To Pigs or not Two Pigs?

To Pigs or not Two Pigs?

by Troy Bishopp

To Pigs or not Two Pigs?

This is a very valid question in the shadow of exorbitant grain prices.  I ponder the question of raising pigs ourselves versus buying our pig (already wrapped) from my good friend, Karl, and also being stung financially and emotionally in the past from selling pork at the farm.  With the adage, “insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result” etched in my skull, it’s time to answer the question.

I’m only taking up this charge because Karl took a pig hiatus and we have the land resources to raise pigs.  But like everything else I do around here, I vault into a project and find out later it was less than a spectacular decision.  I’m hoping with a better plan and documentation, a measure of success will be achieved.

Experience tells us to ask, what will be the end goal?  And we plan backward from that point.  If you don’t have an end goal:  STOP, and think some more.  Being that I’m the risk-taker of the family, I usually say something like, “Oh, we’ll have no trouble getting rid of them”.  Duh, there is never a problem getting rid of them.  Ask anyone that sells into the sale barn roulette. 

The correct response to our question was; one pig for our family’s needs and one to sell to neighbors who asked for local pork.  Beyond this, since my wife was managing the piggery, would be stress.  In days gone by, I would’ve said, “If we’re gonna raise two we might as well raise four”.  This hardly ever worked out even with my optimistic view.  I’ve learned, production men----listen to your wife.  Sleeping with the pigs is not a good alternative.

The demand for spring piglets led us to pay 70 dollars a piece from a local farmer.  We had the infrastructure, (ie: troughs, shade cloth, hog panels, t-posts etc.) already.  For convenience sake, we put them in a large area of last year’s pumpkin and weedy squash patch adjacent to our regular garden.  Our thinking was they would be close at hand to harvest any leftover veggies or pulled weeds and provide tillage for next year’s plants.

When pigs are smaller and playing in the soil and sun, it’s obvious they don’t eat as much feed which only delays the sticker shock of paying twenty dollars a hundred for grain every other week.  Now mind you, I know the alternative sources of feeding more pasture, scavenging for leftover milk or bread with smelly pickup boxes and keeping them in the woods but these require more labor that we didn’t want.  I guess you can say we committed to this simple system, akin to many folks I’m sure.

As the pigs or hogs at this point, grew, they ate more grain, giant zucchinis, summer squash, grass clippings and their favorite, tomatoes.  Nothing went to waste.  They dug in the earth, chewed on rocks and roots, made a wallow and generally did whatever made them happy while their antics provided countless hours of entertainment.  I believe even their flatulence wafting over the garden micro-climate helped the other crops grow. 

 By the end of the growing season, we opened up the rest of the garden for them to glean and started feeding them wild apples (I’ve read that apples and acorns flavor the meat) thereby saving on grain.   When two pigs can consume a hundred pounds of feed a week you know the bacon and hams are not far off. 

Looking at the hanging weights of 169 and 180 pounds, they excelled in this natural environment without any help from a bottle.  However, did getting back into the pig thing meet our goals?  The purchased price of the piglets and feed totaled $431 while the processing and smoking was another $313 for a grand total of $ 744.00.  After having sold one pig to our neighbor for $450 that left us with a cost of 294 dollars or $1.63 a pound hanging weight.

Like many of you, we didn’t figure in our labor and we didn’t receive any of the innards, feet, head or lard, so our volume of product was less and some would say “wasteful”.  We could have charged our customer more since the retail price hovers around $ 4.29/lb. but they are buying a whole pig and they are our neighbor after all.  We could have done the USDA inspected meat route and sold everything by the piece which we tried before and wound up eating many pork steaks.   Admittedly, we don’t set the marketing world on fire which is most of the work in paying for such a project.

Rather, this was a humble experiment to see how much we’re really paying to raise pigs.

Actual pounds of pork in the freezer puts our price at around two bucks a pound which is still half price compared to the store’s ‘other white meat’ or the new ‘inspired pork’.   Our pink, plump, sun & soil infused pork in no way resembles the grocery’s anemic slatted floor meat.   And the taste compares to any gourmet item with the added bonus of knowing how and where it was raised.

Was our question of raising two pigs validated even with high grain prices?  For us, the answer is absolutely.  Some would argue spending money on meat production versus producing more vegetables could be viewed as unwise use of resources; however I’m in the mindset of Fran Lebowitz who said, “Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat”.  Without discounting the argument for more veggies, a new trial is on the horizon. 

This question could inevitably be next year’s experiment, loosely titled ‘To pea or not to pea’.

published in Lancaster farming 12/10/2011