Pigs 101 (A Start)

[thoongfoned]

The sow who gave birth 10 days too early, kept popping out dead piglets for over a week. All big sized, total of 22. She hasnt been eating all the time (over 2 weeks) and had a fever. But she didn't get thin. Yes shes still alive and i might give her a chance if she pulls trhrough. 22 big ones was just too much for her first time. Belly felt like rock.

thats a mad number on the first litter, shame they were all wasted. too much food in the first to middle part of the pregnacy? dodgy in my mind to try she

again, but if yoiu are not concerned with the food use its worth a gamble........

that mum that gave an early birth yesterday is already gone on her way, space is very tight at the mo, by this morning her milk had all but stopped looked more like water, piglets dont look that great but are all mixed with three new birth mums this morning, expect to loose afew........ got another mum

just starting now...........

[Allgeier]

And what ist the reason for all this Problems with the birth Prozess?

In my opinion this come only, because we breed pigs who can get birth to 14 piglets and more. And we put them the hole life in a cage and the get no green gras and another fresh thinks to eat.

Maybe it's better to have a breed only with a average from about 8 to 10 piglet and no Problem with the birth.

If everythink work fine this breeding is a easy work and the Profit with 8 piglets should be enough. And this piglets i like stay with the sow for more than 30 days. Up to 40 days.

The piglets have at this time between 9 and 12 kg.

Not got for selling. But a good start for my one feeding.

[thoongfoned]

And what ist the reason for all this Problems with the birth Prozess?

In my opinion this come only, because we breed pigs who can get birth to 14 piglets and more. And we put them the hole life in a cage and the get no green gras and another fresh thinks to eat.

Maybe it's better to have a breed only with a average from about 8 to 10 piglet and no Problem with the birth.

If everythink work fine this breeding is a easy work and the Profit with 8 piglets should be enough. And this piglets i like stay with the sow for more than 30 days. Up to 40 days.

The piglets have at this time between 9 and 12 kg.

Not got for selling. But a good start for my one feeding.

no problems with the birth process, the wife would see less then 1 percent very early births, say from 113 days...... its all about numbers if you have large

numbers of animals or anything to that matter, you get to see the good and the bad.......

the wife has piglets 10kgs plus at 16 - 19 days, these are the very best ones, say around 5-7 percent of her piglets over a year, they go to make up the

numbers on the low "wean" weights, once they reach 5 plus kg you should see a gain of 250 grams a day on the very slowest growth, the more weight on them the better growth....... I agree if you run afew sows ect its best to keep the piglets

with mum as long as possible.

those piglets in that photo look good, but imagine the stress on that mum if she had 12 that size on her, that would be the average I

would expect a mum to nurse, some would be nursing 14 -16 if the farm is running well.

[Allgeier]

thoongfoned wrote:

the wife has piglets 10kgs plus at 16 - 19 days, these are the very best ones, say around 5-7 percent of her piglets over a year, they go to make up the

But what is with the another 95 %.?

Sure it will be stress if the sow have 12 piglets. But now. I ask me what i like. I like 12 small piglet or 7 good one's ?

If i sell the 12 small piglets after to somebody else. My Problem about the fedding is gone.

Last year i bought 12 piglets and there not grow with commercial feed from Betrago. Where is the error in this system?

From this 7 piglets on the photo. After 6 Month (count from birth). 6 have 120 kg and one with 98 kg.

We breed and give the mum's after stress because the have to give milk to 12 piglets. Better to have only 8 piglets and everythink is without of stress.

[thoongfoned]

gotta disagree, the wifes farm would be not very good if it only weaned 8 - 10 per mum. over the past two years the average weaned would be just under 11 per mum, that's on average of 47 births a month.

the average wean again for same period would be just under 6kg per piglet at an average age of 19.2 days. would like to see the average of over 6kg (have had this in the past over long periods of time) but cannot achieve this at the mo....

I think that you should look for uniformed birth and finish weight with a good healthy mum at the start and the finish.

everyone works to a different time table re weaning and breeding, we wean very early and expect the mum to get back into pig very quick. from my understanding the average piglet that leave the farm would achieve 104kg in around 100 days in someone else farm, that's 119 days total birth - finish. again that would be an average, and starting with 700 piglets, I know that some would do it quicker and some slower. these would be contracted farms that im quoting from. get told different time scales for many farms, but that seems to be a popular number and weight. I believe this to be "high end" farming in this part of the world.

I think that if you only breed the sow once a year this would be more her normal (free life) environment. but for most this would not pay the "rent" on looking after pigs, but for sure it would be less stress all round. different things for different peoples-animals.........

[Allgeier]

This what i read is that the sow should have two times the year piglet. If not, after maybe the sow to fat and not easy to get her pregnant.

I am more worry about the local farmers when the not care about the breeding. Somebody else buy the small piglet and after there not grow. And who make the mistake? The breeder or the person who feed them.

Yesterday i bought 5 LR+DU Piglet for 1200 Bath. In 10 Days i will get some LR+LW. I hope there grow. This LR+LW should be my breeding sow for the future.

Somebody use a LR+ DU for a sow?

I never hear there use Duroc inside the motherlinie.

[Allgeier]

But im expensive and sell piglets at 2500 thb.

Just sold all LW-pietrain.

Question:

What kind of Buyer buy the piglets for 2500 Bath now?

There have 16 kg at this time?

In my own case. It's cost me about 400 Bath to bring them to 16 kg. For exemple:

I bought this week some piglet for 1200 Bath. I will spend now 400 Bath and there will have 16 kg and cost me 1600 Bath.

Sometime i don't understand the system. Or this piglet are 2500 Bath worth or not? Worth are in my opinion is the grow faster oder what is the reason?

The piglet are the basis. Evertyhing is depends on them.

[thoongfoned]

you would always buy at the price you think is right or sell in the same manor, if not you would walk away.....

allgeier If I were in the market of getting some breeding gilts I would look at finishing pigs, with the right blood lines you want. why buy a piglet and say wait till its 220 day old to breed it, why not buy some older pigs that you think look the part and cut the time line down somewhat? if you can buy right you might even save some money too, but for me it would be the time saving, you cannot buy time.............

[thoongfoned]

a little "cold" blast of weather with us today, can see the piglets are sleeping on top of each other, a sure sign that they are cold. plugged some 200 watt bulbs in today, had to dust of the boxs, been in storage that long............ busy today cutting up some new carpet for the sleeping areas, splashed out and gone for some deep pile (if such a thing exists in thailand) lol............

[revar]

To answer a couple of questions:

1) I don't use cages. But pens for my sows and piglets stay with mum for 4-5 weeks. By that time theycare around 10-12 kg.

2) my pigs get to 100 kg in 4-4.5 months after birth.

3) some buy my piglets at 2500 because they know they are safe ( often after they have had problems with sickness). If they feed the food I can arrange for them (betagro or perfect), I can get them a buyer who pays more then avarage (ie closer to farm price) less risk but a lower profit. Finding a buyer is the biggest problem for most pigfarmers.

4 i havent used a lr-dur sow, but my lw-pitrain sow is doing great. 10-12 piglets but fast growers, vry strong.

5) im givingbthecabortion sow another chance on the basis that it might have been our fault ( overfeeding). If she farrows 20 successfully next time she already has made good the loss. If its low numbers or problems we sell her.

Cold weather and rain here too. Elec bill 3 times higher then usual. Keeping the heating lamps on all day for one week instead of 3 nights.

[thoongfoned]

revar, if you can let that mum that aborted miss the first in heat, could give her a chance on giving good numbers again on the second litter. from what I can see the high performing gilts nearly always give around a ten or under on the second litter, then back up on the third (if we get the timing right) never had a gilt give more than 19 alive........ just a thought. have a google about and read about the dip in the second litters in high end sows. yes those light bulbs do eat the electric, got 10 under 100watt and 4 under 200 as of now, two more births tomorrow if on time.

[Allgeier]

you would always buy at the price you think is right or sell in the same manor, if not you would walk away.....

allgeier If I were in the market of getting some breeding gilts I would look at finishing pigs, with the right blood lines you want. why buy a piglet and say wait till its 220 day old to breed it, why not buy some older pigs that you think look the part and cut the time line down somewhat? if you can buy right you might even save some money too, but for me it would be the time saving, you cannot buy time.............

My biggest Problem the last two years are to find a buyer for the pig. So for this i am not so hurry. And everything what must be hurry cost only extra money. I call the last two years a time for learning and get a feeling for the pig.

2 Month a ago sold 6 LR virgin sow. Because i can not see a solution about who will buy the piglet or the pigs after.

A short time after this we found a feedsupplier who buy the pig if we buy the feed from them. And now he bought already 2 times pig from us. Is this the solution for our Problem? Maybe.

And its also a question of money to buy at one time a couple of sow.

revar wrote;

1) I don't use cages. But pens for my sows and piglets stay with mum for 4-5 weeks. By that time theycare around 10-12 kg.

2) my pigs get to 100 kg in 4-4.5 months after birth.

3) some buy my piglets at 2500 because they know they are safe ( often after they have had problems with sickness). If they feed the food I can arrange for them (betagro or perfect), I can get them a buyer who pays more then avarage (ie closer to farm price) less risk but a lower profit. Finding a buyer is the biggest problem for most pigfarmers.

4 i havent used a lr-dur sow, but my lw-pitrain sow is doing great. 10-12 piglets but fast growers, vry strong.

Where both of you live in Thailand revar and thongfoned?

I have only one sow and this one is not in an cage. I have space for about 80 pig for feed. This needs about 6 to 10 sow. My plan is let them run all together in an group. But in this group,there are cages to lock them inside if necessary. For exemple to put the sperm inside. But if i have about 6 to 10 sow. I can have my own boar.

Next question:

Who have 100 % Duroc Piglet?

If i buy now a piglet for 2500 Bath and spend about 3500 Bath for feed. The Price around where i live is now 60 Bath/kg and the pig have 100 kg.. Who make the Profit? The person who sell the piglet.

In my opinion is the main think think to get the own piglet.

Allgeier

[thoongfoned]

udon thani....

money and time again. money to set up time to get the contacts, time to learn the pit falls money to bail out ect......

we spent 8 plus years looking for a decent way of making money over here, in the end we went for something we knew nothing about, pigs. gamble has

paid off but only because the wife contracts for one of the big boys. the only way we got into the pigs was because at the time the company was expanding in

our area and we had the money to invest, it was and is a lot money-time wise, if we were to try and start over now we would not be able to get in with this company, things change all the time and the needs-structure of the way this company operates now would not give us the chance they gave us years ago.

you need deep pockets and good contacts (many different contacts) to make money in pigs, that's why the companies that control the feed control the prices,

like the offer you have of buying feed from X then selling your pigs onto X rather then buying from Y and then trying to punt your pigs on the open market yourself, if you can network in the local community and supply good pigs at good value you will be able to sell them yourself, people happy you happy -all good - but not that easy to achieve.............

that price of 60 baht is high, look at the markets when the price goes low. I see that you kill them yourself, for me that would be the way to go, sell the meat not the whole animal.

[Robert24]

udon thani....

money and time again. money to set up time to get the contacts, time to learn the pit falls money to bail out ect......

we spent 8 plus years looking for a decent way of making money over here, in the end we went for something we knew nothing about, pigs. gamble has

paid off but only because the wife contracts for one of the big boys. the only way we got into the pigs was because at the time the company was expanding in

our area and we had the money to invest, it was and is a lot money-time wise, if we were to try and start over now we would not be able to get in with this company, things change all the time and the needs-structure of the way this company operates now would not give us the chance they gave us years ago.

you need deep pockets and good contacts (many different contacts) to make money in pigs, that's why the companies that control the feed control the prices,

like the offer you have of buying feed from X then selling your pigs onto X rather then buying from Y and then trying to punt your pigs on the open market yourself, if you can network in the local community and supply good pigs at good value you will be able to sell them yourself, people happy you happy -all good - but not that easy to achieve.............

that price of 60 baht is high, look at the markets when the price goes low. I see that you kill them yourself, for me that would be the way to go, sell the meat not the whole animal.

that's a good point about selling the meet as well. A number of Thais have started that and I think that would be something smart to do. Maybe this is something I consider as well next year. By the way you don't need to kill the pigs yourself, you can get that done for 300 baht per pig.

an alternative is also contract farming if you don't want to take the risk about price fluctuations or pigs getting sick.

[Robert24]

you would always buy at the price you think is right or sell in the same manor, if not you would walk away.....

allgeier If I were in the market of getting some breeding gilts I would look at finishing pigs, with the right blood lines you want. why buy a piglet and say wait till its 220 day old to breed it, why not buy some older pigs that you think look the part and cut the time line down somewhat? if you can buy right you might even save some money too, but for me it would be the time saving, you cannot buy time.............

My biggest Problem the last two years are to find a buyer for the pig. So for this i am not so hurry. And everything what must be hurry cost only extra money. I call the last two years a time for learning and get a feeling for the pig.

2 Month a ago sold 6 LR virgin sow. Because i can not see a solution about who will buy the piglet or the pigs after.

A short time after this we found a feedsupplier who buy the pig if we buy the feed from them. And now he bought already 2 times pig from us. Is this the solution for our Problem? Maybe.

And its also a question of money to buy at one time a couple of sow.

revar wrote;

1) I don't use cages. But pens for my sows and piglets stay with mum for 4-5 weeks. By that time theycare around 10-12 kg.

2) my pigs get to 100 kg in 4-4.5 months after birth.

3) some buy my piglets at 2500 because they know they are safe ( often after they have had problems with sickness). If they feed the food I can arrange for them (betagro or perfect), I can get them a buyer who pays more then avarage (ie closer to farm price) less risk but a lower profit. Finding a buyer is the biggest problem for most pigfarmers.

4 i havent used a lr-dur sow, but my lw-pitrain sow is doing great. 10-12 piglets but fast growers, vry strong.

Where both of you live in Thailand revar and thongfoned?

I have only one sow and this one is not in an cage. I have space for about 80 pig for feed. This needs about 6 to 10 sow. My plan is let them run all together in an group. But in this group,there are cages to lock them inside if necessary. For exemple to put the sperm inside. But if i have about 6 to 10 sow. I can have my own boar.

Next question:

Who have 100 % Duroc Piglet?

If i buy now a piglet for 2500 Bath and spend about 3500 Bath for feed. The Price around where i live is now 60 Bath/kg and the pig have 100 kg.. Who make the Profit? The person who sell the piglet.

In my opinion is the main think think to get the own piglet.

Allgeier

2500 for piglet is indeed pricy. The price range now is somewhere between 1100-1500 baht, 1500 baht the high end. Agree with Allgeier, no way to make money if you buy piglets at this price.

[thoongfoned]

all this talk about cost of piglets, i asked before to those that do this what would an average piglet owe you?

from my workings out: 1 x mum food 1 ton year. @ 2.5 litters year. vaccine, meds, AI stuff, boar 900kg a year food,(spilt the boar food costs over how many mums) electric, maintance farm. not including the cost of the female and male animals i would say just over the thousand baht a piglet would not pay the bills, that would be on weaning them at 20 days and presuming every litter weaned ten. and that dont include the labor, any thoughts or actual costs to you independ pig farmers out there?

[nutterz64]

all this talk about cost of piglets, i asked before to those that do this what would an average piglet owe you?

from my workings out: 1 x mum food 1 ton year. @ 2.5 litters year. vaccine, meds, AI stuff, boar 900kg a year food,(spilt the boar food costs over how many mums) electric, maintance farm. not including the cost of the female and male animals i would say just over the thousand baht a piglet would not pay the bills, that would be on weaning them at 20 days and presuming every litter weaned ten. and that dont include the labor, any thoughts or actual costs to you independ pig farmers out thMyu

My rough calculations made a while ago came in at about 1000 baht per piglet, But this did not include electric or labour costs. Purely sow feed through gestation and lactation, AI, medication for sow and piglets and creap feed. So does not include feed for unproductive time for the sow or other miscellaneous costs like maintenance etc.

We rarely sell piglets and if we do I wont let them go for less than 1500. The only reason I would sell is because we have mistimed covers and have run out of finishing rooms. We have had plenty of local farmers complain that we sell too expensively and tell us they can buy from other farmers for 1300 baht. Funny thing is that the rare times we do sell a litter they are gone within a day or two of us putting it out there that we have some for sale.

On another topic that was raised recently, has anyone got any input as to the pros and cons of contract farming? Just something I want to consider before I go ahead and expand our current operation as an independent.

Cheers

Peter

[thoongfoned]

funny you should mention about contracting, the wife and i have been kicking around the idea of a finishing farm.

the wife has a contract farrowing farm with betagro, we are waiting for the ok to build another, been waiting for a

while, problem is they need more finishing farms completed first before can expand in are area. in an ideal world we would like to build a new 300 sow farm........ but for the mean time we are thinking of maybe a 700 head finishing farm on an new plot that we have developed for this purpose already. sort of got an ok (nothing in writing - this part can take some time.....) from company, survey site already, local government office is on board, again not in writing.... but that can be completed quick. cost should get some change out of 3m baht. all depends how many corners you want to cut, but the company is a lot more strict in this now, ie constent checks while building and have even heard of people having to take whole floors up due to a too stoney mix. the whole bio systems have been upgrated and have to be followed to the letter.ie extra costs, not alot but every little.... out of that 3m i have included the bio gas system (holes already dug) and running electric 1km and or an ok generator for backup. house 60 percent complete on this site too. house money not included in the 3m. my main worry is the labor, (after having to find the money of course) good reliable works are very difficult to find. even family members.....im sure you know what i mean.... some of the wife friends will only have people work from the neighbouring countries, living on site ect... i have not got the blue prints for the farm (comes with contract) but the wife knows of afew people who have built in the last year, up and running now, all came in well under my estimate but not sure on steel size ect (roofing) and on any new farm we build im going to get some good quility roofing (sheets) not blue scope stuff but along these line, you get what you pay for, all will help making a better invironment for the pigs. oh we already have a deep well dug here to. just to give you an idea of all the little extras that come along, the wife current farms water and storagecost over 100,000 baht to set up, large high tower that holds 8,000 litre same on the ground for back up and a good pump, franklin, this is also greedy on the electric to run.

once you have the farm you will always get paid for the work you do on time, if the work is sub standard they will be money deducted for the problems..ect. a bonus system was in place once a year, not sure now though. x amount per kilo on the piglets. expect piglet to be delivered at an average of 5kg at 19.5 days old. i cannot get a firm time plan for the finishing, i know the "doctor" that run this side of things and he is very vague, from say 100 days to 120 seems to be what they allow. i think if the pigs are slow in growth they will help you with extra days, but the quicker the better, i would expect say 100 day to finish, then around 5 days to take all out (max) then maybe 40 days deep clean and rest before next batch, could be a little longer all down to the guy that runs you, how busy they are ect. it pays to keep your contacts sweet, if you get my drift. so would expect 2 plus sessions a year, people i know who have been doing this for a long time say its good money once you know the pros and cons, but it is not in the same league as the farrowing farms - but these are alot more expensive to building run ect and as far as we are told its a closed shop in this area. ie only people who farm these already will be granted a new farm, in time.......thats like saying how long is a peice of string in my mind, but i know that they are "open" for new finishing farm projects, or they were a couple of weeks ago, it a funny place and doors seem to close and open as quick over here. but for me the only way i would have the wife involved in the pig business would be the in the contracted business, its a hard game to make money in as im sure you know.........all the best i hope i have not written too mush, you can tell im not busy today...lol

[Robert24]

Looked into contract farming with CP. was very close to doing it but then decided against it because the vet from CP changed some key agreements we had about the building of the farm. Basically their manager said that we could build it ourselves with our constructor as long it is according to the spec from CP. Then last minute before we started the Vet came and said we had to use their preferred constructor. So we looked into this, this added an additional 500k to the building cost because he was quite a bit more expensive. And the preferred constructor was a relative from the vet and he had no building company, he would just hire ad hoc people and do these projects. Also visited one of the farms he was building and that didn't look that good in my opinion. I'm not a construction expert but I can see when something collapses that was freshly built. So I pulled out of it and do it independent now. But aside from this, the contract farming would have been commercially interesting. Roughly 3m investment into the building of the farm, you run it, pay utilities. Pig food, livestock, vaccine etc is all paid by CP. Your return is approx 5-5.25 baht per kg. Size of farm is 800 pigs. 2 times per year. So you can calculate the return yourself. CP does 3 year contracts. So all in all interesting. Just make sure you have a good vet/mgr in your province. I'm sure other companies offer similar set ups as CP does. Hope this helps. Can provide more detail is someone is interested.

[thoongfoned]

a "nice" bit of nepotism. sounds like you did the right thing if they are changing their minds before you even get the pigs through the doors............

now that you know what you possibly could have been earning through cp how does it measure up to what you can do as an indepentant? ie are you better off on your own?

sounds like a minimum of five year contract is needed too.

[Robert24]

a "nice" bit of nepotism. sounds like you did the right thing if they are changing their minds before you even get the pigs through the doors............

now that you know what you possibly could have been earning through cp how does it measure up to what you can do as an indepentant? ie are you better off on your own?

sounds like a minimum of five year contract is needed too.

well I only did one batch of pigs so far and decided to start small to gain some experience. So we had 140 pigs that we sold at the beginning of September Bought 165 but we had issues at the beginning with sickness and lost 25 pigs along the way:( Still made a healthy profit thanks to the fact that I was able to get a good price by working with someone who exported the pigs to China. But frankly dealing with the various buyers, calling around to get quotes etc is a headache. I mean some people quote you prices so low as CP - 16 baht! For my current batch I will work with CP as a one off because I wanted to try that out. CP offers one off contracts where you buy their food, they will buy back the pigs at the published price of CP. So I will do this with 200 pigs. After that we should have our mom pigs providing us with baby pigs and we are working to get our farm approved by the government as "standard farm" Once we have that I can sell the pigs to different companies who buy pigs at the published CP price provided you have that certification. I'm still new in this but learning quick. As I wrong before, we are planning to open a store to sell out own meat next year. Not sure if that will work out but I think we should give it try.

hope I can learn something from the more experienced guys on here though.

[nutterz64]

A while back, tirak and I were having a chat to the owner of the local CP finisher farm. He has been with them 10 years and built his current barn for 400,000 and then later added biogas power. Over a two year period he nets 1,500,000 baht... so 750,000 a year. However, he was telling me the current construction cost for a CP approved building is now about 2,000,000+. I steered away from it because as an independent I would be able to net that with a much lower capital investment. But it requires a lot more work as a farrow to finish operation is considerably more work than a pure finishing farm. It also assumes that we can move the volume of pigs we need to at a reasonable price. My forward forecasts were based on 60baht a kg. Something we haven't been able to achieve for over 9 months now.

Unfortunately I am completing a work contract in Australia and will be here for another 3 months so cannot do much until next year. However, I have been encouraging my tirak to broaden the net as far as buyers go. We now have three and one new player just starting up. Massive difference in price, payment terms and reliability from all of them. Unfortunately three of these guys aptly suit the description of shark. Want to be able to settle down to one or two reliable ones who are prepared to pay a decent price for lean pork. Something two of our buyers have complemented us on but yet a third complains they are too fat and thus justifies dropping price.

This week we had a buyer from the local Amphoe finally come out after several no shows. After inspecting the herd he offered tirak 58 baht over the phone. The next day he arrived, loaded 10 pigs totalling 1043kg. All good, but then said he could only pay 57 because that is what he had just paid the farmer down the road. Of course tirak was furious but couldn't do much about it as he had already loaded the pigs and he is a friend of Papa's friend and well.... you know the Thai way. He got away with it.

It is these types of issues that have caused me to relook at the contract option again. What I would like is something like what Revar has in place. A feed supplier that will pay big-boy farm gate minus x baht. Takes the drama out that we constantly face each month.

anyway, that is my little rant... onwards and upwards.

[thoongfoned]

i have said before, just a short time ago the wife and i knew not one end of a pig from another.......

the contract farming has many plus points but also many negative, as in most things........ i think that if you can make enough money being an independent already then this is the way to go. the contract bit is a big investment, finishing will take 5 years maybe more to pay off the build cost alone, and thats you doing the work.......

the negative to being on your own is as mentioned dealing with the buyer - general public..... generally trying to sell at the right time - price. if you have the means (money) i think you can ride all this out.

retailing your own meat is the way to go, look at the farmers in europe producing their own sauages ect... if you have dodgy pigs that dont grow out ect try your hand at the thai sauages - balls on stick kind of thing. ie food stuffs that are processed from not perfect meat. i know of a man that only deals in such animals for such foods, he looks like he does ok.

at the end of the day what ever road you take it will take time........

on another note if you guys have say 400 plus finishers -sows ect try the bio gas system. the cheapest way would be the rubber type dome, then run a pipe from this into a diesel generator and you will be able to run on mainly gas from the pigs plus a little diesel. we have 240 ish sows but we dont really produce enoungh gas to run any more then 4 hours a day 365. all the finishing farm i know of run on these systems and use very little electric a month, they will run 4 fans 24 hours a day for very little deisel say 1 litre, run only on deisel and you would use 7 - 9 litres a day at the rate they need to be turned in these farms. every baht helps.......

[thoongfoned]

robert let us know what you think of the system when you sell out those pigs from cp, that 1 off type deal sounds good. whats the average weight - age of the piglet when you get it and what would the finishing time frame be? are they giving you the meds ?

[Allgeier]

from my workings out: 1 x mum food 1 ton year. @ 2.5 litters year. vaccine, meds, AI stuff, boar 900kg a year food,(spilt the boar food costs over how many mums) electric, maintance farm. not including the cost of the female and male animals i would say just over the thousand baht a piglet would not pay the bills, that would be on weaning them at 20 days and presuming every litter weaned ten. and that dont include the labor, any thoughts or actual costs to you independ pig farmers out there?

When i was a child, i had a friend and his Parent breeded piglet. I cant remember how many sow, but i can remember there freed gras to them. Why? To cut the cost down.

The normal way to feed the pig's in Thailand ist to feed them out from the feedbag. So, and who make the profit if feed out from the bag?

This maybe not works with the hog, but with the sow.

The Cassavafabrik is full with byprodukt.

The sow grow also in weight and give me fertiliser. And when i see for mutch the member selling here the fertiliser. I think i keep the pigs only for this.

If i have my own boar i save time to pick up the sperm and he know the right time for the sow when she is in heat. The boar grow on weight and give me fertiliser and maybe i can sell also some sperm.

How big a farm must be to pay a Labour?

I will say under 400 pigs everythink must be down from the owner. Why 400 pig? Because if i count the time how many hours its will take to feed 400 pig out from the feedbag.

I will be happy with 6 sow and about 100 pig. This i can manage easy alone and no stress with the worker.

Normaly i not like to kill my pig. But if kill, what you do with the thinks it's not possible to sell on the market?

Make sausage or meatball,deep fry the skin. Who will sell on the market? There are many questions after. Must try and after see how its work

[thoongfoned]

from my workings out: 1 x mum food 1 ton year. @ 2.5 litters year. vaccine, meds, AI stuff, boar 900kg a year food,(spilt the boar food costs over how many mums) electric, maintance farm. not including the cost of the female and male animals i would say just over the thousand baht a piglet would not pay the bills, that would be on weaning them at 20 days and presuming every litter weaned ten. and that dont include the labor, any thoughts or actual costs to you independ pig farmers out there?

When i was a child, i had a friend and his Parent breeded piglet. I cant remember how many sow, but i can remember there freed gras to them. Why? To cut the cost down.

The normal way to feed the pig's in Thailand ist to feed them out from the feedbag. So, and who make the profit if feed out from the bag?

This maybe not works with the hog, but with the sow.

The Cassavafabrik is full with byprodukt.

The sow grow also in weight and give me fertiliser. And when i see for mutch the member selling here the fertiliser. I think i keep the pigs only for this.

If i have my own boar i save time to pick up the sperm and he know the right time for the sow when she is in heat. The boar grow on weight and give me fertiliser and maybe i can sell also some sperm.

How big a farm must be to pay a Labour?

I will say under 400 pigs everythink must be down from the owner. Why 400 pig? Because if i count the time how many hours its will take to feed 400 pig out from the feedbag.

I will be happy with 6 sow and about 100 pig. This i can manage easy alone and no stress with the worker.

Normaly i not like to kill my pig. But if kill, what you do with the thinks it's not possible to sell on the market?

Make sausage or meatball,deep fry the skin. Who will sell on the market? There are many questions after. Must try and after see how its work

the sow will need good vits from food to maintain body condition and the right amounts to - produce good piglets time and time again. the wife has upto parity 11 in tha farm at the mo with very good body condition. we mantain an average 94 percent body count in this department every month. accessed by an independant for wage structure.......

sell baged dry poo at 40 baht a bag. have waiting list of customers.

labor up to you, if do youself you save baht, but again i like the wife to have some time away from the farm. ie. have young family too.........

the boars we have in the farm would be good for breeding with the sows from parity 3 onwards (before the gilts- sows would get bad legs - crushed ect. - girl to small for the boys body weight)

try and sell in and around your village at first, there is plenty of baht around for food stuffs.........

[Robert24]

robert let us know what you think of the system when you sell out those pigs from cp, that 1 off type deal sounds good. whats the average weight - age of the piglet when you get it and what would the finishing time frame be? are they giving you the meds ?

the pgilets were between 9-12 kg. We paid 1500 baht, the published price for piglets from CP. I've negotiated the price for CP food from them and I will be able to sell the pigs back to them at the published CP price at the time when we sell them. But you are flexible, we can also sell them someone else should you get a better price somewhere, which is unlikely to be honest. They will be happy to buy our pigs also in future, you don't necessarily need to buy piglets from them. Their main deal is you buy their food, they will buy back the pigs at the CP price. Vaccine and everything else you have to pay. This is very different from the contract farming, different people you deal with from CP. And they are not so strict about how you manage your farm. I should be able to provide a bit more feedback about this model in the future. I'm just really trying different things out until I have the right business model for our farm.

[nutterz64]

robert let us know what you think of the system when you sell out those pigs from cp, that 1 off type deal sounds good. whats the average weight - age of the piglet when you get it and what would the finishing time frame be? are they giving you the meds ?

the pgilets were between 9-12 kg. We paid 1500 baht, the published price for piglets from CP. I've negotiated the price for CP food from them and I will be able to sell the pigs back to them at the published CP price at the time when we sell them. But you are flexible, we can also sell them someone else should you get a better price somewhere, which is unlikely to be honest. They will be happy to buy our pigs also in future, you don't necessarily need to buy piglets from them. Their main deal is you buy their food, they will buy back the pigs at the CP price. Vaccine and everything else you have to pay. This is very different from the contract farming, different people you deal with from CP. And they are not so strict about how you manage your farm. I should be able to provide a bit more feedback about this model in the future. I'm just really trying different things out until I have the right business model for our farm.

Robert, this really does sound like the best of both worlds. Looking forward to your future experiences with this. Do you have any suggestions as to how to best approach CP/Betago/Perfecq regards this.

cheers

Peter

[thoongfoned]

yes robert that does sound like a good start to maybe more business........ thats a good starting weight with the piglets too! well into their food already, will cut down the time to finishing and also reduce loss due to sickness -weakness. all they care about is food sales,. if you can get that at a good price it seems that you can not loose. what rate of tax will you be paying, are they deducting this before they pay you or are they going to let you sort that part out your self?

sounds like a good business model this!

[Robert24]

robert let us know what you think of the system when you sell out those pigs from cp, that 1 off type deal sounds good. whats the average weight - age of the piglet when you get it and what would the finishing time frame be? are they giving you the meds ?

the pgilets were between 9-12 kg. We paid 1500 baht, the published price for piglets from CP. I've negotiated the price for CP food from them and I will be able to sell the pigs back to them at the published CP price at the time when we sell them. But you are flexible, we can also sell them someone else should you get a better price somewhere, which is unlikely to be honest. They will be happy to buy our pigs also in future, you don't necessarily need to buy piglets from them. Their main deal is you buy their food, they will buy back the pigs at the CP price. Vaccine and everything else you have to pay. This is very different from the contract farming, different people you deal with from CP. And they are not so strict about how you manage your farm. I should be able to provide a bit more feedback about this model in the future. I'm just really trying different things out until I have the right business model for our farm.

Robert, this really does sound like the best of both worlds. Looking forward to your future experiences with this. Do you have any suggestions as to how to best approach CP/Betago/Perfecq regards this.

cheers

Peter

I can give you the contact details of the CP person for Sarakham/Kalasin and maybe she can connect you to the right person for your province. Let me know and I can PM you her details. Haven't been in touch with other large companies about this kind of programme.