sionapiorwerth

Not sure if you mean the Art Palace next to the Q bar?

Hope there are some locals that can help with this

Comin back to relax on samui for a spell.

Last time I was there I stayed at a place that I very much want to return to - but I have lost their details.

I will try to explain the place and I hope someone knows of it and can post contact details.

It faces the road that runs up from Chaweng beach to the 4169 - on the north end of the town (at 4169 there is a family mart, you habg a right and head to Tesco)

More important, it straddles the road that winds up to Q bar. the main building is on the main road and it has a foot bridge that goes over the "Q bar" road and leads to the second section of the hotel, where there are some bungalows that overlooks their pool. It is a unique place in that sense so I hope someone knows about it and can provide a number of website.

Thanks

K

I sure it could be posted somewhere on thai visa for this forum but instead i'll post it in here for obvious reasons. I am asking for advise, suggestions or information on driving from donsak to hua hin. I do realize I"ll pass through suratthani though.

1. how long is the trip driving there ( I don't plan on going by bus or train no thanks )

2. I saw that you wind up taking the 401 then the 4 to hua hin, is this still the same or have things changed

3. what are road conditions like? are there 2 lanes on each side like the way it is going to phuket by the new highway

4. Anything I should look out for

5. Your experiences getting there by driving, train, or bus

anything you guys out there can provide would be helpful thanks

once off the ferry, make sure the 8 or 9 oclock this will get you there about 5 or 6 evening time.

keep and eye out for the turing for krabi after you ehad for surat its only 15 minutes before this popos up, and the southern bypass route will take you faster, dual all the way, its a long straight road.

look for the chumporn turn off - as its a long road you may miss this, then its dual all the way, its a nice drive - have a great time

John

I'm visiting Samui over New Years with 10 to 15 friends and family.

Can anyone recommend any companies that offer Villa's for rent in the Chaweng area.

Hi Look up Samui villas and homes based here on samui

do an internet search.

Eric,

Just a word of caution. Tried this several years ago. 14 sows, and 150 pigs on average. Found out I had to raise them myself because nobody wanted to buy them young. Everyone else was too smart for me. Of course, I had other things to do, so then I wound up paying someone else to raise them while I did things that actually made money.

In the end, after calculating, I found out I was losing 265 per pig. Commercial feed is just too expensive. Tried mixing my own feed for a while, as I'm too dam_n stubborn to admit I was wrong. Dried fish, corn (pain to cook for 100+ pigs), rice bran and whatever vegetables I could get easily.) Probably could have made a small profit if I had really put in the effort, but I quickly realized I was doing the job of 10 people and losing sleep over it just to maybe break even. I could make the same amount of money sitting in the living room watching Thai soap operas and drinking several cases of Chang.

If you really want to make a business like this, hook up with an NGO who will buy your young pigs and give them to needy families. Short of that, your model won't work. You'll wind up growing them out yourself and working yourself to death in the process, or worse yet, paying others so you can lose even more money.

Of course, I haven't tried this in several years, so maybe the economics are different today, but don't bet on it.

Hi Greg.

Many thanks for your comments about your experiences at pig-farming; most sobering!

We plan on raising all new pigletts ourselves, selling them off at the market weight of 90-105Kg. We have done quite alot of research on this topic, and we also have had prior experience of raising wild pigs in the past. We plan on mixing our own feed, supplemented with EM-laced additves(Elective Microorganism). The plan is to construct 8 holding pens for each of the initial 8 sows, and another 8 holding pens for the weaners. We plan on artificially inseminating the sows with seed from local boars. After our first experiences of raising wild pigs, this time we plan on raising pink pigs, as orgainically as possible, using EM thechniques of food processing, and waste management. We will also be attaching 2 large fish ponds directly behind each cluster of 8 pig-pens. These ponds will contain 10,000 cat-fish each , which thrives on the effluent of pigs. Catfish are a very popular food source here in Nakornratchasima province, and fetch a good price in the markets.

We are FULLY aware of the amount of hard work all this will entail, and are quite prepared both physically and mentally for the challenge.

May I ask you, how you dealt with pig waste management and the bad odours when you had you own pig-farm?

We plan on recycling ALL waste matter. We are fortunate to have a large fruit farm adjoining our prospective pig-farm, and so we can use all treated waste product as fertilizer.

Looking forward to your reply...

Cheers.

Eric.

Hi Eric,

we farm the Mong Cai, In Saraburi,

had some probelms in the past now all sorted have over 70 pigs from different ages.

concrete your floors and have the run off into the catfish ponds.

for the smell, spray with EM designd for smell, a bit more acidic than the normal Em works wonders, should do twice a day after you wash the pens out, in doing twice a day the fish get fed as well.

you will see the pig lap this up its good for them.

make a basket or box in the pond to hold the additional waste from the pig shit, easier to scoop out once a week.

add this to the compost heap dose with EM and cover the smell will go away,

grow pewlnty of bananas if you have the land for additional food source for the pigs, how far is the local amrket from you, make a deal with a few suppliers to collect their veg peelings etc recues your feed cost, pigs that eat artifical feed smell more than those fed on greens.

mix rum ( rice husk milled, mixed with Molases and water for a heavier pig, they love it.

what we do is this mix for the morning and evening and fruit or veg in between.

good luck, keep us posted.

Regards

John

I just built a Klong to take away the flood waters when they hit in Bang Sare & was wondering what would be the best type of wood to put on the structure. We don't have much of a bug infestation problem here & really never hear about termites eating up the wood. I know coconut wood sucks- so I was wondering what would be a good choice. It will be 25 cm thick 2.25 meters wide & 4 meters long. I could go Shera or conwood but don't really like the look of fake wood. Thanks for the help again . You guys really ruled in the borehole question.... I leaned a lot & am grateful to all of you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Barry

Hi Beardog,

use yucalyptus trees, they last long and termites and bugs dont touch them.

we made a few fences and frames with them, last a long time.

good luck

The G/F family have found caught/bought 6 wild pigs

they alway rave about the meat, it is nice

2 went for family reunion BBQ last month

so 4 left, little girl pigs

so stupid me, asked a few questions

can you breed them?

can you cross breed them with domestic pigs?

3 hours and a few beers I still don't have a logical answer

so does anybody have any experience

or the rest will go to BBQ,

to celebrate birth of G/F and mine new baby next week or so

Hi Zamba,

Wild pigs are getting very rare in Thailand, talk the Tessban in your area.

thye could be interested in breeding farms.

i ahev been asked to breed as much as i can we have two wild pigs on the farm, this will be our next mission to breed wild pigs and re introduce into the wild.

we knwo that the mountain regions aropund the Thai borders are beging depleted of wild pigs and boars.

soon it will be down to certain famrers to re introduce.

not difficult to raise and feed them.

they are very tasty and in good demand as meat.

Reagrds

John

Hi Lickey great stuff

While I'm just starting out you're reaping the rewards of your hard work !!Glad you're overloading the Wave in true Thai style !!

This morning "Ton" couldn't wait for me to get started and came to the house looking for me !! Talk about keen !!

we've now planted up some banana and papaya, a pineapple I've had growing in a tub, a salee and a couple of som-o that I've grown from seed as well as lemon grass and some galangal. The missus has a long list of planting material that I'm after and is going to keep her eye out at the local nurseries and up in the city where she will be working whilst I'm in the UK. Her sister who is also keen on growing is gonna keep an eye out on the plot and plant some bits and bobs (she's propagating some cha-om at the moment ) in return for the use of a bit of the land to grow some veg .

And young "Ton" is gonna be my waterer until the rainy season arrives !!

So although its only a small start it is progress and hopefully left in safe hands !!

I start my journey back to the UK tomorrow so will catch up with you all in about a weeks time

Cheers for now guys J

Hi J

Great reading and good on you to bring the young kid on board, looks like your soil is very dry and hard, similar to what we had a few years back, takes some time though. in Sarabui all the kids want to do is steal to play cards, or go to town to do drugs

great to read your colums, keep them coming.

Regards

John

This will not be "another blow to tourism" as some have suggested. Street crime is rampant in most urban areas here. Bangkok continues to be one of the most dangerous places in the world. Either you accept the facts or bury your head in the sand and hope you do not become a victim.

Stress brought on by the well publicized problems unique to Thailand and the current global economic crisis will cause crime to continue to rise. This is simply one of hundreds of violent crimes that occur in Thailand everyday. This one could not be covered up because a foreigner was tragically brought into the story.

I disagree with that. In fact it is still one of the safest cities in the world. Compare Bangkok with Manila, Rio de Janeiro, Phnom Phen, Los Angeles... only to mention a few

I agree, Bkk is still a safe city compared to many others, if we look at our own back yards first and see the crime rates we have?.

after 17 years in Thaialnd i feel safe - what we forget killings are part of our culture well before the bible was written.

shame the bystander got hit.

My wife just startet up with pigs. Using the old bananastem as food

is also used here. I will follow the development on this site. She bought

the common food for 630 bath/full sack.

Hi khun Christensen,

seems your pig feed is expensive, use "Rum" and water, 5 to 10 baht per kilo get from the rice farmers.

mix with molases.

if you have a local market get them to keep their veg peeling daily or every other day.

Regards

John

A recipe sent to me by chevykanteve:

Do you ever use EM fertilizer? That stuff works magic for fruit trees, vegetabes and flowers. Here's how I make it:

1. Containing vessel: standard size cement caisson with the bottom part cemented in to render watertight.

2. Cover: sheet plastic, sort of like a tear-proof transparent paper. Keeps gases inside and prevents --or at least mitigates against -- spawning of mosquitoes.

3. The "Recipe":

a. 30-40 buckets of water

b. 2 buckets of buffalo or cow manure (dried or partly dried, though fresh stuff works!!)

c. At least 1/2 bucket of kitchen vegetable waste (good opportunity to clean out the refrigerator

of forgotten onions and things like that)

d. 6-8 capfuls of EM (one bottle of the stuff costs about 90 baht nowadays)

e. About 1/10th liter of nam oi (viscous sugarcane liquid available from the same stores that

sell the EM.

f. Stir briskly for a minute or two (avoid advice from others who insist it should be shaken and

not stirred -- some chap named Bond keeps posting that advice)

g. Affix the plastic cover and wait at least 3 weeks.

h. Serve on your plants!

Cheers,

Soundman.

i just bought some EM and just started composing (anaerobic method). a quick question, what's the resulting end product look like? is it a sludge? how do you apply it? on the surface or dig it in? would it be better server with an olive on top?

also, during the fermentation process, would be be ok to open the container and keep adding more stuff or is that a no no?

thanks, steve

Hi Steve,

spray it on the crops early morning or late afternoon, if your soil is not fertile enough add it twice a month

in time you will see the soil become more active with good bugs and earth worms a good sign the land is getting more fertile.

we have two kinds of EM one for the smell it smells a bit sour compared to a normal EM for the gardens, for the past ten days have been srpraying each day on fresh pig manure and the smell goes away after a few days. daily after washing the pig enclosures out we spray with Em and the chookie and duck areas helps keep the bugs at bay.

work wonders on plants and trees to give them the boost on nature back into them.

so many methods hard to keep up, lemon grass, orange, pandanus, jackfruits, mangoes.

Hi there, the post here are indicating something about lack of motherly instinct, and that is a factor, but they are not going to the root of the problem, these type pigs are becoming common through out the world in the intense farming sector, due to breeding techniques that have been developed and adopted the motherly criterion has been compromised and at times completely gone with the selective breading! And often the offspring are too week to survive slightest change in environmental condition as their immune system is not too strong.

Lets look at on example, in the traditional Poultry breading a hen gets broody after laying 25 to 30 eggs, and then will sit on them for 21 days till eggs hatch and chicks roll out, the battery hens of today, will lay every day but never go broody, that is the motherly instinct has gone completely! If you going to let the pigs into open remember that , Thailand is not UK and bacteria does well in the hot humid condition, the solution is to use a native breed as sire or get a few native sows and use one your male one! I was in central Australia few years ago, it has huge feral pig population, we use to catch few sows and they would farrow, and there never was a loss! If you are going to do intensive breeding, you use controlled environment and make sure the sow is fed around clock. My friend has pig farm, and it is highly automated, and he keeps the ubiquitous LAND RACE

Hi Kujiran,

the pigs i got, were from phuket, and they are "Mong Cai" breed from northen vietnam, and they say a good breed to have very hardy and resistent to many diseases.

we feed the pigs htree times per day,and when they are pregnant we have food for them all day.

many thanks for the update very much apreciated

Reagrds

John

crowding/bad mother syndrome (mother was a bad mother so many times daughter can be also- at least with goats and donkeys this is often the case)

stress

habitat changes needed....

is she killing them or are they dieing of disease? if u arent there to monitor then hard for u to really know what is going on...

u may have to sit and watch her/them from a distance to see where the problem lies.

nursing issues?

piglets with problems such as physical deformites that she wants to get rid of?

there a more agressive sow hassling a younger or newer mother?

is there a male bothering her (with donkeys this causes a young mother to abandon her foal if she has no help from other mares for instance)...

never had a pig, (living in israel ) but sheep/goats/donkeys/dogs/ferrets... and many of the problems are similar...

and as everyone mentioned: diet. (for the low birth weight piglets at least this can be a cause), but also diseases that female mammals can get: chlymidia/brucellosis/the list is endless, dont know what pigs get specifically but u must know, perhaps some blood work in a lab might be good?

bina

israel

Hi Bina and Teletiger

got the vet to call today, he took a look and mentioned the ones who lost piglets are bad mothers with a bad temprement.

he mentioned to give them one more chance, away from any other females, as Bina mentioned.

today was a good day three more gave birth, 22 piglets in total.

two more to give birth very soon.

i will be home for a week next weekend i will sit down and video them all, they stick to one teat when they feed as did the first sets we had. this could be a problem 12 is too much 8 is the best figure i belive.

Thanks Again, ahev a great weekend.

John

Hi John

My first thought for the low survival rate is your feed regime, but if you have a sow that is killing her young get rid of her because you dont want to be passing those kind of traits to any of your future breeding stock. As far as 12 piglets if yor sows are in good shape there should be no problem with her feeding them, I have had as many as 16 weaned from one sow, when you have several sows farrowing around the same time frame as the piglets grow they will feed on any sow that is laying down to nurse. I hope you figure out your problem fast because with the price of feed those kind of death losses will break your dreams in a hurry.

Best of luck to you and keep us posted.

Roger

Hi Roger and All

great feed back very much apreciated.

to date the rest have given birth we are now holding 42 young piglets, it seems the two bad mothers are as such and we shall fatten them up and sell them off.

the cost for feed the pigs is not expensive, as we have our own rice fields 5 rai, we are able to exchange for the Rum, we have found four great suppliers around our location at 5 to 8 baht per kilo.hiest i have paid is 12 baht.

mix with some molases.

when the banana trees give fruits we use the old stem, best thing is we have the market close by and have made deals for the peelings form all the veg, we get every day or every other day a pick up full FOC or a few bottles of rice wine.

as we have a shop that sells fruit and veg we give the old stuff as well.

Roger what kind of pig feed do you use?

we will plant more Kluay Nam wah to get bigger trees for them to eat, one pig pen is under a big Tamarind tree, from time to time we shake the pods for them and sue the young branches.

Talk soon

John

Only experience eating them, tasty little rascals

found a farmer here on koh samui, behind the lamai temple selling 300 frog tadpoles for 100 baht for breeding.

some of the gardener are breeding them a good money spinner.

get some earth worms form the university, and make your own worm hotel from the plastic cuboard at Tescos with four drawers 1,000 baht

Some soil and green veg for them to eat, make sure you add holes to the three top drawers and for the bottom one keep this for the worm jucie ( Urine) great for trees and mix with compost.

frogs like worms chopped up and magost or termites, any kind of bugs, this way you have a higher rate of production with healthier frogs than feeding them pellets.

crowding/bad mother syndrome (mother was a bad mother so many times daughter can be also- at least with goats and donkeys this is often the case)

stress

habitat changes needed....

is she killing them or are they dieing of disease? if u arent there to monitor then hard for u to really know what is going on...

u may have to sit and watch her/them from a distance to see where the problem lies.

nursing issues?

piglets with problems such as physical deformites that she wants to get rid of?

there a more agressive sow hassling a younger or newer mother?

is there a male bothering her (with donkeys this causes a young mother to abandon her foal if she has no help from other mares for instance)...

never had a pig, (living in israel ) but sheep/goats/donkeys/dogs/ferrets... and many of the problems are similar...

and as everyone mentioned: diet. (for the low birth weight piglets at least this can be a cause), but also diseases that female mammals can get: chlymidia/brucellosis/the list is endless, dont know what pigs get specifically but u must know, perhaps some blood work in a lab might be good?

bina

israel

Hi Bina and Teletiger

got the vet to call today, he took a look and mentioned the ones who lost piglets are bad mothers with a bad temprement.

he mentioned to give them one more chance, away from any other females, as Bina mentioned.

today was a good day three more gave birth, 22 piglets in total.

two more to give birth very soon.

i will be home for a week next weekend i will sit down and video them all, they stick to one teat when they feed as did the first sets we had. this could be a problem 12 is too much 8 is the best figure i belive.

Thanks Again, ahev a great weekend.

John

Pigs in the wild and even domestic will eat anything if they are hungry including offspring. I think the sows have adapted your self sufficiency program to the extreme.

Dear Slapout,

could be, my freind -as of today 12 more just arrived, two died due to being too small.

and we have four more waiting to pop them out.

thanks for the feed back

Are they using farrowing pens for birthing and feeding? This kind of death rate sounds liike sow may be crushing them. If this is not a possibility, then I do not have a suggestion

many thanks for the feed back much apreciated.

no we are not using that system, she is not crushing them to death, our first sets of piglets over two years ago were healthy and they lived in the wild inside a banana plantaiton.

from the two sows we had 24 piglets.

what happend last month she bit two of the piglets, and they had deep cuts in their legs as they were born.

could be that these two we have now are just bad mothers.and i should try to give them back more of a wild location other than in an enclosed area.

thanks again

Does anyone cover their ponds with shade cloth?

Expensive?

Standard pond size in Aus is 50m x 20m x 2m

for our ponds we grow lotus as shade and use the flowers and stems in "Gaeng som" add a few ducks this will help you give that extra free food for the fish, or two geese, they keep other birds away.

Tea leaves a slang for thiefs, as mentioned.

do not use nets this kills the birds who fly into them.

.

Dear All,

I have been farming the Duroc pig, and have had some good results, along with some sad results, when the pigs give birth, we loose all or aorund 70%.

when we get 12 piglets then only two or three survive this is difficult to understand, when we have done all we can, i used to farm pigs back in the uk with little or no loss at birth. i am not on the farm its run by the father in law and the wife.

can anyone give me some suport and advise here.

check out www.daponfarm.com some pictures of the pigs and a few wild pigs we collected from the hills.

looking forward to some feed back.

i keep reading that occupancy rates are a bit down and the peak rates have been dropped to match offpeak rates. were goi gto samui in may which is offpeak however we havent seen the offpeak prices drop. is it likely hotels will get even cheaper in may and june?

Rates are down for sure, use the web sites,such as Agoda etc

or try kandaburi a good four star with very good prices

What about a thread for raw material sourcing. I.e. soybean meal, fishmeal, corn gluten, mineral mixes, ect. It could be broken down into sections. Livestock section could be fish fingerlings, chicks for growing out, layers, lambs, calves, piglets ect....I'm sure you get the idea.

Regards

Great idea, sometimes hard to find certain livestock

chicks and fish fingerlings.

Avocado trees are growing on the north end of the island by a lady who runs a cooking school down town. I believe her name is Kathy. There are two different locations. Sorry I can not give you the details.

You are correct if you start from seeds you have to graft from a producing tree. I purchase a lot of avocados each year to make guacomle and freeze to sell. In Chiang Rai I have about 30 trees and will start to graft next week.

Best wishes and good luck.

Don Battles

Don's Foods Co. LTD

Thanks a lot Don.

Is there anyone out there who can get me in touch with Kathy, the avocadotree grower? Or could you, Don post me some grafted trees from Chiang Rai? Or bring some with you to sell? Any idea what that would cost? Would there be anyone else interested in buying some?

Now I know I need more then one (or one polunated one. Do they not need to be polunated every year again tho?) and they have to be grafted.

MMMH Help!

Any body else out there who knows how I can get some?

Hi i would be Inetrested to purchase at least 10 trees, not sure if they would grow in Saraburi,

but would give them a go with the rest of the trees.

Don you gave me some seeds a few years back in Koh Samui -lost them trees to bugs.

call me if you would like to sell

0878811382

Thanks

Hi Pierrot, i understand your post very well, and i was thinking the same myself on the farm yesterday, keeping up with the latest pest control ect, we grow mainly papaya and banana, and some of the payaya have mosaic and leaf curl, as there is no papaya farmers on this forum, i had to google to find the right spray to cure or stop this problem spreading, they were all sprayed today.I done the google search to save others doing it for me,

If i were you, i would make a new post in the forum, saying you could not find it in the 'search' ! there are many 'long time farmers' who are willing to help newbies with anything, happy farming, lickey,,

May i sugest you turn to uisng EM Effective mircorgnism, this is a natural product made from fruits or veg, with molasses and water, you can purchase, from any gardening store, the more healthy your soil is the better resistance to the bugs , you can also spray them every three days to add some vitality to them.

another natural products or products come from the Thai Happy tree products they are natural and works well.

now that I have my 20 Rhode Island Red layers at 18 weeks, looking healthy and good temperament, i am using rice hulls [klab] for litter and change it weekly and add hydrated lime to keep odors [amonia]. I'm wondering what is the most sanitary way to deal with my growing pile of litter and to speed up the composting process?? should be great stuff for the veges this winter!!! Will composting sanitize the poop against avian flu and other possible pathogens??

hi there, mix the klab with some rice straw this will keep the young poults on their toes and healthy, or add saw dust if you are near the saw mill, combine this with additional compost top with some EM and cover in two weeks you will have a good compost, if you want to go one step further add earth worms (vermiculture) they will produce a very good quality compost.from their stool.

keep the worms for ther poults to eat later or add to a new heap. saves money.