03/03/2024
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I think its time to talk about show pig prices. From the stand point of someone who has been on both sides of the coin... first the buyer and now the breeder.
Gone are the days of when I was a kid and our show pigs were $50 - $150( for the really good ones). Show feed was $6 a bag. And we were lucky if we got $3 per pound at fair for our pigs.
Reality is times have changed. We can't expect breeders to be able to offer show quality market animals for $150. There are a lot of factors that go into breeding pigs, especially in California. So let me break it down to you why show piglets are going for a minimum of around $500.
A sow eats around 4 pounds of food a day. We use special formulated food just for sows. It costs around $700 just to feed a sow for a year. This doesn't include the lactation food she gets when she's nursing those babies. She can go through 3-5 bags of this food for 1 litter. That's another $200. They each have vaccines, worming, a supplement before they farrow. This all adds up.
There is also the expense of shavings, straw, heat lamps, water pipes (because they love to break them often like it's a game), fencing, gates.. these big sows can be destructive and they can bend metal like it's nothing if they want to. Our farrowing rooms have heaters because healthy babies are warm babies, and lights; so our electricity bills go up. Then we have more shavings, for just the piglets after they are born. We average about .5- 1 bag a shavings per litter a day to make sure they stay healthy.
Semen. It can be from $25 a dose to $5,000 a dose. We personally do 3 doses per sow. Our semen we usually pick out averages around $450 a dose plus shipping. Thats $900 in semen for just 1 sow. Now if that sow doesn't take, or she aborts her litter or she only has 3 piglets. We are already in the hole if these things happen. We also have the added expense of using medicine to make sure we can get all the girls to cycle together . Plus all the breeding supplies like breeding rods, l**e, boar scent.
Let's say a sow has a healthy litter of 10. We still have to vaccinate, worm, give iron, sometimes we need a vet for castration. We have pig pullers, booties, boots, gloves, l**e, blue coat, needles, syringes, towels, laundry mat runs. We also have wifi and camera systems (unless you have a naughty litter like we did and decide to eat the camera system).
We have all those shavings as mentioned above. They average over a bag of food per day per litter by the time they are ready to go home. So anywhere between $150-$200 worth of feed per piglet, by the time you pick them up. As show feed averages right now around $35 a bag.
We also have the expense of cleaning supplies and extra meds on hand for sick babies.
We actually have a spread sheet to calculate all our expenses for us that breaks it down for our cost per piglet... most of the time we are lucky to make a profit of $10 per pig.
Also most of us don't get to go on vacation. It's hard finding people to watch your sows that you trust or feel comfortable with feeding them.
Add in prop 12. Many of us had to change our set ups. Luckily when we built our pig barn we wanted large pens for the sows because the kids go in there and lay with them, so we didn't have to change our layout. But we have had to replace panels often, because they like to break them more than we would like.
There is many other expenses that we could calculate in like fuel... to go get feed, or for the tractors that we use to clean the barn. I am sure I could keep finding more things that are an expense to raise these pigs.
Us small breeders aren't in it for the profit. It would be nice to break even. But please consider what it takes to do what we do before you complain about prices to us. Feed prices are up, shipping is up. Everything is up. Would you work every day for a profit of maybe $10 per pig once a year on a good farrowing year? Or in the hole thousands of dollars because your pig didn't have a big enough litter to even cover the expense of the semen.
Please be kind. We love what we do and we do it for the kids. We even donate money to sponsor the buckles for our local class. This isn't ment to be a rant, more of an eye opener to help those who have complained to us about pig prices. We are all about education in any way we can. We learn something new weekly when it comes to this industry.
