your swim. Come near my pigs and Mr. Snake, you are dead!

IA

I sat in with a new litter of piglets today and suddenly thought about the pigs in Lop Buri and Nakorn Pathom. How the hell do you relocate those populations of pigs. This evening the industry newsfeed offered this.... 10 million animals, my God... The United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says significant flooding and devastation across Southeast Asia – including Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand – has caused severe damage to housing, infrastructure and agriculture.

Official estimates indicate that 1.6 million hectares, or 12.5% of the total rice farmland has been damaged in Thailand alone. The region has also seen scores of livestock killed or displaced, with significant numbers considered to still be at risk. In Thailand alone, 9.9 million head of livestock are at risk according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, though this number is set to rise as the flood situation worsens.

Today the first DC60 turned up in our village and cut several rai of early rice. The first of the year here. I am told it sold for about 13 baht. Amazing what a little sunshine will do.

WF,

Agree with all of what you have said. I didnt explain the pathogen issue very well. Its not the worms that are at risk it is the pigs.

WF,

I am no scientist but the difference between ruminants and pigs is obvious even to me. I have read heaps about the dangers of using pig manure with worms, the heat generation cycle being insignificant to the pathogen issues. I made up a small test bed early on and fed it with raw pig manure. The answer didnt take long, worms left faster than the current Bangkok flood exodus. They like my orginal 30:1 pig compost bedding and breed well, but what I am using now is a much higher manure content, and balanced with burnt rice hulls with very little if anything else. Past the thermophyllic stage though. The objective here is maximising the nitrogen content of the compost. The cost is a reduction in compost volume output.

We will see what the result is but the basic research indicates I should maximise the throughput of the worms and the NPK values of the worm castings. If this works I will be pelletising the castings rather than screening them. No way am I going to loose the carbon content from the biochar.

RBH: Not wrong. AC quoted a cobra was approx 9 feet - not a king. Anyway, a king, in spite of its name, is not a true cobra. They're also very shy and not seen very often.

What I had to say was better left un said.

Arh, go on Hedo, spit it out. Just don't aim for the eyes.

Hey are they real cobras? The spitting ones i mean.

Hey Andy and Dave the 6th, we keep going like this and we might just wriggle our way to humour! Anyone seen a trouser snake lately, getting darn scarce around here! My missus said there was the day when she could have eaten them all, now she wishes she had... For the Hansonites from Aussie, Please explain?

RBH: Not wrong. AC quoted a cobra was approx 9 feet - not a king. Anyway, a king, in spite of its name, is not a true cobra. They're also very shy and not seen very often.

What I had to say was better left un said.

Arh, go on Hedo, spit it out. Just don't aim for the eyes.

Hey are they real cobras? The spitting ones i mean.

Please remember that many of these outskirt industrial parks were promoted to decentralise Thai Industry outside Bangkok. Unfortunately most of the land available was flood prone. The issue was addressed and believed adequate by all. If he had been around even Noah would have used the incentitives and tax breaks and started building Arks in Ayutthaya.

This is sounding like my favourite movie, Snatch. Pitbulls to rip the unfortunates apart and pigs to clean up the mess. How did we get here? Who cares!

Hey WF,

Have we got a worm in our apple?

Hi IA,

Not really, I was just curious. I had contact with a chap in Kanchanaburi several years ago and we visited his worm farm there. Also met up with him in BKK. If it is the same guy he also contributed to several threads on this forum, but under a different name, so I was just wondering if it is the same chap as I don't think there were that many worm farms in Kanchanaburi. Maybe I should PM him, but he knows me and my TV name so if he sees this he'll answer.

Cheers, WF

Let the curious cats and apples be. But this is news.

I have just changed feed for my worms. Yesterday I took up some advice I got from Vietnam and loaded a bed with high carbon composted pig manure. Unlike you I dont have any cows and I thought why not if it will save the few baht buying the cow manure. Well if 24 hours is any gauge it is the best thing I could do, the worms are into the pig leaving like I cannot believe. Admittedly there was little cow stuff left and a good number of worms were in the bedding layer. This morning every one is in the top inch and I have castings on the surface in a day.

Isaan Aussie

Stick yer Charts, it went down to 22Bht under Chavalit.. I had 500 at any one time,auto feed modern system, the lot, imo you scratch a living, we killed and retailed for 17 years.. Get a 7/11, and retire. Never Again.

Now I understand your posts a little better. I am sorry that you had such a hard time of it but it sounds like you gave it your best shot. 17 years is a long time to put it to see it all turn to dust. I applaud your effort and regret the outcome.

I wont be throwing away my charts as I believe that it is important to try to understand the realities of what you do if you want to do as well as you can. I am sure I don't have to tell you that a lot can happen in the time that a sow conceives and her piglets are sold at market weight. To me, leaving that 9 month investment completely up to chance is just not acceptable. So I try to give myself as many options as I can.

I do agree with you, it is hard work and the return is not great. Yes I am scratching to stay ahead as most who are living off their farms are. Yes cash flow is always a problem. Yes I must be crazy getting involved and spending so much to get established. But you know something? I may have been born under a wandering star as well but I am exactly where I want to be, and doing what I want to do. Win, lose or draw, your best is all you can do.

Well done IA...

I've four of this charts for pigs and another four of it for Big Oui catfish, i can't post them because i charted them since farmgate price for live pig was at historic low of ฿35/kg...my charts are graphed on the vanguard sheet and pasted on the wall in my planning room.

One of my pig chart is a 7days moving average graph chart accounding to the Buddhism calender,

This is the chart that determine the weekly price trend according to " Wan Sinn " tradition.

Support and resistance line is now at ฿60/kg...moving average is at ฿58/kg.

Yes...You guess it, i was a commodity trader before i become a farmer

...so where is the chart for pellet feed ?

Pellet feed chart is probably pasted on your planning room wall? Forgive me if the Buddhist charts are beyond me, but I will try to catch up. My moving average is at 57.2 because I dont use this years numbers as yet, swings are too big and too much influenced by external factors. Resistance point I think you are right. All in all we seem to be on the same page. By the way, my background was strategic market development.

Hey, do you think anyone is taking any notice of this stuff? Second question, how many pigs do you have at the moment? For everyone else, think about this answer very carefully.

A week ago I posted about the seasonal nature of prices and used the US as a sample. I have been asked to get the Thai numbers together. Actually, pestered is closer to the truth.

The first graph shows the live prices here in Thailand according to Betagro for the last four years. A simple linear trendline seems to indicate that prices are trending upwards.

But if you look at the same numbers overlaid week by week you see a different story. The 2009 and 2010 figures indicate that the prices are staying static with all 4 years being pinned at this time of year at between 50 and 55 baht. Even this year is heading back to that point. The high numbers this year have been attributed to the 54 outbreaks of PRRS and the 30% reduction in production. Now new stock is coming on stream things are returning to normal it would seem.

The third chart shows the relationship between pig and piglet price movements over the 4 years. Potential pig raisers should look for trends where piglets are cheap, four to five months before pigs are expensive to find the "right time" to jump in.

I am posting a few more statistics on the pinned topic for those interested. I have used Betagro numbers so we can leave the CP thing behind and just look at the market.

I For years I owned a large worm farm in Kanchanaburi but sadly had to close it down due to lack of funding. 6 weeks after I was on National radio and since must of recieved 500 calls easily requesting worms, compost, info etc. I still breed a few worms at the rear of the house and would like to start again on a commercial scale, if any one is interested please get in touch.

Sanchin,

Do I know you by another name? We visited you in Kanchanaburi I believe.

WF

Hey WF,

Have we got a worm in our apple?

Anyway, back on topic. Has anyone had to sell pigs lately? What is the price doing to your profits?

Has anyone fed soybean mean to poutry I just wondered what size it was, I was looking to feed to quail so needs to be quite small. I would like to mix 50-50 with Rice bran and I think it would come out at about 28% - 32% Protein I think thats about perfect for quail.

This is working on the asupsion that rice bran ranges from 12%-16% protein depending on type of extaction and layer used . The outer layer of bran has the most Protien.

so at 16 baht a kg for SM and 7baht a kg for bran I should come out at about 11 baht a kg Quail food is 20 baht a kg

adds to the bottom line all input is welcome

i just brought a ton of used beer hops because it was cheap i dont dont know where it is from but it is very wet and stinks like an old pub floor. I paid 5,000 baht for it , I dont know the protien content and dont care for that money Ive fed it to everything today and the man said he sells to pig farmers as a rule. Anyone know more than me, because I have not got a Danny ?

Heard of using used grains (DDG- dried distillers grain) but not hops. Interesting. Let me know if they all fall down drunk. Should give an interesting flavour to a roast bird.

Whatever way you look at it, C.P. flood the Supermarkets, not theSMEs. Ive watched them for 30 years. Same with all their products.

Yep, Cp, Betagro, Thai foods, and a few others. But not all of Thailand shop in supermarkets my friend. I have sold 600 kg of pigs to one customer in a day, the SME's aren't exactly sitting on their hands either. Betagro are developing product to sell in local markets.

C.P. control the price, no one else..

To a very large extent that is true, their press releases have been known to be adopted by most. But not always, as it depends on supply and demand in many regional areas. There are many small non-commercial farms that trade a few pigs in the rural areas. These farms trade privately and are often under the CP and industry associations quoted averages. With the very large farms in the hands of the major 4 or 5 agribusinesses controlling more than 30% of the pigs in the country. There is another stream of Thai owned pig businesses that breed and then contract grow their pigs with small farmers. These often offer fixed price contracts inleiu of the market price without guarantee, that CP offers.

In short, six months ago I would have agreed completely but I have been studying this matter very closely and find that it is not entirely true. The seasonality of the business is much more an influence as RBH pointed out some weeks ago. There is a natural scheme of things, but it is usually CP that sounds the siren before any major drop. This is probably due to their knowledge of who, what and when the gluts don't match the demands.

Well things still havent turned around, still a lot of pigs to be sold. Though some current figures might help. the attached comes from the swine raisers association.

Pig Prices Oct 11.pdf

IA

Note: The northeast (isaan) is the lowest, it is also the second largest pig producing region.

Smile, things will dry up eventually. In the meantime do what you can for the pigs!