Pigs 101 (A Start)

[IsaanAussie]

A personal note, CYRIL.

My great mate Cyril has slowed down. The best boar I have ever had but now it is over and he isn't interested, happier eating than screwing, the urge has gone. He has been sold for collection in a week or so. So I have a couple of weeks to enjoy his company and hopefully we will both have some fun.

[revar]

must be difficult to let Cyril go.

Brave decision.

After reviewing last (difficult) years result I have decided not to breed myself but instead use the space to get some more pens to raise bought piglets.

I figure if I could make decent profits last year with these low prices my strength is in raising pigs and it would be unwise to enter the new area of breeding at this time. Of course having trusted suppliers of cheap piglets helps a lot:-)

It leaves me with my boar 'poh' ( my cat is called meaw). I will not sell him. He will me my hobby pig! All the rest is business but this guy has been with me from.the start and I'll be happy to pay his foodbill and play with him. He was a but sick this week and I couldn't sleep. still got some sentiment in me. He will be my hobby.

Agree with you this is the time to make a profit. For you who are new:Don't forget about budist lent. offload yoar pigs before it starts and use the 3 months to raise piglets for after it ends.

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[IsaanAussie]

Difficult to let him go? No, not really as his time is up. The only thing I find impossible is to kill a pig. However it has been hard selling gilts and boars that have been raised for breeding to funeral parties. Over the last few months I've managed to place a few in breeding herds, but wish it had been more.

Thinking about it, it would be fun to take Cyril for a walk around the village. He is a big boy and very friendly, bet it would cause a stampede.

[IsaanAussie]

This morning I sold one of three of the best gilts I have had, only two of that batch left. So right now I only have 3 pigs in the whole sty and it will be empty in a few weeks. Time for a break. Mind you the last few weeks with the numbers diminishing it has been a bit of a holiday after four years of hard work.

[revar]

has anyone experience with the spm food from spm feed mills?

They claim to get from 5 to 100 kg in 6.5 bags (195kg) in under 4 months if you use their professional feeding strategy. prices are slightly cheaper then Betagro but most important they also buy the finished pigs (20 minimum) at market price (at least they do here). This sounds very attractive and I am thinking of trying them out with 2 pens.

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[IsaanAussie]

has anyone experience with the spm food from spm feed mills?

They claim to get from 5 to 100 kg in 6.5 bags (195kg) in under 4 months if you use their professional feeding strategy. prices are slightly cheaper then Betagro but most important they also buy the finished pigs (20 minimum) at market price (at least they do here). This sounds very attractive and I am thinking of trying them out with 2 pens.

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Keep looking my friend, one day your might find an ethical feed saleman here. Good luck if you try it,lets us know what happens. In my experience most of the "kids" out selling feed wouldn't know the difference between their <deleted> and their elbow. I can read the brochure without them, just give me the free Tee Shirt.

Many of you guys have put a lot more work into feed sourcing than I have. For me, I got lucky and found a brand that gives me the results I want overall, the fact that it has always been among the cheapest is a large factor but not the only one.

Edited March 8, 2013 by IsaanAussie

[revar]

IA, the thing which has got me interested is them buying the finished pigs.

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[Khonwan]

I tried Nova, Nutrena, SPM, and Mittraphap. I always used 7 bags regardless – never saw a difference in performance and didn’t expect to whilst using similar protein mixes. I settled on Mittraphap since they gave me the best price. None of them offered to buy pigs – that would certainly have clinched the deal for me. All of this was around 7 years ago.

Rgds

Khonwan

[IsaanAussie]

I think most of us settle into our own pretty standard routine on feed depending on what type of operation you are running and what you are trying to achieve. Since growout is not my main business, body score is more important than average FCR.

I agree with Khonwan that they are probably all pretty much the same. The content will be just what it needs to be and no more. As for the pig purchase, well I will adopt a wait and see on that. Doesn't SPM sell meat products though? If you want to test the guy out first, ask him what price he is paying now!

[IsaanAussie]

As a side note on feed. I have talked a lot about the probiotic I use and the difference it has made with the pigs. I have been using it in the fertiliser blends I am pelletising and as such wanted to prove that after the pellet was dried done to 8% moisture content that the microbes would indeed wake up again when wetted. Well I am happy to report that they do.

That makes me confident that the system could be delivered in feed as well as the drinking water. Trials with algae in fertilisers as a protein base rather than nitrogen have also been positive. This to me is key for feed manufacture, a cheap source of vegetable protein that can be grown very quickly. Since this stuff doubles daily it fills the bill without requiring hundreds of rai, months of time and lots of processing. I have been studying some of the indigenous "weeds" that Thai people eat and am surprised by the nutrient levels in many of them. I am keen to try to cultivate several of these. Trash fish is another opportunity to produce protein feedstuff.

Fermentation is now the focus. I know the probiotic functions in this role and the results are palatable to the pigs. So now some work to do on fermenting feed materials to improve their effectiveness and storage.

Currently I am looking at the best way to dry a variety of things in reasonable volume. Sun drying is fine but it takes a lot of space and labour, not so good in the wet. I stumbled on a system where a pig pen was fitted with a false floor to become the base for a flatbed drier. It is an idea I have had for a while and good to know it would work. The real question is the source of heating. Here the lights have just gone on. A rice hull gasifier that produces all the biochar I need and then delivers the gas to a burner which in turn delivers the heat via a fan under the drier floor. So biochar in volume without all the smoke, and enough heat to dry 6 ton of rice or fertiliser pellets a day. Got to chase this one.

To me,interesting stuff and leading towards relooking at how to reduce feed, fuel and fertiliser costs.

[revar]

Got another mixed batch of piglets in. 13 about 5kg, 2 about 10 and 7 between 15-23.

Going to try SPM feed with these.

for the 5kg ones. 1bag of 105plus (20% with added milk)

. then 3 bags of 115 (16%) and 2.5 bags of 130.

I might use an 18% feed instead of some of the 115 depending the size of the pigs.

SPM's vet is coming tomorrow to chech our new piglets and I confirmed that the sales guy will arrange for the finished pigs to be collected if we want. since they will be finished around the beginning of budist lent this is a major plus.

Could not confirm if this is standard practice with spm. It might be sales/region dependant.

Feed costs will be similar to that of my Betagro feed but the vet and pig-buying are extra benefits.

I will post the results/progress once in a while.

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[jompa67]

Do you know what price they are buying finished pigs at today?

[revar]

60thb/kg

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[IsaanAussie]

Same here last two sold at 60 baht, but it may well head back down a bit as the "party is almost over". Schools going on vacation and teachers getting married. Bit of a gap then Songkran. When I last looked most regions had dropped around 5 or 6 baht, piglets down to 1600 +- 56 I think(need to check) but I expect the 56 number may well be what will be the mark soon. Noticed in Macro that loin was down to 120.

[revar]

the 60thb is the price spm is paying for the spm fed pigs. I am still selling at 62thb. 2 will be collected today and another 7 in the next 2 weeks. Have 100 pigs now and srating on 3 more pens tomorrow.:-)

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[RedBullHorn]

spm ?

[revar]

spm ?

spm feed mill co. ltd.

Their main office/farm is in Ratchabury.

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Edited March 14, 2013 by revar

[croom64]

Hi Guys,

First, I've picked up some very useful information here so thanks to everyone for their contributions.

I'm not much of a forum person but thought I'd share my recent pig growing experience with you.

My girlfriend's parents have a small farm 60km NE of Nong Khai and can do little with their land other than grow their annual crop of rice and a few rai of cassava. Her dad is keen on keeping pigs (has done for years) but a shortage of cash has meant this is only done when funds allow him to buy.

Needing to start to make a few baht, me and the gf decided we'd like to invest in a few piglets and see if her dad could make a small profit for us. We sourced 12 piglets locally for which we paid 17000 baht (experience has now shown we probably paid too much). We bought bagged food from the merchants along with several bags of feed from the local rice mill. Total cost for food etc. 27000 baht. Sale price of the 12 grown pigs was 58000 baht. making a profit of around 14000 baht.

Obviously that's not a great amount of money but we had decided that we would need to operate a kind of production line and after 8 weeks we bought a further 10 piglets. This time we paid 1250 baht each (lesson learned from the first purchase). The money made from the first sale added to the estimated profit on the 10 currently being fed has been re-invested to build a new home for the pigs.

Having committed the profits and a bit more I see this as an ongoing project and hopefully it will end up with me getting a few baht in return.

One mistake we made, other than paying too much for the first piglets, was buying 2 piglets that were obviously small. When it came to selling, 10 of the pigs made a profit, 1 broke even and the other would have made a loss but we kept it and sold it locally.

[IsaanAussie]

Croom,

I think you have done extremely well given current market conditions. For a first try, brillantly. Well done

[ib1b4]

Hi Guys,

First, I've picked up some very useful information here so thanks to everyone for their contributions.

I'm not much of a forum person but thought I'd share my recent pig growing experience with you.

My girlfriend's parents have a small farm 60km NE of Nong Khai and can do little with their land other than grow their annual crop of rice and a few rai of cassava. Her dad is keen on keeping pigs (has done for years) but a shortage of cash has meant this is only done when funds allow him to buy.

Needing to start to make a few baht, me and the gf decided we'd like to invest in a few piglets and see if her dad could make a small profit for us. We sourced 12 piglets locally for which we paid 17000 baht (experience has now shown we probably paid too much). We bought bagged food from the merchants along with several bags of feed from the local rice mill. Total cost for food etc. 27000 baht. Sale price of the 12 grown pigs was 58000 baht. making a profit of around 14000 baht.

Obviously that's not a great amount of money but we had decided that we would need to operate a kind of production line and after 8 weeks we bought a further 10 piglets. This time we paid 1250 baht each (lesson learned from the first purchase). The money made from the first sale added to the estimated profit on the 10 currently being fed has been re-invested to build a new home for the pigs.

Having committed the profits and a bit more I see this as an ongoing project and hopefully it will end up with me getting a few baht in return.

One mistake we made, other than paying too much for the first piglets, was buying 2 piglets that were obviously small. When it came to selling, 10 of the pigs made a profit, 1 broke even and the other would have made a loss but we kept it and sold it locally.

Firstly welcome to this forum, for your first time effort you have done extremely well, the average weight of your pigs is right on the 100 kg mark so you must be doing something right,my feed costs average out at around 3,600 baht per piglet to get to a 10% higher weight average.

[croom64]

Croom,

I think you have done extremely well given current market conditions. For a first try, brillantly. Well done

Thanks. I was pleasantly surprised that things worked out well. Fortunately, I had set my expectations fairly low with my budget. I hoped for 100kg per pig and averaged a bit less mainly due to the smaller ones but I'd set my sale price at 50 baht and achieved 53 baht. I can now sympathize with those selling to the local "sharks" but we did put off selling for a few days while we checked local prices.

[croom64]

Hi Guys,

First, I've picked up some very useful information here so thanks to everyone for their contributions.

I'm not much of a forum person but thought I'd share my recent pig growing experience with you.

My girlfriend's parents have a small farm 60km NE of Nong Khai and can do little with their land other than grow their annual crop of rice and a few rai of cassava. Her dad is keen on keeping pigs (has done for years) but a shortage of cash has meant this is only done when funds allow him to buy.

Needing to start to make a few baht, me and the gf decided we'd like to invest in a few piglets and see if her dad could make a small profit for us. We sourced 12 piglets locally for which we paid 17000 baht (experience has now shown we probably paid too much). We bought bagged food from the merchants along with several bags of feed from the local rice mill. Total cost for food etc. 27000 baht. Sale price of the 12 grown pigs was 58000 baht. making a profit of around 14000 baht.

Obviously that's not a great amount of money but we had decided that we would need to operate a kind of production line and after 8 weeks we bought a further 10 piglets. This time we paid 1250 baht each (lesson learned from the first purchase). The money made from the first sale added to the estimated profit on the 10 currently being fed has been re-invested to build a new home for the pigs.

Having committed the profits and a bit more I see this as an ongoing project and hopefully it will end up with me getting a few baht in return.

One mistake we made, other than paying too much for the first piglets, was buying 2 piglets that were obviously small. When it came to selling, 10 of the pigs made a profit, 1 broke even and the other would have made a loss but we kept it and sold it locally.

Firstly welcome to this forum, for your first time effort you have done extremely well, the average weight of your pigs is right on the 100 kg mark so you must be doing something right,my feed costs average out at around 3,600 baht per piglet to get to a 10% higher weight average.

Thanks. Actually the average weight was a bit less than 100kg - we achieved around 1100 kg with 12 pigs. However, the smallest two were 77kg and 82kg so they kept the average down a bit.

I've yet to have any input, other than financial, so credit has to go to my gf's dad for his knowledge and efforts. The feed costs were kept down due to him buying food from the local rice mill and mixing this with the premixed bags. I visited one of the feed merchants a few weeks ago and, from the information they provided, there would be little profit in sourcing all of the food from their recommended supplier. Their advice was 7 bags of food to get to 100kg (I can't remember the name of the manufacturer) at a cost of about 4300 baht. They reckoned on selling at 60 baht per kg but even then, adding in the piglet price, you'd be lucky to make 500 baht a pig.

Out of curiosity, do you use just premixed food? I had intended using just the premixed food the first time just to see how well it worked but dad had the final say.

[ib1b4]

Hi ;croom , We do use premixer feed and over the last two years the prices for feed have continually increased making it almost impossible to make a decent profit, the local (sharks ) I mean local buyers in my area pay about ten baht lower than the going rate to add to the frustration. But obviusly you do not have that problem, so stick to what your gf"s dad is doing and things should work out fine. But when you have the time read up on what other posters have written in previous posts in this forum there is a lot of good information there. and let us know how you are doing. Cheers ib1.

[croom64]

Hi ib1, Thanks for your reply.

Between buying our first and second batches of piglets feed prices went up by 20 baht a bag. First time they first offered a small discount for buying more than 10 bags, second time discount was only applied if buying more than 20 bags. A vist to a different merchant (see previous post) with them trying to sell an alternative, highlighted how tight the profit margins might be. If I was doing the work myself, I'd have stuck to the premixed bags but dad clearly knows what he is doing.

[revar]

Welcome croom,

Very well done. You got a decent profit / pig in a time many others lose money.

Apperantly you have access to cheap supplental feed from the rice mill. Around here lam is not much cheaper then premixed feed. Since your FIL has been raising for pigs many years he knows what he is doing and how to mix so that the balance of component and amino acids is right. I just wondered how long it took to raise the pigs to 100kg?

Keep going and enjoy, before you know you are addicted to pigs:-)

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[croom64]

Thanks revar.

It was 16-17 weeks though it was week 18 when we sold due to waiting for a slight price increase. Although we were aiming for 100kg we only made an average in the low 90's. The pig weights varied quite a lot but I don't know is this is normal for the way they were fed (ie would they have been a similar weight if just fed on premixed food?) or due to the pigs we bought.

FIL has access to cheap feed from the rice mill but this is not always available. He also has an agreement with a neighbour who has a machine for seperating rice where he buys what is available on a daily basis. He has told me that, in the past, he generally mixed his own food but now it is difficult and expensive to buy all of the ingredients to do this on a small scale. Merchants no longer stock everything needed and those who do say there is no profit in it for them unless they sell in large quantities.

I think the addiction is probably already there as we're reinvesting both the profit and the original investment. Just need to keep it under control!

[Khonwan]

Croom64, with a FIL that interested and that good, I'd be supporting him to get into breeding pigs too, which will further maximise your profits.

[revar]

Well done. I use commercial feed and raise them from 10-105 kg in 4 months. The weight differences are normal and probably depend on the piglets. I Never sell complete pens but only those above 95 kg so I always average around 100 kg or more. On smaller pigs you generally lose money. Do you feed ad-lib ( always food available to the pigs). If not the stronger ones might eat a lot with not enough left for the others. This leads to bigger weight differences.

If a piglet stays behind or is veey small a vitamin b injection also helps to stimulate appatite. Ask your FIL about ya bamlung as thwy call it here.

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Edited March 18, 2013 by revar

[croom64]

The pigs are not fed ad-lib but FIL had seperated the pigs to keep similar sized ones together to help the smaller ones get their fair share.

As this was our first attempt we opted for selling (except for 1) after a set period of time as we wanted to see what profit was achievable in the time FIL believed it should take to achieve the right weight (16 weeks). Obviously, had we achieved 100kgs, it would have made a big diference to the profit so when it comes to selling the next pigs we'll have to try to work out the economics of keeping for a few more weeks for those that are underweight.

I know that none of these received any vitamin injections but FIL did mix some vitamins with the food during the first few weeks we had them. I will ask about ya bamlung.

[croom64]

Croom64, with a FIL that interested and that good, I'd be supporting him to get into breeding pigs too, which will further maximise your profits.

Already done!

It is something he is interested in so we bought a pregnant sow from the breeder who supplied our original pigs. They have agreed to support him and show him what he needs to do to take proper care of mother and babies when the time comes (end of May). If all goes well, we'll look at the costs involved in both the breeding and rearing of the pigs to find a workable balance for us all.