Pigs 101 (A Start)

[ChiangMaiPigFarmer]

Sorry for not being on the forum for a long time. Things are very busy.

My thoughts on castration is do it about 7 days old. The piglet is still young enough that they do not react very much to the pain.

If you do it when they are older you are asking for other problems. Pain causes stress. Stress causes diarrhea. Diarrhea requires medicine as the mother is no longer making as much colostrum.

The mother’s milk along with her warm presence gives the piglet the comfort and medication needed when the piglet is younger.

[revar]

we cut tail and teeth first day.castrate on day 5.

Iv found that after a week its more difficult and causes pain. 5 days most piglets dont react much to the actual removal.just to being picked up.

[nutterz64]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I will now convince my Thai family to go earlier. They were told 15 days by someone and have stuck to that. I have witnessed it and there is significant pain for the piglet at that age. The initial squealing is from being held, not much reaction to the cut but certainly there is to the removal. I have been nagging about this for sometime but just minutes ago after showing her the evidence and also your opinions I got an affirmative yes from my dearest and that means we can convince the farm manager (PaPa) .....

We cut the tail at birth at the same time we cut the cord and use tincture on both. Teeth I usually do either a few minutes later or in the first hour after delivery. no pain and no healing problems. We let a litter go without cutting teeth last week (left the tool at home) A couple of the bigger ones are making a real mess of each others face fighting over the same teat. Both want teat number 1. Well, lesson learnt. I wont let that happen again.

The litter that came in at an average of 1kg is going gang busters and some real brutes amongst them. It is day 10 tomorrow so I will weigh and see their gains. The other litter (15 piglets with an average weight 825 grams) only received their iron shot yesterday (day 4) but are also looking good except for a couple of weak ones. The next couple of days should give me a good idea on their progress.

cheers

Peter

[thedoctor]

Hi,

just did a search on the post i wrote about thailand and russia

the article was here on TV on october the 20th,, think it was web fact,

try search,, thailand sells pork to Russia for the first time,,

i dont know how to ad link but its easy to find

[thoongfoned]

all is still so I will write what the farms is doing...........

3 births in the last couple of days, one litter av 1.6kg 13 straight alive then to massive av2.1kg 11 born 10 alive, av2.4kg 11 born 9 alive. one piglet in the last litter was 3kg, both of the bigger av litters had assistance, if not the born alive would have been lower......... just checked on a litter that is small in kg, 11 days old and the smallest piglet here is under the 3kg born weight of the latest litter, crazy...... will have to keep some of these piglets longer to get the weight up. our weaned av kg for this month so far 15th oct till now is just over 6kg at 19.4 days

the farm has got its highest number of births in one month coming up 15 nov - 15 dec (our working month for births) 58 births waiting to pop out, this is high this coming month because this months work we are almost finish with had only 39 births, we av 45 - 46 amonth normally, still this should give us a boost for the year end..........

[nutterz64]

Thoongfoned, that is one hell of a operation you have there, Would love to come and see it one day if you are up for that. Where are you located?

Peter

[thoongfoned]

peter, the farm is east of udon thani approx. 60km, near the market town of ban dung, we are in a village 10km from main highway.

[thedoctor]

Whats the going rate now for 100kg pigs where you guys live,

yesterday we were told its down to 56bht here near Roi-Et thats not CP or betagrow it market buyers

some call them Sharks"

where the best site to find the going rate,, iv tried 333, but it wont load on my computer

yasomoo.net looks like its closed down or gone to facebook

regards mike

[nutterz64]

Doc, a couple of weeks ago we were offered 60 baht a kilo for 100kg pigs from one market supplier and 62 baht from another. Sub 100kg was 58 baht. We are in the Udon Thani province about half way to Nong Khai. Mu understanding is that price has been creeping up each week by about 1 or 2 baht since the last week of September. Will find out for sure next week when we sell another batch.

56 for 100kg hogs is pretty low. Not seeing these low prices caused by "too many pigs" reflected in retail pricing. Either the buyer or the market seller are making a good margin at the moment.

I know of another grower not too far from me who recently got 65 from his buyer. It really seems to vary from district to district. I am now seriously looking at slaughtering some of my own and selling directly to market ourselves. The Sharks seem to be able to create a monopoly in each district putting small holders like us in a tight spot. Without size and standard farm status our options are limited.

I look at Pig 333 but ignore the actual price. At the moment it is showing 80baht. All I use it for is a guide in Trend and % change on previous prices.

Good luck

Peter

[pigeonjake]

hi all,

here in sakaoe province its 62, some 60,

weve got a buyer coming today,,

[thedoctor]

The buyers Around here are the market stall holders

so they put the buying price down,,

but either put the selling price up or maintane the current price

win ..win but for them only

After my last sickness problem with the pigs i only have 6 left now sold all the rest

and cleaned everything out,

So not sure on my future at the moment regarding pigs,

or Thailand !! if the truth was known

regards

[slapout]

Maybe if the people involved in small operation pig farms had a auction barn to take their livestock to, to sell, and the ''buyers'' had to bid against each other, they could get better treatment on price. I have no idea if this is even feasible just due to a possible lack of pig farmers in your area. I do know that 2 to 4 baht a kilo to a middle man would seem to be way more than they deserve.

[pigeonjake]

yep were held to ransom by the buyers, mine didnt turn up today,,

they know you want to get rid, so they have you by the short and curlies,

ive been thinking of killing my own for a while and selling the pork, but with still working would be to much for my wife at the moment,

[thoongfoned]

hi, had a friend over last year and he was interested in putting some money up so that "we" could have a farrow to finish set up, say 300 - 400 to slaughter a month once we were up and running fully. (he has seen what we can achieve by contract farming ie returns every month) we sat down and number crunched, I gave him a figure and was told ok, (he has too much money by the way) then I went over the facts of trying to sell said amount a month or even 100 a month, he just told me I would have to have a better marketing plan........ he has never spent any time in this part of the world! this idea as a business I feel the wife and I could do, but the selling of said animals is another matter............ the money offer is still on the table i think,, but i know we would not be able to sell the end product.

the wifes farm gets rid of approx. 10 sows a month, av kg 225, maybe more, in our area there is another 14 farms of the same size some much bigger. each farm will get rid of same ish amounts each month.say 150 - 225kg sows. from my understanding the company puts the sows up to the highest bidder. most of the time the same lady buys all the animals, say 10 months out of the 12. its cash on collection. she slaughters most of the animals herself (well you know what i mean) again from my understand the animals are sold at about 3\4 of the retail live price. say now price at the gate is 60 sold at 45.

most months my wife manages to buy one of these said animals before the "lady" does, she slaughters herself (again) and sells it in and around the village in bits of 500 or 1000. always has a good earn off it and the portion sizes are very good, people even phone up asking when we are gonna kill another ect.. the self slaughter is the way to go, even better if you can get people sitting\selling in the local markets then its baht per kg.

anyway how ever you sell your animals its always gonna be time consuming and hard work, just like the production of said animal.

[olioli]

hi to all.

i just talk to a local buyer, she said she, need only 47 kg out of my 100 kg pig to get even. the 53 kg is profit for her. lets say, if she buys my 100kg pig for 70baht/ kg that is 7000. market price is same as usual 150/kg. meaning: she need to sell only 47 kg of meat to get that 7000, the 53 kg is her profit.

thingking of killing myself.

[pigeonjake]

hi to all.

i just talk to a local buyer, she said she, need only 47 kg out of my 100 kg pig to get even. the 53 kg is profit for her. lets say, if she buys my 100kg pig for 70baht/ kg that is 7000. market price is same as usual 150/kg. meaning: she need to sell only 47 kg of meat to get that 7000, the 53 kg is her profit.

thingking of killing myself.

you dont have to go killing yourself over it,,,,lol

[slapout]

oli; Looking at figures derived from your conversation, I see no allowance for butcher lose. I understand from what I read that her profit is from selling 53 kilo of pork and it took 47 kilo to pay you. Figure butcher loss at 25 to 30% and see how you feel. Loss could be somewhat lower that figures I used but retail price for a lot of the meat is less than prime cut price

[nutterz64]

I would guess that butchers loss is closer to 10% so she still gets to sell 43kg at 150baht = 6450. A tidy 92% mark-up. His risk is he doesn't sell the product and it spoils due to lack of refrigeration. Our buyer sells mainly at his own markets and when I have visited I noted that almost everything is sold at the same price be it shoulder, ham, fillet, ribs, face mask or entrails. Fat and some of the bones go at a lesser price. He was selling for 135 baht/kg this week but I also saw other market holders I know he supplies (in very small remote villages) were selling at 160 baht. Perhaps he is selling to them at his 135 retail price???

Either way, I am determined to find a way to be doing a little better than we are but it is kind of tricky navigating the culture and politics in this game.

[pigeonjake]

we asked about doing a market stall last year,

and if there is allready a pork seller there, no chance we were told,

i thought of getting a motorbike and the side car that you see around with one of them large blue boxes filled with ice and pork and sending the mother in law out round the vilages round us and do it that way, wouldnt take long for word of mouth to get round to what days you were going to what villages, but as im still working as well as doing the farm i havnt got time at the moment, i still go away offshore,

but when i retire if we are still doing the pigs that is what we will do, cant do the stall, i dont think you would be able to sit there on the road in your car selling it either you would get moved on, but motorbike i think would be ok,

well thats my thoughts for what its worth, we do better then others as i buy my feed at cost strait from the feed mill so im saving a great amount there, the feed shops have a very large mark up believe me, you wouldnt believe there mark up,it suprised me,

see thats another way it gets you, pork farm gate price goes up, so did the feed, so that is why i rang, emailed, so many companies to try and buy from the mill, took me ages to get there, but we have,

i dont sell, ive told a couple of the farmers we could sell feed, but to be honest i dont think they want to buy from a falang, they must think we have enough money,,lol

[COXYATCITY]

it,s true pigs can fly lol :-)

[thoongfoned]

we asked about doing a market stall last year,

and if there is allready a pork seller there, no chance we were told,

i thought of getting a motorbike and the side car that you see around with one of them large blue boxes filled with ice and pork and sending the mother in law out round the vilages round us and do it that way, wouldnt take long for word of mouth to get round to what days you were going to what villages, but as im still working as well as doing the farm i havnt got time at the moment, i still go away offshore,

but when i retire if we are still doing the pigs that is what we will do, cant do the stall, i dont think you would be able to sit there on the road in your car selling it either you would get moved on, but motorbike i think would be ok,

well thats my thoughts for what its worth, we do better then others as i buy my feed at cost strait from the feed mill so im saving a great amount there, the feed shops have a very large mark up believe me, you wouldnt believe there mark up,it suprised me,

see thats another way it gets you, pork farm gate price goes up, so did the feed, so that is why i rang, emailed, so many companies to try and buy from the mill, took me ages to get there, but we have,

i dont sell, ive told a couple of the farmers we could sell feed, but to be honest i dont think they want to buy from a falang, they must think we have enough money,,lol

jake, I think the mobile selling route is a good one. you have prob thought of this too but I will say anyway, make a small shop (hut ect...) out front or inside your land and do the selling of cut up meat there, make a sign out front - road ect and give it time, all you gotta buy is the equipment to keep things cool... at worst you just have to eat it your self.if anyone is a butcher or is willing to learn the better cuts,say for the white faces (bacon ect...) will sell at a premium. sausage making..... try and contact all the local village shops, well as many as you can and see if you can supply the pork for them, do deals ect....

I manage to do small deals to the locals on sundry things from the farm, even sell bags ect to village shops (was doing this yesterday) we can even sell the after birth (nong moo) to people, the other day I stopped some women on a motor bike and sold um some stuff that I was gonna give the dogs, did this just do show my daughter that you have to try and not be shy. by the way my thai language skills are far from proficient......... can sell anything to anyone if you give it a try, the worst people can say is no.

[pigeonjake]

yes mate i agree, but like i say i still work, (offshore) but when i retire ill look into many other things, we have a lot of people coming here as they buy eggs from my wife every day, in fact we dont have enough ducks as she has allways got a waiting list , so it could be the same with pork,

well get there mate,

i was more then happy when i got my food from the mill, it took time but we got there,

[slapout]

I would guess that butchers loss is closer to 10% so she still gets to sell 43kg at 150baht = 6450. A tidy 92% mark-up. His risk is he doesn't sell the product and it spoils due to lack of refrigeration. Our buyer sells mainly at his own markets and when I have visited I noted that almost everything is sold at the same price be it shoulder, ham, fillet, ribs, face mask or entrails. Fat and some of the bones go at a lesser price. He was selling for 135 baht/kg this week but I also saw other market holders I know he supplies (in very small remote villages) were selling at 160 baht. Perhaps he is selling to them at his 135 retail price???

Either way, I am determined to find a way to be doing a little better than we are but it is kind of tricky navigating the culture and politics in this game.

We used to joke that the only part of a pig not utilized/eaten was the oink, but 10% butcher loss may be somewhat overly optimistic, then throw in price difference for various cuts ground pork, ribs, hocks, head, etc, and I just cannot believe the 92% (Markup) your term. I purchase fresh butchered pork from the vendors table (middleman) within i kilometer of our house or from makro, both charge different prices for different cuts This is on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, so maybe your buyer has a monopoly on the market in your immediate area.

[ChiangMaiPigFarmer]

Maybe this can help with your yield statements:

Please look at www.KurobutaThailand.com where I have a section on Yields by cuts of the pig for the standard non-Thai look at yields.

In Chiang Mai I just purchased a DLD Pedigree Lineage Kurobuta Free Range pig and when hanging and cooled we got 86.076%. When cooled and cut into primals we got 40.046% primals meat. Following is a break down of the 86.076%

Prime meat total pig 34.800 40.05% Bone 10.000 11.51% Fat 16.000 18.41% Feet 2.000 2.30% Offal 12.000 13.81%

[nutterz64]

I would guess that butchers loss is closer to 10% so she still gets to sell 43kg at 150baht = 6450. A tidy 92% mark-up. His risk is he doesn't sell the product and it spoils due to lack of refrigeration. Our buyer sells mainly at his own markets and when I have visited I noted that almost everything is sold at the same price be it shoulder, ham, fillet, ribs, face mask or entrails. Fat and some of the bones go at a lesser price. He was selling for 135 baht/kg this week but I also saw other market holders I know he supplies (in very small remote villages) were selling at 160 baht. Perhaps he is selling to them at his 135 retail price???

Either way, I am determined to find a way to be doing a little better than we are but it is kind of tricky navigating the culture and politics in this game.

We used to joke that the only part of a pig not utilized/eaten was the oink, but 10% butcher loss may be somewhat overly optimistic, then throw in price difference for various cuts ground pork, ribs, hocks, head, etc, and I just cannot believe the 92% (Markup) your term. I purchase fresh butchered pork from the vendors table (middleman) within i kilometer of our house or from makro, both charge different prices for different cuts This is on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, so maybe your buyer has a monopoly on the market in your immediate area.

Hi Slapout, yes he most certainly does have a monopoly. Was talking with a Thai farmer this morning (he is buying some piglets from us) and he uses the same buyer. Said there is no one else around here. A buyer from the nearby Amper is also well supplied and clearly not looking for new sources. He failed to turn up to either of our farms.

Means we will have to start looking further afield for other buyers. Interestingly I stumbled across a market seller at a small once a month market today and he was selling his pork for 100 baht a kg. Turns out he is a small farmer and this was one of his pigs that he slaughtered to get 100baht/kg dead weight instead of the going live weight.

A couple of times we have taken a hog and sold it to a consortium of sorts of 6 to 8 local villagers. He weigh it, agree on a total price and then divide it evenly amongst them. We get a much better price this way but they are a little slower on paying than the middleman and we now have 6 to 8 people to collect money from. Not a high volume sustainable model but the few extra baht all helps the averages.

I would love to gear up to 40 hogs a month but need to have a better path to market to do this.

[nutterz64]

Maybe this can help with your yield statements:

Please look at www.KurobutaThailand.com where I have a section on Yields by cuts of the pig for the standard non-Thai look at yields.

In Chiang Mai I just purchased a DLD Pedigree Lineage Kurobuta Free Range pig and when hanging and cooled we got 86.076%. When cooled and cut into primals we got 40.046% primals meat. Following is a break down of the 86.076%

Prime meat total pig 34.800 40.05% Bone 10.000 11.51% Fat 16.000 18.41% Feet 2.000 2.30% Offal 12.000 13.81%

Thanks for this info CMPF. Useful to know.

As you say this is standard yield. The Thai market seller yield is certainly much higher. Some of the "inedible" waste mentioned in the site are highly sort after here like the blood, intestines etc. about the only thing they don't seem to sell and eat is the hair and poo. Even the anus is considered a delicacy by some.

Carcass hung and refrigerated???? Ahhhhh that is the meat I buy from Tesco or Macro. I mentioned this to the Thai family one day that I would like to do this ourselves. Build our own cold room and do it the right way.... Looked at me as if I had a screw loose.

On a serious note, I was very interested in the Kurobuta pigs you mentioned. Will spend more time on the site reading up on it.

cheers

Peter

[thoongfoned]

all is still so I will write what the farms is doing...........

3 births in the last couple of days, one litter av 1.6kg 13 straight alive then to massive av2.1kg 11 born 10 alive, av2.4kg 11 born 9 alive. one piglet in the last litter was 3kg, both of the bigger av litters had assistance, if not the born alive would have been lower......... just checked on a litter that is small in kg, 11 days old and the smallest piglet here is under the 3kg born weight of the latest litter, crazy...... will have to keep some of these piglets longer to get the weight up. our weaned av kg for this month so far 15th oct till now is just over 6kg at 19.4 days

the farm has got its highest number of births in one month coming up 15 nov - 15 dec (our working month for births) 58 births waiting to pop out, this is high this coming month because this months work we are almost finish with had only 39 births, we av 45 - 46 amonth normally, still this should give us a boost for the year end..........

just looking about because its the end of the month time. the litter mentioned above the "massive" 2.4kg av birth weight is now topping 6.1kg at 14 days old. the largest pig in this litter is just under 8kg, all 9 still alive, even put a couple of extra piglets in with this litter from the beginning.

just had some piglets picked up today and the av kg at 19.4 days was 5.81kg, so these monsters that we have will help make the av at the end of the month a little better with some luck, they will be 19 days old when they go.....

got two births today, one that is in labour now, she is 3 days late....... first six out are very small (1.1 -1,2kg ect) and the seventh is a better size at 1.6kg with a bit of luck the rest will be of this size.

[tjhorner]

Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Guys, I just want to say thanks to all who have contributed to this thread over the past few years. I first found this topic about 2 years ago, and it really sparked my interest. I have, over the last few weeks, re-read all 1850+ post, and along with the other dozen or so archived threads.

Such a valuable wealth of information and experiences that you have all shared......Thanks again.

A little background from me..........We have a farm in Tha Sae (near Chumporn) of almost 50 rai. It is in palm and rubber at the moment, with both approx. 20-25 years old. Palm is still producing but just about too tall to harvest and the rubber hasn't be tapped in the last year or so. The rubber trees will be harvested soon for timber and to clear the land for new crops. The palms will be cleared also, but over a time frame of the next couple of years.

Plans are to raise hogs, a small farrow to finish operation with approx. 10-20 sows. We also will raise chickens (broilers and layers), ducks, fish, and possibly a few head of cattle, but the pigs will be the main commercial focus. With the amount of land we have I am hoping to reduce our commercial feed cost by close to 50%.

I would like to be 100% organic but I am not yet convinced that this feasible yet alone profitable in Thailand at the present time. However, as we move forward we shall do our best to minimize the use of pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and commercial fertilizers. We are planning to do deep litter beds for the housing of the pigs; first, this creates a natural, environmental method of the pig waste disposal; second, provides a more natural environment for the pigs, ie allows for rutting and provides a safer and more comfortable environment; third, composted fertilizer, with the desire to eliminate commercial fertilizers on our farm, using rice husks, chopped rice straw, palm fawns, coconut husks, etc. as a litter medium will allow us (actually our pigs) to create a rich composted fertilizer.

Over the past year, I have researched alternative pig feed sources/methods with the hope to make pig farming profitable. With the cost of commercial feed, as you all know, the margins are razor thin. I probably have hundreds of articles, resources, and studies about this topic with many specific to farms in the tropics. As I begin to organize my research, I hope to share this knowledge with you guys here. I also have lots of information concerning natural pig farming, and natural farming in general with a lot of my natural pig farming info related to deep litter beds.

If there is enough interest maybe we can continue this into a Pigs 102 or 201 thread.

Again, I would like to say thanks to all the contributors here!!!!

[pigeonjake]

i must admit pigs are happier in straw and coconut husk, and its not expencive, and like you say you have good compost for the farm, as in my pics, we have some of our pigs on bedding and some not doing my own trials, and in my opinion they do better on bedding,

we change it out once every 2 weeks, BUT, add straw and husk as needed, the pigs love it,

when you get sorted out PM me and ill give you details of a mill that will sell food strait to you at a greatly reduced price and i mean a saving of over 200bht on weaner feed per bag and its good food, they will sell to you if they dont have an agent to close to you,

no minimum order, you just pay delivery i get 3 ton at a time as thats what will go on the hilux extra rated suspention truck that brings it,

the feed get deliverd and we then put the money into there bank acount, like cash on delivery,

when im retired ill be looking big time in selling our own port as that is were the trouble is,, the middle man, the pig buyer,

a couple of pics of some of ours in bedding

[tjhorner]

Jake, Thanks for your reply and your offer. As we get going, I will definitely be in touch.

Here are some links in reference to deep litter bedding and its benefits. Most sources state that your bedding should be between .8 to 1 meter deep. This is to be able for the biomass to compost. The composting does produce heat, so the deeper the bedding helps negate/disperse that heat rise. Also, most state that you don't need to remove this material for years, however most do replace after 4-8 months and use the compost on their fields or bag and sell the compost. It should be noted that this method is most effective with the use of EM, and IssanAussie seems to be the resident expert on EM usage.

http://businessdiary.com.ph/6109/how-to-raise-pigs-in-an-odor-free-piggery/

http://www.pigprogress.net/PageFiles/23242/001_boerderij-download-PP5577D01.pdf

http://www.pigprogress.net/Home/General/2010/12/Enhancing-sow-longevity--A-nutritional-approach-PP006922W/

http://www.naturalpigfarming.com/deeplitterbedflooring.htm

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/58403/Deep_litter_housing_for_pigs_-_Primefact_68-final.pdf

This method is quite popular in Korea and the Philippians; however I have seen a few videos of some farmers here in Thailand doing this also. The number one benefited claim is NO odor.....