One of the nice things about growing a farm business slowly is that you get to learn from your mistakes/experience. I've made plenty of mistakes and gained plenty of experience in pig breeding, and while I'm sure I will make more in the future, I'm getting to the point where I'm confident enough to make some general comments about the process.
First, why breed pigs in the first place? This is a question I've contemplated quite a bit the last few years. I think for most beginning farmers, the excitement, challenge and allure of breeding and the prospect of cute baby piglets plays a significant role in a decision to start breeding. I know this was a factor in our decision, but I would warn others contemplating breeding to be wary of this line of reasoning. Farming will be enough a challenge and breeding is one of the more difficult skills to master. Also, cuteness should never be a deciding factor in a business decision. If you want to be a hobby breeder, then be a hobby breeder and breed lambs for the cute factor. Another potential line of reasoning is control: control over costs, control of timing, control of genetics, etc. Hubris can play a role in this line of reasoning. It's seductive to think that starting a breeding program will allow the farmer to have complete control over all aspects of livestock production, and that it is the only way to be successful the way the farmer wants to be successful. There are definitely good reasons to want to control genetics, for instance, but one needs to be very careful with allowing control to creep in and displace profitability. Lastly, the last reason to breed is to keep costs low. Right now, heritage breed piglets, for instance, range between $75-300 on craigslist. I've sold my weaners for $150 in the past. Without accounting for labor, it costs me about $100 to bring a piglet to a weaning age of 8 weeks based on a sow to boar ratio of 7:1 and an average litter size of 6 (these two figures are extremely important in figuring breeding costs, but I'll get to that a bit later). Unfortunately, I only have three sows to one boar right now and an litter size of 4.5, which brings my actual pre-labor costs to $143.
Putting it all together, you can see why entering into a breeding program should not be a choice one takes lightly. As I mentioned, I've waffled back and forth many times over getting rid of my breeders and just buying in weaners. In the short term, it would make a lot of financial sense. With my low sow to boar ratio and low litter sizes, I'm costing myself money over buying $100 or less weaner piglets. Nonetheless, I've decided to stick with breeding. Partly, and I freely admit to this, because I want to have control over breeding because I'm a control freak, and because I'm still optimistic I can learn from my mistakes and do better. Perhaps I'm delusional or blinded by hubris, but at least I'm aware of it (note: just because one is aware that they are doing something stupid, it does not mean that the thing they are doing is not still stupid).
So, in order to make breeding worth it for me over the long term, I need to achieve a few things: (1) I need to increase litter sizes . Here are the litter sizes we've had since we started. I will put piglets weaned followed by piglets born live, followed by all piglets born: 8,8,10; 10,10,11; 6,7?,8?; 0,0,0; 0,1?,10?; 5,5,6; 3,7,8; 4,?6,?6. The question marks are there because in some cases I wasn't sure if the piglets were born dead or died shortly after birth. The farrowing are also in chronological order, and the last three sets of number were from this spring. Litter size and going for birth to weaning can be frustrating, because there is only so much that I can control, and what I can control I'm not sure what is important to change. One thing I want to do is bring in a new boar, because in general the numbers of piglets born is going down. I'm not sure what else could be causing that trend (disease perhaps?). This was the first year we had three sows farrowing in the same space, all within a few weeks of each other. For the most part, things were fine, except that one sow had four of her piglets crushed, and I'm pretty sure they were all crushed by the other pigs (we sadly witnessed one of the pigs get crushed on the night it was born when it wandered away from the nest and got trampled by another excited full-grown pig. I also found a piglet crushed yesterday, at three weeks of age. It had been the runt of the litters, but it was relatively healthy. One thing I'm going to be doing for certain next year is to move the boar/boars to a separate location during farrowing and grow out. I hate having animals isolated, but there are lots of good reasons to keep a boar separate (for instance, the piglet that was crushed yesterday was likely crushed by an excited boar attempting to mate one of the sows that was coming back into heat). I don't have a good way to trim boar tusks either (although we've tried--I wouldn't recommend it without a cattle crush), and the boar has consistently cut weaned piglets with his tusks (likely over small-scale fights for the food bowl). The other thing I've considered/am considering is to build farrowing pens. It's something that I've seen others do, but it's been something I've been hesitant to do. I've been hesitant because I'm worried about adding more interference into the farrowing process--I normally trust the sows to follow their instincts, and I've mostly been impressed with the good mothering skills these pigs have displayed. Of course, farrowing in a barn in group housing is not something pigs do in the wild, so it may be asking too much. I also don't have enough experience with group farrowing to see the long term trend. I don't like making decision on limited data
Overall, my goal is to average 8 weaned pigs per litter. From my experience, this is a good number of pigs for the sows to suckle without creating problems with runts and overtaxed sows. In general, the larger the number of weaned pigs per litter, the higher the profitability of the breeding operation. I think with time, experience, and husbandry changes, I can get to these higher numbers. It will be critical for achieving the other side of the equation: sow to boar ratio. At the moment, I don't have the customer demand to support 7 sows and 50 plus butcher pigs. I also run into serious cash flow problems with increasing the number of breeders (I'll talk more about cash flow and my ideas for getting around my current cash flow crunch soon). Nonetheless, I want to get to a sow:boar ratio of 7:1 very soon. With that many animals, though, the profitability of the farm is highly dependent on the weaned pigs average. I don't want to grow my numbers too fast only to see my weaned pigs average remain low or even drop. It costs about $800 to keep a breeder each year when factoring in all the costs, and I don't want to create an adult pig zoo.
I try to do my business planning and set my prices based on ratio of 7:1 and a weaned pig average of 8, because anything less is not really a viable business. It means that I'm making less profit per butcher pig or weaner pig right now in the start-up phase, but it doesn't make sense to me to raise my prices in the start-up phase and then lower then once I reach more stability in those numbers.
I'll end this post with a few random things I've learned:
If you have a boar in with your breeders and piglets, you won't be able to get in to clean the barn if the breeders are in heat or approaching being in heat. I learned the lesson the hard when I was charged yesterday. It is very important to never underestimate the destructive potential of a boar. They are dangerous, and it's very easy to let your guard down.
Resist the temptation to intervene in farrowing, or even observe it. The pigs know best, and they often pick a quiet time at night to deliver. Your presence, even as an observer, can rile up the sow or any other pigs in the farrowing area. The sow has limited ability to protect the young piglets while she is farrowing so it's critical that everyone is kept as calm as possible. Young piglets tend to squeal A LOT when the sow is moving around them. It will sound like the sow is stepping on them, but the squeal is mostly there to alert the sows to stop putting any additional weight on the piglets. When not stressed, the sows move very daintily and listen for the squeals as they move around. To our human ears, this sounds like the piglets are being crushed and it is our instinct to want to rush in to help. Resist the temptation.
When group farrowing, the other sows will try to move as far away from the farrowing sow as possible. This is a good thing! I've even observed the boar trying to help make the nest for the farrowing sow. He is probably doing more harm than good, but it is pretty amazing to see the natural instincts come out. In general, if group farrowing is to work (and I'm not sure it is the best practice) you need a lot of space for the sows so they can move about easily.
There is a lot of of concern about sows crushing piglets against walls. I have yet to see this happen, and I seem to make things worse when I try to give the piglets a creep or rails for protection. For instance, I created a creep this year for the piglets to escape. During the farrowing of the later sows, the first sow to farrow decided to wiggle into the creep to get away the farrowing sow (when I came in the night of the farrowing she was nursing her piglets inside the creep. She ended up causing more harm than good, and eventually destroyed the creep.
Only let your pigs farrow outside during the summer months. In this climate, it's too wet at any other time. A good nest and a warm sow will keep piglets warm on cool summer night, but wetness kills.
Lastly, a few bonus pictures from this morning, the snowiest morning of the year:
First, why breed pigs in the first place? This is a question I've contemplated quite a bit the last few years. I think for most beginning farmers, the excitement, challenge and allure of breeding and the prospect of cute baby piglets plays a significant role in a decision to start breeding. I know this was a factor in our decision, but I would warn others contemplating breeding to be wary of this line of reasoning. Farming will be enough a challenge and breeding is one of the more difficult skills to master. Also, cuteness should never be a deciding factor in a business decision. If you want to be a hobby breeder, then be a hobby breeder and breed lambs for the cute factor. Another potential line of reasoning is control: control over costs, control of timing, control of genetics, etc. Hubris can play a role in this line of reasoning. It's seductive to think that starting a breeding program will allow the farmer to have complete control over all aspects of livestock production, and that it is the only way to be successful the way the farmer wants to be successful. There are definitely good reasons to want to control genetics, for instance, but one needs to be very careful with allowing control to creep in and displace profitability. Lastly, the last reason to breed is to keep costs low. Right now, heritage breed piglets, for instance, range between $75-300 on craigslist. I've sold my weaners for $150 in the past. Without accounting for labor, it costs me about $100 to bring a piglet to a weaning age of 8 weeks based on a sow to boar ratio of 7:1 and an average litter size of 6 (these two figures are extremely important in figuring breeding costs, but I'll get to that a bit later). Unfortunately, I only have three sows to one boar right now and an litter size of 4.5, which brings my actual pre-labor costs to $143.
Putting it all together, you can see why entering into a breeding program should not be a choice one takes lightly. As I mentioned, I've waffled back and forth many times over getting rid of my breeders and just buying in weaners. In the short term, it would make a lot of financial sense. With my low sow to boar ratio and low litter sizes, I'm costing myself money over buying $100 or less weaner piglets. Nonetheless, I've decided to stick with breeding. Partly, and I freely admit to this, because I want to have control over breeding because I'm a control freak, and because I'm still optimistic I can learn from my mistakes and do better. Perhaps I'm delusional or blinded by hubris, but at least I'm aware of it (note: just because one is aware that they are doing something stupid, it does not mean that the thing they are doing is not still stupid).
So, in order to make breeding worth it for me over the long term, I need to achieve a few things: (1) I need to increase litter sizes . Here are the litter sizes we've had since we started. I will put piglets weaned followed by piglets born live, followed by all piglets born: 8,8,10; 10,10,11; 6,7?,8?; 0,0,0; 0,1?,10?; 5,5,6; 3,7,8; 4,?6,?6. The question marks are there because in some cases I wasn't sure if the piglets were born dead or died shortly after birth. The farrowing are also in chronological order, and the last three sets of number were from this spring. Litter size and going for birth to weaning can be frustrating, because there is only so much that I can control, and what I can control I'm not sure what is important to change. One thing I want to do is bring in a new boar, because in general the numbers of piglets born is going down. I'm not sure what else could be causing that trend (disease perhaps?). This was the first year we had three sows farrowing in the same space, all within a few weeks of each other. For the most part, things were fine, except that one sow had four of her piglets crushed, and I'm pretty sure they were all crushed by the other pigs (we sadly witnessed one of the pigs get crushed on the night it was born when it wandered away from the nest and got trampled by another excited full-grown pig. I also found a piglet crushed yesterday, at three weeks of age. It had been the runt of the litters, but it was relatively healthy. One thing I'm going to be doing for certain next year is to move the boar/boars to a separate location during farrowing and grow out. I hate having animals isolated, but there are lots of good reasons to keep a boar separate (for instance, the piglet that was crushed yesterday was likely crushed by an excited boar attempting to mate one of the sows that was coming back into heat). I don't have a good way to trim boar tusks either (although we've tried--I wouldn't recommend it without a cattle crush), and the boar has consistently cut weaned piglets with his tusks (likely over small-scale fights for the food bowl). The other thing I've considered/am considering is to build farrowing pens. It's something that I've seen others do, but it's been something I've been hesitant to do. I've been hesitant because I'm worried about adding more interference into the farrowing process--I normally trust the sows to follow their instincts, and I've mostly been impressed with the good mothering skills these pigs have displayed. Of course, farrowing in a barn in group housing is not something pigs do in the wild, so it may be asking too much. I also don't have enough experience with group farrowing to see the long term trend. I don't like making decision on limited data
Overall, my goal is to average 8 weaned pigs per litter. From my experience, this is a good number of pigs for the sows to suckle without creating problems with runts and overtaxed sows. In general, the larger the number of weaned pigs per litter, the higher the profitability of the breeding operation. I think with time, experience, and husbandry changes, I can get to these higher numbers. It will be critical for achieving the other side of the equation: sow to boar ratio. At the moment, I don't have the customer demand to support 7 sows and 50 plus butcher pigs. I also run into serious cash flow problems with increasing the number of breeders (I'll talk more about cash flow and my ideas for getting around my current cash flow crunch soon). Nonetheless, I want to get to a sow:boar ratio of 7:1 very soon. With that many animals, though, the profitability of the farm is highly dependent on the weaned pigs average. I don't want to grow my numbers too fast only to see my weaned pigs average remain low or even drop. It costs about $800 to keep a breeder each year when factoring in all the costs, and I don't want to create an adult pig zoo.
I try to do my business planning and set my prices based on ratio of 7:1 and a weaned pig average of 8, because anything less is not really a viable business. It means that I'm making less profit per butcher pig or weaner pig right now in the start-up phase, but it doesn't make sense to me to raise my prices in the start-up phase and then lower then once I reach more stability in those numbers.
I'll end this post with a few random things I've learned:
If you have a boar in with your breeders and piglets, you won't be able to get in to clean the barn if the breeders are in heat or approaching being in heat. I learned the lesson the hard when I was charged yesterday. It is very important to never underestimate the destructive potential of a boar. They are dangerous, and it's very easy to let your guard down.
Resist the temptation to intervene in farrowing, or even observe it. The pigs know best, and they often pick a quiet time at night to deliver. Your presence, even as an observer, can rile up the sow or any other pigs in the farrowing area. The sow has limited ability to protect the young piglets while she is farrowing so it's critical that everyone is kept as calm as possible. Young piglets tend to squeal A LOT when the sow is moving around them. It will sound like the sow is stepping on them, but the squeal is mostly there to alert the sows to stop putting any additional weight on the piglets. When not stressed, the sows move very daintily and listen for the squeals as they move around. To our human ears, this sounds like the piglets are being crushed and it is our instinct to want to rush in to help. Resist the temptation.
When group farrowing, the other sows will try to move as far away from the farrowing sow as possible. This is a good thing! I've even observed the boar trying to help make the nest for the farrowing sow. He is probably doing more harm than good, but it is pretty amazing to see the natural instincts come out. In general, if group farrowing is to work (and I'm not sure it is the best practice) you need a lot of space for the sows so they can move about easily.
There is a lot of of concern about sows crushing piglets against walls. I have yet to see this happen, and I seem to make things worse when I try to give the piglets a creep or rails for protection. For instance, I created a creep this year for the piglets to escape. During the farrowing of the later sows, the first sow to farrow decided to wiggle into the creep to get away the farrowing sow (when I came in the night of the farrowing she was nursing her piglets inside the creep. She ended up causing more harm than good, and eventually destroyed the creep.
Only let your pigs farrow outside during the summer months. In this climate, it's too wet at any other time. A good nest and a warm sow will keep piglets warm on cool summer night, but wetness kills.
Lastly, a few bonus pictures from this morning, the snowiest morning of the year:
Garlic peaking through the snow
Snow dog Rhody!
A 3.5 ton grain tank. I can finally get bulk feed delivered!
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