Pigs 101 (A Start)

[slapout]

Its diffcult for me to give much credence to price/kilo for livestock just due to the variance in grade of livestock and other factor which affect price.. In the real world we normally sold livestock via auction barns and and prices could vary by quite large ranges (6-+ baht/kilo) depending on finish, health, weight, etc of the animals..Color of the animals can even enter the price for some buyers.

[IsaanAussie]

Its diffcult for me to give much credence to price/kilo for livestock just due to the variance in grade of livestock and other factor which affect price.. In the real world we normally sold livestock via auction barns and and prices could vary by quite large ranges (6-+ baht/kilo) depending on finish, health, weight, etc of the animals..Color of the animals can even enter the price for some buyers.

The REAL world, I remember that place too. Where was that?

Things are changing here but it is still a wet market, weddings and funerals type customer base here for most people involved in pigs in rural areas. The wet market meat is not hung through rigormortis but is sold fresh kill in small pieces out of an icebox at best. Weddings and funerals are a back yard kill and straight into the pot. I only have a few local customers that come to us for a quality based purchase, for most pork is pork. Money is a lot harder to find than a pig.

I have some niche market western customers who define what they are looking for and sales are based on achieving those goals. Contract farmers who are linked into the major supply networks are paid based on meeting targets for the pigs.

[pigeonjake]

my wife just sold some of ours at 50bht, and as for dont sell,,lol so we just keep them and feed them even more expencive food, you must have the best pigs in thailand to be getting 65bht,,

jake good luck to you, we still do ok

[IsaanAussie]

my wife just sold some of ours at 50bht, and as for dont sell,,lol so we just keep them and feed them even more expencive food, you must have the best pigs in thailand to be getting 65bht,,

jake good luck to you, we still do ok

Reality is a strange bed fellow Jake. If 50 baht is all you can get, then you really dont have a choice. I have developed alternate markets so I dont get stuck with pigs that are just getting bigger, but I have been there before and know exactly what you mean. I held piglets to fill orders for restaurants that didnt happen until after the pigs had past the weights required when I had good orders for them weaned. It is a business not a romance...

[David48]

Apologies IsaanAussie for intruding.

May I contribute a little humour?

http://www.youtube.c...p?v=FrTbnczYAd4

Edited June 21, 2012 by David48

[kevjohn]

Come on guys, you two are like me just a soft hearted pig framer way too attached to his breeding stock. Just joking, you have hit both nails on the head, she isnt going anywhere.

I mate my pigs naturally and will offer the boar to a sow as many times as she will stand. My previous Thai helper thought that once was enough. To him entry is success well from my personal experience on the human side of things it takes two to tango. Everything about that farrowing was textbook, no mummified pigs, no still births, just five very healthy 1.8 kg piglets.

If there is a profit at all, then costs are covered and opportunity exists to improve the return.

Feed, another one that I put down to my ex-man, he really did like the pigs, a farang was buying the food, so he fed them whenever they asked, and more than they wanted. His version, "When the pigs have enough to eat they never boxing or noisey". I printed off pages of Thai manuals to make him understand but eh... boring, a story we all know too well.

IsaanAussie, I have followed this thread with much interest. Not because, I'm into pig farming, but I grew up on a farm and my dad had pigs.

I do wonder if you people get attacked to any particular pig, especially one that may have needed that extra care.

This pig seems to have a special place in this young lad heart.

[kevjohn]

Meant attached not attacked......sorry..

[IsaanAussie]

Thanks for padding up KJ. Never met a pig yet that didnt sense an honest heart. Lovely picture. The difference with dogs is a dog would lick the kid. Wish I could get my hands on some decent ringlock mesh here.

On the attachment front the answer is yes, but it can change. I have a sow that had a rectal prolapse as a young pig. That is her bum fell out. She was the perfect breeding candidate so I took the chance and got the vets in to fix it. Took them three tries but all was well. She recovered and was put back in the pen with her three sisters that were to become a breeding group. They belted her up something terrible and her ears got badly chewed resulting in cauliflower ears and her name "Ears". Ever since she has been a submissive sow in the group, until today. Three of the four had litters weaned and the last litter weaned this morning. The biggest sister returned and Ears did not greet her kindly. I tried all the soft stuff ways but ended up showing her just who the "Big" pig is. Yeap, ME. You want a pushing ans shoving match? Try this. Try Khun Jai Ron and his boney knees in your control point while he F's and blinds at the top of his voice. Message understood and all four were asleep as a group when I came home tonight

Dave, couldn't open the file. Still trying to get waves like yours to form on my pond. Got close with a very large catfish surfacing yesterday that sent an inch high ripple across the surface.

Edited June 21, 2012 by IsaanAussie

[kevjohn]

Thanks for padding up KJ. Never met a pig yet that didnt sense an honest heart. Lovely picture. The difference with dogs is a dog would lick the kid. Wish I could get my hands on some decent ringlock mesh here.

Dave, couldn't open the file. Still trying to get waves like yours to form on my pond. Got close with a very large catfish surfacing yesterday that sent an inch high ripple across the surface.

No problems IsaanAussie. I follow anything to do with farming.... .

There is an old saying and it goes something like this

"You can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy"

and it is so true.

[kevjohn]

IsaanAussie, don' agree with you saying that "the dog would lick the kid"

Edited June 21, 2012 by kevjohn

[IsaanAussie]

IsaanAussie, don' agree with you saying that "the dog would lick the kid"

I believe the Thai word is "Lurm". Got me share of backside LURMERS around here, and none are pigs or dogs.

[IsaanAussie]

Thanks for padding up KJ. Never met a pig yet that didnt sense an honest heart. Lovely picture. The difference with dogs is a dog would lick the kid. Wish I could get my hands on some decent ringlock mesh here.

Dave, couldn't open the file. Still trying to get waves like yours to form on my pond. Got close with a very large catfish surfacing yesterday that sent an inch high ripple across the surface.

No problems IsaanAussie. I follow anything to do with farming.... .

There is an old saying and it goes something like this

"You can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy"

and it is so true.

Humour lives! I am old enough to remember the farming politicians in Australia known then as the Country Party. The old joke goes that a newly elected CP member of parliament got up and introduced himself as the Country member for (cant remember where). Comment from across the floor as "Yes we remember!"

[kevjohn]

Thanks for padding up KJ. Never met a pig yet that didnt sense an honest heart. Lovely picture. The difference with dogs is a dog would lick the kid. Wish I could get my hands on some decent ringlock mesh here.

Dave, couldn't open the file. Still trying to get waves like yours to form on my pond. Got close with a very large catfish surfacing yesterday that sent an inch high ripple across the surface.

No problems IsaanAussie. I follow anything to do with farming.... .

There is an old saying and it goes something like this

"You can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy"

and it is so true.

Humour lives! I am old enough to remember the farming politicians in Australia known then as the Country Party. The old joke goes that a newly elected CP member of parliament got up and introduced himself as the Country member for (cant remember where). Comment from across the floor as "Yes we remember!"

Yep..the good old "Country Party". The Member for Clarence was Tom Cronin....boy, that's going back a while. Didn't think I was that old...

[revar]

Sorry for any confusion. Because of the'quality' of my pigs, I actually sell at a higher price. But in our village I hsve a feed shop and function as an unofficial vet (injections for fever, antibiotics, etc.) I also arrange for a real vet to visit our customers.monthly. I also find new piglets, find buyers for their finished pigs, etc. I noticed that the offers for finished pigs have dropped very sharply. Not from one buyer but from 5 differennt ones. Hence my question. I do know that there ha been a 'pact' between buyers im the past, to keep prices down. Wondering if this is the case now. Since I sell food on credit, if the customer sells their pigs for less them cost price, I lose as well.

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[Brabo]

my wife just sold some of ours at 50bht, and as for dont sell,,lol so we just keep them and feed them even more expencive food, you must have the best pigs in thailand to be getting 65bht,,

jake good luck to you, we still do ok

I realy don't have the best pigs in Thailand, but I am not lying. We did sell at 65B/kg.

I am not looking down on others. I quote from my post : "We are all growing our pigs with love, attention and the best (=expensive) food"

I think a major problem is that once you sell @ small prices, your buyers won't buy @ higher prices the next time.

When we started last juli, the whole neighborhood came to look, and from this moment on, we allready told them we were breeding with "official farmpigs" and would sell at higher prices then the others.

For us, it worked.

I do hope you get a better price next time ! When they know you need to sell, the prices are only going down. Saying "No", maybe will raise the prices next time.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Brabo

[tingtong]

how much it worth to pay for some larger piglets?

say 20 kg, or 25kg ones. wife would like to buy and i am unsure the worth....just weaned pigs, if available, sell around 1300 THB right now here...

thx in advance!

[pigeonjake]

hi to all,IA, i know what your saying about having to sell, yes i dont like to hang onto them, thats why when i get back from scotland im building a place to seel meat from, my wife as allready got the go ahead from the village head man, so im going to go down that route too,

to be honest at 50bht i still do ok, as i get piglets at 500bht yes they might be cp runts but ill tell you most of them grow out ok, odd one a little slower,but we had that when we bred our own, so like i say we do ok, and when i go to look at the piglets there might be 60 to pick from and when the lady rings she tells us what time to be at her place and i get first pick, so i take all what i think are the best ones there on offer,

take care all jake

[IsaanAussie]

how much it worth to pay for some larger piglets?

say 20 kg, or 25kg ones. wife would like to buy and i am unsure the worth....just weaned pigs, if available, sell around 1300 THB right now here...

thx in advance!

TT,

If you wanted mine you would be asked for 3,100 baht at 25 kg. The smallest I will sell at is 10 kg. That means weaned and established on dry feed with no scouring.

[tingtong]

many thx, IA!

[jompa67]

U pay around 1500 for a 16 Kg piglet at the moment (depend on vaccine program.) Then u add about 57 bath/kg if piglet is lager than 16Kg, or remove same amount if smaller.

25 kg piglet = 1500 + (9Kg * 57) = 2013 Bath (9 kg more than 16)

12 Kg piglet = 1500 - (4Kg * 57) = 1272 Bath (4 kg less than 16)

[IsaanAussie]

U pay around 1500 for a 16 Kg piglet at the moment (depend on vaccine program.) Then u add about 57 bath/kg if piglet is lager than 16Kg, or remove same amount if smaller.

25 kg piglet = 1500 + (9Kg * 57) = 2013 Bath (9 kg more than 16)

12 Kg piglet = 1500 - (4Kg * 57) = 1272 Bath (4 kg less than 16)

Correct those are the bibical numbers written in stone by CPF, and I would happily pay that. I dont sell mine under that scheme though. I am with Brabo on this. My is a small farm and currently only 9 sows and as many gilts. The maths change with scale and the opportunities are created by as much hard work as caring for the pigs. It is only a buyers market when the seller cannot find a better deal.

[joeuk1]

The pig farm near us sells 12 kilo to 15 kilo piglets at 1700-1900 baht and they always have customers to buy the piglets from the 100 breeders .

Best regards

[IsaanAussie]

And hopefully are still buying heaps of feed off you Joeuk1?

At whatever scale we are the stories differ between us, makes life interesting. Some members run contract growing operations, growout, others farrow to finish and others just breeding. The games are all different.

One thing we all have is a feed bill that could use reduction. For many years I have studied the materials costs and always concluded that there was an insignificant gain if you tried to mimick the commercial operations nutrient levels. Since I got into brewing probiotics I am changing my mind as a whole new range of feed components can come into the game that can be farm produced at very small cost. I can replace soy meal with much cheaper alternates, remove the antibiotics and hormones and produce almost at organic certification standards.

Research and endless calls have proved that some of the protein used is actually vegetable not animal, naughty feed companies. There is room to reduce my costs if I move outside the conventional boxes.

[David48]

Apologies IsaanAussie for intruding.

May I contribute a little humour?

http://www.youtube.c...p?v=FrTbnczYAd4

Maybe this then ... http://www.youtube.c...player_embedded

[IsaanAussie]

Dave,

Well worth the hassle, thanks for the retry. Funny enough in its own right but for anyone who spends time with pigs and understands it takes seconds for them to be playing with whatever you thought would survive a minute will really get the humour they never give up. Bit like Robin Williams said about hunters in the USA and gun laws, if you cant make love to it (not quite his words) then kill it.

Edited June 22, 2012 by IsaanAussie

[FarAwayBen]

Am just getting into the game and we have our first sow who just passed estrus without swelling, so we are told she is pregnant (3rd time's a charm).. My wife spends a lot of time with local pig farmers, getting all the info, but tells me very little, and my Isaan isn't quite good enough to pick up anything useful. Any tips for starting out would be gladly received. Most places I'd looked in the past online, regarding farang with pigs, was very discouraging with a lot of negativity and naysayers, but i see this thread may be different. Our plan was to wean piglets and sell at the local price of 1200 BHT (these are not CPF).. but we just found out that price has dropped to 800 BHT, which was discouraging, but indicates we may need to change our game. Any advice would be welcome. Should we go CP? (I'm not interested in a contract, just the breed.)

My wife mentioned that some feed providers double as buyers. They deliver feed (we don't need a delivery service) and pick up the piglets. I have no info on this other than what she tells me, which is very little, and she's been a sucker for a "too good to be true" deal or two in the past. So I'm concerned this is more of the same.

Am happy to find this thread. Haven't been on Thaivisa for years, but am looking forward to participating here. I enjoy the positivity.

I have a LOT to learn. But I am determined to make this work and will adjust as necessary.

Ben

[IsaanAussie]

Ben,

Welcome to our little muck or money group.

A couple of comments. Your sow would have come back on heat after 21 days normally, but this can be plus or minus a bit. Some of mine are very hard to pick, no swelling, no noise and no trying to mount others. If she is in fact in pig then you still have a week or so to take particular care until the fetuses have attached. Most testing isn't done until after 28 days.

Your plan to breed piglets is valid enough, though at 1,200 baht let alone 800 baht I doubt it can make any money. This weeks industry price is 1,500 baht +- 57 baht, so take care on lower offers. It could have a bit to do with the seasional market pricing as piglets borne now will be market size before Christmas when the live price is usely low. It just maybe that the pig raisers near you expect you to pay for that low price they will get.

The feed/piglet buyer scheme is not one I am familiar with. If they are funding the gestation and lactation times of the sow as well as the small amount of feed the piglets eat, then beware. At the piglet prices you are talking about you could well owe them money.

If they are just paying the sow lactation and creep feed bills then I dont see the point as it is only for a month.

Generally speaking there is an interest component to the feed bill, so check the bag costs they are charging before entering any such arrangements. Black market rates here can be 10% per month. The shysters are not slow to collect in cash or kind.

Your position, to me, is dependant on your sty and the stocking options you have. At 800 baht I would be buying not breeding. Your sow is either pregnant or nursing or gone! Miss one heat cycle and she will have eaten 4 bags of feed at over 400 baht a pop and your are at least 1 piglet income plus cost behind.

Check your livestock development officials for the breakdown of your areas pig farms, how many farms, what are they doing, who is breeding, raising or farrow to finish? What is the number of sows per farm and how many does the largest have? Work out why the prices are where they are to make sure it is not just the farang and money parting scheme.

I have heard all the supposed truths from the buyers but most is BS. You get a name as selling cheap or for having good pigs that are expensive but will make a grower money. They are the two limits. No one buys crappy pigs other than to fatten on scraps and eat at home.

Thais culturally will not lose face. You will be told glowing stories by those that are losing and horrific tales of doom by the smart ones playing all sides off against each other and consistently making a quid.

Learn about the pigs for sure but learn the rules and develop your options. Pigs like pork is a cut throat business here.

IA

[revar]

Hi Ben, welcome.

I am not breeding myself (but thinking about it) but buy our piglets which we raise and sell. We have about 70 pigs and also have a feed shop which mostly supplies to people in and around our village. There are many small farms around here with 5-20 pigs. There are several suppliers of piglets who try to sell here but sickness and motality rate are a big problem. One reason is that locals like to buy cheap 800 bath piglets. But these are often only 5kg and get sick or die easily. We ourselves buy from a man who gives a one month guarantee for pigs from 10-15 kg (around 1000-1500 bath) or 2 weeks for pigs from 15-30 kg. He comes around to check them and if they get sick he gives injections etc. People were buying the cheaper pigs from the many other suppliers but his service makes more and more people switch to him. Especially after they has several piglets die (which with current prices immediataly means a loss).

Honnesty demands me to say that I am not completely neutral because we act as his contact in the village and get a free piglets for every 5-10 he sells trough us. If people have a problem with his piglets I go check on them and arrange for him to come or act as a vet myself.

As for ourselves we try to offer a complete service package to the regular repeat customers of our feed-shop. If they buy our food from us we deliver to the farm, sell on credit, offer simple vet services (Sell medicins, do injections, arrange annual seminars with a vet, arrange regular visits from a real vet), find piglets, find the best paying buyers of the fully grown pigs.

As a farang in the very competitive pig market you have to make a difference and offer something extra compared to your thai competitors. So offer better quality and better service and don't sell your piglets at 10kg or less even when others do it. You have to get a good reputation and if these piglets die your reputation will suffer.

Also expect to make (costly) mistakes and don't expect to make a profit in your 'learning years'. In any business you need a couple of years to get your investments back, learn the ropes and establish a customer base and reputation.

Good luck and don't forget to have fun with your pigs.

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[revar]

I have boar which I bought at 12kg who is after 2 months almost 70 kg of muscles (the other pigs I bought at the same time are 40-50 kg with fat). He gets huge testicles. It seems a shame to slaughter him for meat but I don't know much about taking care of a boar. I was planning to wait with getting into breeding for at least a year, but now I am reconsidering. How old must a boar be before he can be used to breed?

Can anyone can tell me what breed this might be. I thought height be duroc, but he is completely red-brown.

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[IsaanAussie]

Ben Revar's advice is solid. Personally I haver this thing about money and believing Thai people will pay it back. But thats just me and in truth, probably my own stupid fault. The business model advice is solid.

Revar, the young boar looks like a Duroc to me. Probably useless for breeding, you would be well advised to just give him to me. 55555. I wont charge you one baht.

Your pictures indicate his feet could be an issue, I have reared a boar that was even heavier set than your guy but has proved a bit dainty in the feet department and I am getting rid of him. I could keep him for AI work but I dont need his feet transposed to piglets. Have a real good look at his rear end especially his legs and feet in proportion to his mass.

As to trouble keeping a boar, that is entirely up to you. If you spend time with a young boar so that he trusts you, and you train him well, he will just follow you around and do his job. My working boar watches me, if I open his front gate he follows me to the pen I want to check or service. No fuss he justwaits til I open the door and let him in.

Age, well I have listened to the experts and they say that a boar reaches full potency at 11 to 12 months old. My first experience was to use a boar at about 9 months but on gilts and they all had small but viable litters. As gilts it is hard to judge if it was the boar being young or the 1st parity of the gilts. I have noticed that a 12 month old boar will stay engaged longer.