Pigs 101 (A Start)

[olioli]

weaned 10 piglets 10 days ago now down to 6. 2 die yesterday and 2 this morning. piglet seems sleepy and week some are nt week but eyebrows are getting big. questions: 1. what med will i inject. 2. is this realy fever or a dehydration.

[bazmlb]

weaned 10 piglets 10 days ago now down to 6. 2 die yesterday and 2 this morning. piglet seems sleepy and week some are nt week but eyebrows are getting big. questions: 1. what med will i inject. 2. is this realy fever or a dehydration.

sorry to hear you lost some

How cold is it there at night, do you have a heat light if its cold? are they on bare cement floor? did you clean the floor with lime solution?

Rice husks on the bare cement floors help a lot, also reduce odour

[ChiangMaiPigFarmer]

I have a need to partner with some farm very close to Bangkok. I prefer a DLD Standard Farm but that is not a firm requirement as I could potentially set you up as a Satellite Farm under our DLD Standard Farm certification and license.

I would by looking for very health piglets from 35 to around 55 days of age. I will be paying the full government posted piglet price +/- 16kg. In addition I will pay an extra bonus dependent on how we can structure a deal.

Additonally there is a possibility that I could supply you with some of the new Thai black pigs (Chiangmai MooDum).

Basically, I would be asking you to have your local abattoir (the neighborhood type) remove the hair and offal (guts) then back the piglet on ice and put it on transport (most likely bus or any way possible) to go immediately into Bangkok. Needs to be shipped within a very short time after the abattoir process.

Additionally there would be rules on no chemicals used on the piglet prior to shipment. The sow would need to be on high quality commercial feed as would the piglet creep feed.

If interested contact me at [email protected]

[bazmlb]

Think they still like the small feeder too much, might need another

[IsaanAussie]

6 feeder spaces and 9 pigs. Yeap,at that size they all need to get in at the same time. Could try floor feeding a few.

[bazmlb]

6 feeder spaces and 9 pigs. Yeap,at that size they all need to get in at the same time. Could try floor feeding a few.

Will just get another one as will need it, they wont eat from the larger feeder yet, but they use it for...

[IsaanAussie]

Very cute. I found the small bowl feeders soon got to be throwing toys as the piglets grew. Broken pretty easily.

[revar]

keeping our piglets at mothers teat for over 4weeks is paying off in terms of disease proof piglets.

Both mother and piglets only eat pure Betagro feed.

Costs/piglet are high but

diseases, cold, rain, they just shrug it off.

we are selling piglets at higher prices then official price (2500 for 15kg) but are getting many repeat customers. they tried other piglets (including cp) but while some/many of these died, ours survived and blossomed. And ours get from 15-100 kg in 3months, 1week If u follow our guidelines. Almost all heavy red meat not fat.

Edited March 3, 2015 by revar

[bazmlb]

That sounds good, ours are growing very quick too, they are cross with the Chaing Mai Moo Dam, expecting them to hit the mark about same time as yours

[thoongfoned]

keeping our piglets at mothers teat for over 4weeks is paying off in terms of disease proof piglets.

Both mother and piglets only eat pure Betagro feed.

Costs/piglet are high but

diseases, cold, rain, they just shrug it off.

we are selling piglets at higher prices then official price (2500 for 15kg) but are getting many repeat customers. they tried other piglets (including cp) but while some/many of these died, ours survived and blossomed. And ours get from 15-100 kg in 3months, 1week If u follow our guidelines. Almost all heavy red meat not fat.

i think you are on the right track, keeping piglet with mother, getting good weight on piglet. can only lead to a good finishing pig down the road. speaks for its self in customer repeats.... never easy to make any money over here!

piglet creep food: we now get a new type. same protein levels ect... but now just powder (not the small pellets) and its smell like human baby milk formular, piglets like this better. (all betagro stuff) whats the average feed intake per day (mum) from the 20th day with piglet? ie do you feed unlimited amounts to the real greedy pigs.

how quick do your mums return to "with piglet" ? ie piglet stays with mum 28 days, 3-4 days waiting then in piglet again. 31.5 days. just being nosey coz over the last year we have been experimenting with how long to keep the piglet with the mum. the down days play a big part in overall farm performance.

[revar]

As in any market you need to find your niche.

In thailand you have the big pig companies like cp and betagro ans their contract farms andthe moo-baan.

there arent many operations who are small scale but focus on quality. thats were we position ourfarm. high quality piglets and high quality finishing pigs (fast growing, lots of tasty red meat).

my feeding strategy for sows:

during pregnancy we feed a full dish of 306 in the morning and evening. the pigs warn us when its time;)

a week before parturation we change his to 307 and sows get a 10cc gatosal shot (vitamin).

when they have suckling piglets we feed to keep them in a good body condition, milk to spare but not too thin or fat. if they have 10-13 piglets this is about 2 dishes of 307 in morning and evening. the sow has to finish it in one go. if she doesnt we take it away.

after between 2-3 weeks the sow starts to throw out some on the floor. also she will roll on her stomach even with teats full of milk.

now the piglets will start eating some of the mothers feed as well as her milk. now i put in a piglet feeder with some 301L feed. between this date and 4 weeks ill decrease the mothers feed so the piglets eat the 301L high proteine feed and not the sow feed. The sow will allow them to drink less and less and after 4weeks+ i wean them without any trouble from the mother.

calling between mother and piglets is minimal. the sow is in very good body condition and gets in heat in 3-5 days again.

this strategy works for me has and some clear benefits:

-very strong piglets

-very good condition sows

- no need for expensive creep feed

- no need for milk containing feed which easily causes scaur and spoils easily.

- reputation ofsupplying the best piglets there are, which means premium prices.

-the piglets have a very good fcr. they need alot lessfood then that advertised by betagro or other feedproducers to reach 100kg. and they reach that in 3 months after weaning.

these ofset the disadvantages of high feed costs of sows (a new born already costs 700+ bath in mothers feed costs if u avarage10 alitter).

- about one less litter in 4 years.

Edited March 4, 2015 by revar

[thoongfoned]

what does a full dish weigh? 100 kg at 120 ish days then.....

good to hear that you have a good operation, well done.

[revar]

a dish isbetween 800 gram and 1 kg. and yes 100 kg between day 115-125 most of the time. depends a bit on breed of mother and father.

Edited March 4, 2015 by revar

[pigeonjake]

i dont find it any big deal to get a pig to 100kilo in 4 months,

we dont use beagro or cp feed, i buy my feed direct form a mill at a fraction of the cost of betagro, but it took me years of emailing around to find a mill that would sell to me,

i save just on my creep feed just over 200 bht a bag, down to my finnishing feed i save 48bht a bag,

i also get my chicken, duck and fish feed from the same mill,

you can make money on pigs here and good money, but it is hard work,

its harder at first when you first start to build up your contacts, after that its quite easy,

sometimes the sharks will try and be cleaver with you, the best way is to jhave more then 1 buyer lined up,

they will always want good pigs, but they will sometimes try and get a few baht a kilo knocked off, thats business, you would do the same, i know i would,

and i would never pay 2,200 bht for a piglet, i dont know how you can make money buying in at this price, dont leave much on the bone for you, well not enough for me anyway,

i buy mine in at a very good price, look through you will see the pics of the piglets i buy in, they might be seconds from the big farms, but once i get them home they arnt seconds,

they come on just great, if they are young i just give them a week or so on milk, humen baby milk powder that you give to babies, brings them on just great,

i get home on the 9th, ill go and buy 50 or so and post pics again,

untill then,

happy pigin,

jake

[thoongfoned]

contract finishing farms will get 80 days to get a 5.5kg av piglet to the 100kg. i say average eg: work on a farm that looks after 700 piglets at a time. delivered the average weight should be 5.5kg but could be lower\higher. take wifes farm for eg. av 6 +kg most months. the average age of piglet would be 19.5 days on delivery.

was told by a man in the know that the 100kg in 100 days has been industry "standard" for the past ten years here in thailand. before this its was 80 ish kg in 100 days, then the litter sizes were also smaller.

when i see a thai friend i will ask him what his average kg are. he runs three finishing farms 700 pigs or there about in each.

no matter what rate you get the kg's on your pigs, it is an art! and the more you do the harder it must be.......

[revar]

jake, if you got scale you canmake money because a little profit per pig over a lot of pigs is a lot of money.

unfortunately I dont have much to invest so.im talking small scale. still need to.make enough money to eat etc.

before i started breeding my own pigs , i bough piglets from e cheap source too. often at below 500bath prices. some would die but because they were cheap i would still be in profit. but then we got one whos sickness infected the whole farm and we lost over 200 pigs worth close to a million bath. furthermore we had to close the whole farm for 6 months to make sure the virus had gone before starting again. so i rather breed my own expensive piglets now.

also i can get them to 100kg faster , but then have more fat, less red meat. as i said im going for a higher quality pig and piglet then the average cp farm.

btw i would not buy 2500 bath piglets myself. but i dont sell cheaper since i would make more money raising them myself otherwise.

Edited March 7, 2015 by revar

[jompa67]

I don't get it. 100 kg from weaning in three month. That means a total of four months. I have spoken with a former betagro seller. He said "it works even if it is not true, it is Thailand". But if you guys can do, you must make allot of money (I'm jealous ). Zero to 100 kg in 5 months is my target and its not easy to archive it over time. If we raise them to quick they get to fat and we loose money.

[pigeonjake]

jake, if you got scale you canmake money because a little profit per pig over a lot of pigs is a lot of money.

unfortunately I dont have much to invest so.im talking small scale. still need to.make enough money to eat etc.

before i started breeding my own pigs , i bough piglets from e cheap source too. often at below 500bath prices. some would die but because they were cheap i would still be in profit. but then we got one whos sickness infected the whole farm and we lost over 200 pigs worth close to a million bath. furthermore we had to close the whole farm for 6 months to make sure the virus had gone before starting again. so i rather breed my own expensive piglets now.

also i can get them to 100kg faster , but then have more fat, less red meat. as i said im going for a higher quality pig and piglet then the average cp farm.

btw i would not buy 2500 bath piglets myself. but i dont sell cheaper since i would make more money raising them myself otherwise.

mate i agree with a lot of what you say,

we used to have the odd ones die at the start, thats before we new what we were doing, like i say now if they come to young, i put them on milk a little heat and off they go,

when i go to our pig lady we get to pick our own, she may have over a 100 pigelts, and we get to pick which we want and how many, some if they are gigger will cost me 1,200 bht now, the smaller ones go for 800 to a 1000, but ive said it on here for a few years now they do make up to be good pigs,

we make money because of our feed, we used to make a bit of profit using sun feed from the shop but since we have started using the other feed from the mill we make about 25% more, also when im going for piglets the odd people in the village will want a couple so i get them a few, knowing they will come and buy there feed from us,

it is hard work, my wife works bloody hard while im away, but she knows that one day this will be our future, so what we are learning now will only help us later,

we didnt know anything about pigs before we started, i was reading this pig section and speaking to others for a couple of months before i dipped my toe in the water, i asked round were to buy piglets, were to buy feed, and most importently were to sell our finnished pigs,

its no goo just one morning saying im going to keep pigs, with out asking a lot of questions to yourself, your wife, and like above, were to buy, and sell these pigs,

good luck to all,its is hard like we all say, but i truely like looking after my pigs, and i am a little sad when they go,

jake

[revar]

I don't get it. 100 kg from weaning in three month. That means a total of four months. I have spoken with a former betagro seller. He said "it works even if it is not true, it is Thailand". But if you guys can do, you must make allot of money (I'm jealous ). Zero to 100 kg in 5 months is my target and its not easy to archive it over time. If we raise them to quick they get to fat and we loose money.

i think it has a lot to do with the piglets. also breed makes a bit difference. the starting point is the sow and its pedigree.

even with lr-lw sows, the percentages make a bit difference. by looking at the mother of agilt i can usually tell a lot.

cp, betagro and other sows- gilts come in different strains.

each gas been bred for different roles or is an improvement on the last one.

by choosing the breed, strain, of sow and source of fathers( we use 3 different sperm suppliers, but a tube may contain sperm of several boars)i choose if i breed for speed, red meat, future sows etc. then i feed acoording to what i want. I use 4 different types if feed after I wean. timing on when to switch to tthe next one determines speed of growth and fat percentage. at some stages i might split up a group because

some grow faster then others and need different feed types. a lot of things i.do are probably not feasible if u are large scale.

[revar]

jake,

i used your approach for 2 years and it worked very good. only one trusted source for the piglets. we made nice money that way.

then suddenly the piglets which looked fine started dying. later we found out that the lady ad her husband had split up, maybe she started cutting corners. anyway we lost all our profits of the years and a lot more. thats when i decided not to trust orhers in tgis area anymore amd breed our own. if you can.only send your kid to school by cutting corners, i can understand that, and this is common in thailand.

but if you depend on pigfarming for your income (and visa!) the risk is too big.

And breeding piglets is so much fun anyway. still feel like a father every time i deliver them

seems you got your feed sorted out very nicely. maybe expanding its sales is a good way to split risks. we were a betagro sub dealer in our tambon. but most buyers stopped piggin 2 years ago when prices got so low all lost money. i still go the benefit that i can buy my feed on credit. thats why i dont mix myself. cant get the ingredients on credit and savings have been wiped out as i said.

It all shows there are still many ways to make money with pigs, there are opportunities here.

And its fun. had a high paid job in the west, been a teacher in thailand. but here im shoveling shit, singing my heart out and enjoying every minute of it.

happy pigging

Edited March 10, 2015 by revar

[pigeonjake]

sorry im late, been busy,lol

well here is a pic of the pen ready for the new arivals, coconut husk down first then plenty of strw on top of that, they will stay in this pen for a month till we move them to the grow on pens, it works well as it keeps the new arivals away from the other pigs, also i can just leave them on the deep litter, then when i move them out with it all onto the manure heep, disenfect the pen out ready for the next lot,

happy pigging all,,

jake

ps these were 800 bht each and worth every baht

[revar]

deep litter .would love it if i had enough straw and husks. now I .spend 4-5 hours a day cleaning lol.

they look nice jake.

[revar]

first litter was 7 piglets. here shes busy with her second litter. stopped at 16 piglets. all within 2 hours. me and my wife didnt even have a second to sit down tomorrow next one due.

[pigeonjake]

hi raver,

thats great mate,

we have tried to breed our own, but to be honest im not into it,

we had the odd sow that wouldnt let you go into the pen with her when she had babys,

the odd one that only had 1 or 2 piglets,

dont get me wrong i like to see them, but im just happy driving for an hour and buying them,,lol.

i buy the straw local, my wifes friends husband goes out bailing and we buy a 100 bails at a time, i think the last lot were 28bht a bail,

the young ones when they come love it in the deep litter, and in the cold season we do put the older ones on deep litter too,

i just throw another bail in every couple of days keeps them busy ripping it all open,the older ones that im talking about,

then when i think its ready to come out i pay my wifes brother to take it out,,lol and onto the heap,

[trojanhorse]

sorry im late, been busy,lol

well here is a pic of the pen ready for the new arivals, coconut husk down first then plenty of strw on top of that, they will stay in this pen for a month till we move them to the grow on pens, it works well as it keeps the new arivals away from the other pigs, also i can just leave them on the deep litter, then when i move them out with it all onto the manure heep, disenfect the pen out ready for the next lot,

happy pigging all,,

jake

ps these were 800 bht each and worth every baht[/quote

Hi jake 800 bht each for piglets is good, is that normal to pay that much, at the moment the min price is 1700 up near sankat, surin

[revar]

no its not normal. jake is lucky to have such a source. not sure how his source can do this.most of the times these cheap piglets are rejects from several farms with hundreds or thousands sows.

my piglets have already cost around 600 bath on the day they are born if u count with 6 litters a sow of average 10 surviving piglets. this includes feed for the sow and depreciation. than add feed, vaccinations, medicines etc. and at 15 kg costs are already over 1000 thb. if some die fi

or some reason,or a sow has a small litter cost rise very fast. 1600-1900 for 15kg wuth full vaccinations is the average price most of the year depending on availability.

we sell ours more expansive han that, between 1200-2500 since we make more money raising them thenselling at 1800 at 15kg.

[pigeonjake]

like revar says. they must be rejects from many farms,

yes ill agree, but there rejects have been serving me well for a lot of years now,

i was very lucky to find this pig lady, you have to do a lot of hard work to get on in the pig game, it took me years for instance to find a feed mill to sell direct to me,

sunfeed for instance said there was a feed shop close to me,, yes i was buying my feed from them, 20 kilometers away, i said to them you will loose me as a customer when i find a feed mill that will sell direct and they have,

anyway back to 800baht pigelts,

sometimes i go and they are a 1000baht if they are bigger,

i think the ones yesrerday were great little pigs all about the same size and about 8,kilo, i was more then happy with them, all nice and pink,

i dont know why they were rejected by the big farms, but like ive said on here many many times when i get them home they come on great,

the pig lady allways lets me have first pick,

and ive said before also that if they are a little young when we get them i just put them on baby milk for a couple of weeks and it does the trick,

the main thing is with new piglets just weened whether bought in or your own, is scouring, they can get this by over feeding may sound daft but it can happen, more so in hot weather,

these young pigs were hot yesterday when we got them home, and i always have black net over them when they are in the pickup,

but like i sat scouring is a problem with new piglets, you will see it as very loose dropings, loose droping could be other things but i would treat for scouring first,

take care all

jake

[revar]

i suspect your ladies piglets are probably piglets for which the sow didn't have enough nipples or enough milk. It looks like the farms gave themat least a few weeks of suckling before selling themto your supplier if she gets them at 8kg up.

if the sow has 13 teats and 16 piglets. they might sell three at 2 weeks.

the 'bad farms sell them after a few days. these are the ones which die and scour fast.

scouring can largely be prevented by letting them suckle long enough and starring to introduce hard feed slowly after 2weeks or so. so this might be one of the reasons your piglets are doing so well.

[pigeonjake]

your prop right in what you say,

looking st the pick you can see they are taller then a block so im saying they are at least 8kilo,

when i get to my lady her piglets are great, you could be right as there is a lot of big farms round this lady, she is thai chinees and i think her family have a lot to do with the pig industry, we have been to her house, she likes to talk with me, she likes to try and speak english,lol,

but they are good, yesterday when i saw what was there i thought 1000bht, but its like what my wife said on the way home, that when pig price down piglet price down too, and she could be right, but i thought the piglets yesrday were 1000bht ones,

im more then happy they werent,,lol

ive just rang and put an order in for feed, these are the prices i get it for,

starter feed premium,,,,,,,6-15 kilo ,,,,,,,,657 a bag,, 20 bags

starter feed,,, 7-15 kilo,,,,,,,, 550 a bag,, 40 bags

2nd feed 15-30kilo,,,,,,, 458 a bag,, 30 bags

3rd feed, 30-60kilo,,,,,,, 400 a bag,, 30 bags

this is what ive jst orderd,

i get the 4th feed 60-90kilo,,,, 378 a bag,

the the 5th feed 90- to finnish 359 a bag,

like i say it all takes hard work to find suppliers, you cant just sit in your house expecting them to come to you,, they will once you get astablished,

i had a feed company come to us last year,

but it is hard work at first,

happy pigging

jake

[revar]

jake, very nice prices.

seems they are about 100bath a bag cheaper then commericial feed. so thats 700 bath profit if they use 7 bags until 100kg.

most feedproducers claim 7 bags from 10- to 100 kg 1 from 10-25, 3 25-600 kg. 2 for 60-90, and 1 to 100k

as i use pens and not cages and let the piglets suckle for a month i have eliminated the need for the most expensive types of feed. idont need creep feed, starter feed and hardly anyfeed aimed at piglets under 25kg.

in my pens, around 2.5 weeks after birth the mother typically starts to throw some of her own feed on the floor and encourages the piglets to eat it. after this they both drink milk and eat solid food . this and the use of EM develops the intestines very well and when i wean them after a month they are very able to eat and process the feed meant for 25kg up, even when they still 15kg.

to determine when to switch to the next type i use bodyscore and stoolconsistancy. i want lots of heavy red meat , not lighter weight fat.

what most people dont realise is that fat is light weight compared to red meat. and we sell by kilo, not by volume.

most times I can get them to 100kg on 6 bags instead of 7. and since they are the cheaper types, this is where I make the extra profit.

he fcr i achieve is actually higher then that betagro advertises with

now we need to combine both our methods for a nice big profit

Edited April 2, 2015 by revar