Pig Farming In Thailand

[YangYaiEric]

Hello.

The missus and I are planning to establish a pig farm for the purpose of selling their piglets for meat. We intend on buying 8 ten-weeks old weaners from a reputable pig farm in our area, and we have estimated that within 18 months, we'll be looking at having over 100 piglets for possible sale.

Does anyone have any experience in pig-farming in Thailand? Any tips, advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Cheers.

[Mosha]

This may sound like I am poking fun, but I speak from experience. My sister-in-law has just started to keep pigs, not many but enough. We are down wind of her house for much of the year, and the stench is terrible. So make sure you are upwind of them.

[chownah]

Raising pigs does not take alot of capital or skill. Just about any farmer can do it and alot of farmers have raised a few pigs for sale. The price goes up and down and overall there is not alot of money to be made BECAUSE anyone can do it. The money to be made raising pigs is on a scale with what farmers wages are so if someone is happy making the approximate wages that farmers make then raising pigs might work. If you want to do better than that then you really need to be producing your own feed...which means that you are not just raising pigs, you are also raising crops.

Raising piglets to sell young so others can raise them seems to be a better business opportunity than raising them to maturity....the problem is finding people to buy the youngsters since at least around here within the last 5 years people have smartened up and discovered that raising pigs to maturity isn't worth the effort and risk...so...they have mostly stopped buying baby pigs to raise although a few still do. My uncle raised baby pigs for sale for many years but he has practically stopped and just keeps one or two sows to sort of keep it going and those two will pretty much satisfy the market around here for baby pigs.

Like with most Thai agricultural products, producing them is not the problem...the problem is marketing and getting a price that justifies the expense, risk, and time involved.

Chownah

[gregb]

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.

[YangYaiEric]

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.

[gregb]

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.

Had a plan for biogas, but never finished the project. Instead, we simply dumped the manure into a canal we had dug for water storage. The methane was just vented into the atmosphere in that case. (Little bit of global warming never hurt anyone back then.) We used the fertilized water to grow some vegetables on the surrounding farm.

What we did was actually build the PVC drains directly into the pig house which was higher than ground level, and then just washed the waste straight into the canal using a squeegee and hose. It actually worked pretty well. Under a real biogas system, the canal would be replaced by digesters, which would set to work on the manure and denature it effectively. For any biogas system the water ratio becomes important. It's easy to use too much, so you would have to be careful.

But the smell was not too bad under this setup. There will always be smell from a pig farm, but that was the least of my problems. I'd still love to try the project again, but only for an NGO using someone else's money, while I get paid exorbitant western consulting fees. :-)

[nitecm]

Eric,

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.

I also want to do pig farming

Thank for your idea of fish farming

We produce the corn and soybean oulseve .Since selling these products to broker is quite low ,may be do pig farming give us a better return .

So what other additive do I need to add to my feed and where to get around Chiangmai ?

nitecm

[fruity]

Eric, Unless, you really 'love' Pigs; save your time & most importantly , your money!

The costs of the set up you describe, new housing, digging pools etc, will take years to recover.

We have a similar set up here, breeding & rearing of litters to slaughter weight. Unless you breed the piglets, it isn't worth the bother to buy in & rear.

We use the same waste system, the waste is flushed down drains into a pool via connecting pvc piping, similarly, we have fish in the pool feeding on the waste although, they DO NOT thrive as fish we have in clean pools. There are, however, no odours & the water can be pumped & used on fruit trees etc.

There are a thousand & one things to get right with pigs, breeding is very labour intensive, farrowings must be supervised, teeth removal, docking tails, injecting / vaccinating,castrating males etc. Piglets are not pleasant things to work with, screaming & struggling all the while.

Not all females are suitable as breeders, there are several factors to consider when selecting breeding gilts. You plan on mixing your own feed, at a guess, this will be in meal form? This is very wasteful, pelleted stuff is more economical, the meal ends up on the floor, then down the drain. AI is not as reliable as natural service & will likely cost more for a small number of pigs.

Personally, I like my Pigs, I enjoy having them even though the financial rewards are negligable. At the moment prices are 44-45 baht per kilo liveweight, a big improvement from last year when the price was 38 baht. We are lucky in so much as we can sell out batches to one guy, also there is a very steady demand locally for a pig or two for funerals, weddings, monk parties etc:)

I look on my pigs as a hobby & a savings scheme. I get my money back with a little bit of interest.

6am & time for their brekkie & the first clean out of the day........

[ThaiLife]

First I must admit I know nothing about pig farming but

I keep meeting Farangs who are '' going to set up a pig farm ''

as its a way to make money in Thailand, the last guy I

met I asked him if you can make money from pigs then

why don't we hear about it too much , his answer was that

the farangs who are making big money ( big – his term ) from pigs keep it quiet

and don't advertise the fact .

Just to add one comment from the guy I met ….. all I have to

do is sell one pig a day and I will make at least 60,000 Baht a Month

which will give me clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht..

so my question is ...

can a farang make ‘’ big ’’ money from pigs here in Thailand..?

TL

[Gary A]

First I must admit I know nothing about pig farming but

I keep meeting Farangs who are '' going to set up a pig farm ''

as its a way to make money in Thailand, the last guy I

met I asked him if you can make money from pigs then

why don't we hear about it too much , his answer was that

the farangs who are making big money ( big – his term ) from pigs keep it quiet

and don't advertise the fact .

Just to add one comment from the guy I met ….. all I have to

do is sell one pig a day and I will make at least 60,000 Baht a Month

which will give me clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht..

so my question is ...

can a farang make ‘’ big ’’ money from pigs here in Thailand..?

TL

It's likely that some farangs wouldn't admit that they made a mistake. I haven't found any farm product that pays more than Thai wages after the expenses are figured. Let's face it. If it were easy and you could make "big" money every one would do it. As for me, I'm not willing to work for Thai wages nor could I live on Thai wages. We have two small ten rai farms and I'm quite pleased if they break even.

[pop3]

farangs wouldn't admit that they made a mistake.

.....................

Yes that's the reason for that, But one thing you can be sure of is if there was ( Big Money ) to be made in pigs here in Thailand. farangs wouldn't be able to keep it quiet, a few cans of chang and the news would be everywhere.

[YangYaiEric]

Hello 'fruity'.

very many thanks for your comments ; most interesting indeed! Here are a few of my own comments to you.

Eric, Unless, you really 'love' Pigs; save your time & most importantly , your money!

The costs of the set up you describe, new housing, digging pools etc, will take years to recover.

Absoloutly! We fully inderstand the long-term nature of this venture, as well as the labour-intensive nature of pig-farming having raised wild-pigs before. We do like keeping pigs!

We have a similar set up here, breeding & rearing of litters to slaughter weight. Unless you breed the piglets, it isn't worth the bother to buy in & rear.

We intend to buy 8 gilts to start off with, followed by AI after they reach maturity (6-8 months approx.). I believe each sow can produce 2 litters per. year for up to 10 years.

We use the same waste system, the waste is flushed down drains into a pool via connecting pvc piping, similarly, we have fish in the pool feeding on the waste although, they DO NOT thrive as fish we have in clean pools. There are, however, no odours & the water can be pumped & used on fruit trees etc.

What type of fish do you keep? We intend on using CatFish (Plra-Dook). Do you use EM1 (Bokashi) to add to your feed? This is what we plan on doing.

There are a thousand & one things to get right with pigs, breeding is very labour intensive, farrowings must be supervised, teeth removal, docking tails, injecting / vaccinating,castrating males etc. Piglets are not pleasant things to work with, screaming & struggling all the while.

Yes! We're quite aware of the amount of hard labour this will entail, having had prior expericence raising wild-pigs.

Not all females are suitable as breeders, there are several factors to consider when selecting breeding gilts. You plan on mixing your own feed, at a guess, this will be in meal form? This is very wasteful, pelleted stuff is more economical, the meal ends up on the floor, then down the drain.

We do intend on mixing our own feed; combination of EM1, dryed cassava, rice husk, corn(maize), cabbages,carrots etc.

AI is not as reliable as natural service & will likely cost more for a small number of pigs.

Really? We do not want to raise boars simply to service our sows occasionally. I would have thought that AI using the seeds of local boars would be much more economical ?

Personally, I like my Pigs, I enjoy having them even though the financial rewards are negligable.

Very important point! We do like keeping pigs; they are clean and intelligent animals.

At the moment prices are 44-45 baht per kilo liveweight, a big improvement from last year when the price was 38 baht. We are lucky in so much as we can sell out batches to one guy, also there is a very steady demand locally for a pig or two for funerals, weddings, monk parties etc:)

I look on my pigs as a hobby & a savings scheme. I get my money back with a little bit of interest.

6am & time for their brekkie & the first clean out of the day........

Absolutely! It's also a great way of staying fit and active, while at the same time earn a few extra Bob in the process. Luckily, whe have other forms of cash-generating businesses(fruit-farm, bungalows-for-rent, mini-mart) so the pig-farm venture will not be our ONLY source of income.

[Gary A]

If you have the pig farm near the bungalows and mini mart, the pig farm may very well be your ONLY source of income.

[YangYaiEric]

If you have the pig farm near the bungalows and mini mart, the pig farm may very well be your ONLY source of income.

No, the prospective pig-farm is well away from the mini-mart and bungalows! But, good point though Gary me 'ol Shiner

[lannarebirth]

I've never heard of anyone ever making money from raising pigs. CP I know makes money from buying the pigs others raise. If you are intent on raising pigs, You should do some research on making biogas as a byproduct of pig waste. It will provide an additional revenue stream or at least cut your energy costs, which may be the difference between profitability and not.

http://www.palangthai.org/en/story/2

http://netmeter.org/en/biogas

[undercover]

Im interested in this part.

( all I have to

do is sell one pig a day and I will make at least 60,000 Baht a Month

which will give me clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht.. )

clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht ? sounds like easy money.

[chownah]

Im interested in this part.

( all I have to

do is sell one pig a day and I will make at least 60,000 Baht a Month

which will give me clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht.. )

clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht ? sounds like easy money.

To sell one pig a day requires caring for about 200 pigs every day all year round....does his sound easy?

This scenerio assumes 2,000 baht profit on each pig....for a 100 kilogram pig this means a profit of 20 baht per kilo of live pig. To make this much profit you would have to be growing your own feed.....does raising and process all the food for 200 pigs every day all year round sound easy?

Not only that but it would take a large investment to buy the land to raise enough feed, and for the equipment to process the feed, and for the building to house the pigs.

Maybe you were just joking when you said you thougt it would be easy.

Chownah

[nitecm]

Im interested in this part.

( all I have to

do is sell one pig a day and I will make at least 60,000 Baht a Month

which will give me clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht.. )

clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht ? sounds like easy money.

To sell one pig a day requires caring for about 200 pigs every day all year round....does his sound easy?

This scenerio assumes 2,000 baht profit on each pig....for a 100 kilogram pig this means a profit of 20 baht per kilo of live pig. To make this much profit you would have to be growing your own feed.....does raising and process all the food for 200 pigs every day all year round sound easy?

Not only that but it would take a large investment to buy the land to raise enough feed, and for the equipment to process the feed, and for the building to house the pigs.

Maybe you were just joking when you said you thougt it would be easy.

Chownah

I plan to reae pig as well

Even I can grow all the feed ,enough land,manpower and free electricity if I build my hydropower station

,I still worry where to sell them .

So if anyone interested to co-operate to market the pig,I can offer you a competitive price .The scale of the pig farm can be vary from few hunded to a few thousand .I can grow at least 500 ton of corn ourselve and buy at the surrouding village at 5 bath per kg for shelled wet corn up to a few thousand ton.

But where and how to sell the pig?

[billd766]

I had thought of rearing a few pigs at one time but I was going to buy them in as a litter and raise them to around 100kg live weight. I was thinking of only 10 pigs a month on a 4 month rotation using commercial pig food and I reckoned on selling 1 pig locally every 2 or 3 days.

However talking to my mate Khonwan (John) who was doing it alst year on over 100 pigs every 4 months he tells me that my plan is not commercially viable.

He got caught last year when all the Thais started pig farming and the price dropped from around 39 baht a kilo down to 25 as the market was flooded with pork meat and wholesalers were offering silly prices and take it or leave it.

Now I like pork but selling what you can and killing, freezing and eating the rest of the pigs is a bit too much even for me. A pig or 2 in the freezer is Ok, but 20 or 30, not really.

If it was that easy to do as has been said earlier, everybody would be doing it. If they did the price of live pork would go the way the baht did in 1997.

I think I will keep out of that market and just waste the money on women and liquor (if the wife would let me).

[BigA]

I've done this nasty work before and there has got to be a better way to make living.

How about raisng an exotic animal of some sort where the meat sells for more?

[undercover]

Maybe you were just joking when you said you thougt it would be easy.

///////////////

Yes Chownah Im afraid I was. Im too long in the tooth now to believe in fairytales.

Anytime I hear (easy money) with farming it makes me laugh.

But now nitecm, surely your joking ? with your free hydro electric and a few thousand pig’s and thousands of ton’s of corn !

[ThaiLife]

Undercover , From what ive read and seen here many people are persuaded

To invest their money in ‘’farming ‘’ schemes of one sort or another and pigs seem

To be a favorite one , but ive been around Thailand for some years now and seen the

Schemes come and go , or should I say go bust.

I am sure some farang some where will have a pig success story but I have a gut feeling its certainly not ‘’ easy money ‘’.

TL

[Mark Wolfe]

This isn't intended to bruise foreigner egos, but unless you are raising pigs on an industrial scale, the kind of home-grow set-ups detailed here is an absurd thought.

Thais living on the edge raise pigs generally because they can't do anything else (read: anything else that makes money). The idea that a foreigner would want to raise pigs in Thailand is akin to saying that a foreigner wants to sell roses bar to bar in Pattaya at 10 baht a flower.

I can imagine many Thais looking with disgust on a foreigner trying to set up a pig farm when they know for a fact that the person is "slumming" and can get work either in Thailand or in their home country that makes more money in a month than pig farming does in half a year or a year. It's a form of mockery that everyone should understand without being told.

Pig farming is undertaken, largely, because the people have no education to get work, have a disability or cannot find anything other occupation to do. It's survival work, and if you ask around, you'll find that given a choice, the pig farmers would be out of the business right away if something even marginally better and without the intensive labor and mental costs came along.

Foreigners try their hand at pig farming because it's quaint in a local way, not because they can make a good living (even by middle class Thai standards).

If the pig farming idea fails, the foreigner goes back home for a while to earn some money, or he gets a job in Thailand. For the local pig farmer, failure is a catastrophe which can have serious repercussions.

[Gary A]

People ask questions and when they ask questions, they should get answers. Whether they like the answers is another thing. A friend of mine went into fish farming on a fairly large scale. He had four ponds. That went belly up. He also had cattle and a fruit orchard that never produced a baht. He then had a garment factory with about 40 commercial sewing machines. Today he has a beautiful villa and he is broke. Had he not made any "investments" he would be living happily on that money. We are talking about 20 million baht that was basically thrown away. As for myself, I refuse to spend any more than I can afford to walk away from.

[JungleBiker]

We do intend on mixing our own feed; combination of EM1, dryed cassava, rice husk, corn(maize), cabbages,carrots etc.

Hi Eric,

You should also grow a forage called STYLO (there are several species and varieties). Here in Laos, Australian scientists have found that it can double the growth rate of pigs that are normally feed on stuff like corn, rice bran, banana stems, etc (i.e. stuff like what you are planning to use rather than commercial pig feed). You can probably get more info and seeds from Ubon Ratchathani University.

JB

[ThaiLife]

Although I do feel that Mr Wolfe’s comments are a bit acidic its apparent that from his opening comment (This isn't intended to bruise foreigner egos ) that he’s only

Putting forward his personal view I may self found from past experiences here

That there is some truth in his comments , we all have dreams we would like to

Pursue .

TL

[JungleBiker]

At the moment prices are 44-45 baht per kilo liveweight, a big improvement from last year when the price was 38 baht.

Hi Fruity,

There was something in the Bangkok Post the other day about pork prices going up, but I understood that it was due to the increasing cost of feed (corn, soybeans) which in turn was due to the demand for these materials to make biofuels, especially in the USA. So while pork prices may be going up, I am not so sure profit margins will be going up.

JB.

[LoveDaBlues]

Im interested in this part.

( all I have to

do is sell one pig a day and I will make at least 60,000 Baht a Month

which will give me clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht.. )

clear yearly profit of over 700,000 Baht ? sounds like easy money.

To sell one pig a day requires caring for about 200 pigs every day all year round....does his sound easy?

This scenerio assumes 2,000 baht profit on each pig....for a 100 kilogram pig this means a profit of 20 baht per kilo of live pig. To make this much profit you would have to be growing your own feed.....does raising and process all the food for 200 pigs every day all year round sound easy?

Not only that but it would take a large investment to buy the land to raise enough feed, and for the equipment to process the feed, and for the building to house the pigs.

Maybe you were just joking when you said you thougt it would be easy.

Chownah

I plan to reae pig as well

Even I can grow all the feed ,enough land,manpower and free electricity if I build my hydropower station

,I still worry where to sell them .

So if anyone interested to co-operate to market the pig,I can offer you a competitive price .The scale of the pig farm can be vary from few hunded to a few thousand .I can grow at least 500 ton of corn ourselve and buy at the surrouding village at 5 bath per kg for shelled wet corn up to a few thousand ton.

But where and how to sell the pig?

But where and how to sell the corn

dragon fruit

fish

pineapple

lol

That's the problem with farming in Thailand. Anything can be grown/raised here; the problem is finding a consistent buyer who pays a decent price. You're competing with poor people who are just trying to make a few baht and get by.

For a farang in Thailand farming should always be considered as a hobby and nothing else.

[wdrk7]

Pig farming here in thailand is something to be done on a sideline thing . Like if you run a food business and have a lot of discard or leftover or byproduct from your farm . If you are using commercial feed , it will not be profitable as the margin is very low with high risk .

[fruity]

Hi JB, Yes feed prices are up, although only marginally. In our case it works out @ 30 satang per kilo:)...I'm no mathematician, but I guess the 'on the hoof' - 6-7 baht per kilo price increase still keeps us slightly ahead of the game.

As has been said here, fortunes will never be made either in Thailand or elsewhere from rearing pigs. The only way to make a living would be from something like a 300 sow unit,rearing all followers with a supply contract, mixing tons of feed etc & possibly having a biogas lagoon installed to supply your own power & then sell off the surplus to the local electricity company. Anyone on a small scale should forget the biogas lagoon idea as a cheaper than cheap version will cost in excess of 1.5 million baht-plus to set up.

I am very interested in the STYLO & will look into that one.

Eric, A couple of points, for an 8-10 sow set up, IT IS viable to keep a boar. Surely, as in all areas in Issan, there will be a guy local to you who keeps boars & runs around servicing the sows in the vicinity? We have an old guy, this is his business, keeps ten boars, is never off the road & charges 500 baht per service; he's never failed us yet & keeps good quality stock.

Select potential breeding gilts from good producing dams, good conformation, temperament & soundness being essential as is the number of teats she has ( 16 as a minimum) . We have a 300 kilo Landrace sow, produces & rears 15 piglets a pop, she has produced some super daughters. The ten year thing is a little too much to hope for, most sows start to decrese in litter size after the eighth litter or so, some sooner. Planned right, you can very nearly squeeze 3 litters per year, something like 2.7-2.8.

We have Pla Nin in the pig pond, I was advised to put in these as opposed to the Pla Duk, being told that these will better utilise the algae produced in vast quantities from the pig s**t. I am no fish expert & when these Pla Nin come out, will be trying the Duk, as was my first instinct.

If you enjoy having Pigs, go for it, at worst, you should lose nothing. I would however, exercise a little caution & try smaller numbers to start off with, feel your way forward with it. Best of luck:)

We had someone in yesterday, ordering two for a wedding in a fortnight, a villager, we did them for 42 per kilo for her, thats eight now for new year weddings.My Xmas bonus.lol..