Butchering Costs - Pig

[smithie 2,443]

Just speak to a local arable farmer, they are usually happy to sell a bag of wheat or two, my mate usually has 50 or 60 ton stored over winter, I just go and see him and get a few hundred weight sacks at a time.

Speak to Heygates farm feed for pig food, they deliver all over the country, I have an account and it works out a lot cheaper for sow nuts and anything else you need.

(If you get really stuck I can order any food on my account for you) but it really is quite simple to open an account.

Very good of you thumbs

[PeskyWabbits 464]

200 quid for half a pig. You have 6 pigs and 7 members.. do you get the other 5 half pigs?

 

I am down for 2.5 pigs this year. It was 3 but I let another member join.

 

I supply the environment. Feed them at 6.30 am and again at 6pm. Do all the looking after, though members are encouraged to join in, else it is expensive pork.

Cart them off to the abattoir, sob on the way home.

 

But we also have socials, I supply the meat and usually they are at mine.

 

It is a big social event. Encouraging people to get involved with real farming.

[PeskyWabbits 464]

Just speak to a local arable farmer, they are usually happy to sell a bag of wheat or two, my mate usually has 50 or 60 ton stored over winter, I just go and see him and get a few hundred weight sacks at a time.

 

Speak to Heygates farm feed for pig food, they deliver all over the country, I have an account and it works out a lot cheaper for sow nuts and anything else you need.

 

(If you get really stuck I can order any food on my account for you) but it really is quite simple to open an account.

 

Ps, you don't really need to buy in bulk to get it cheaper, I see guys buying two bags a time collected and it's approx £3 a bag cheaper, I buy a ton at a time and it's £5 a bag cheaper, 4 ton delivered loose is even cheaper.

 

Thanks a lot for this information. We didn't realise we were paying over the odds. I will get an account with someone.

[Rabid 1,936]

 

200 quid for half a pig. You have 6 pigs and 7 members.. do you get the other 5 half pigs?

 

I am down for 2.5 pigs this year. It was 3 but I let another member join.

 

I supply the environment. Feed them at 6.30 am and again at 6pm. Do all the looking after, though members are encouraged to join in, else it is expensive pork.

Cart them off to the abattoir, sob on the way home.

 

But we also have socials, I supply the meat and usually they are at mine.

 

It is a big social event. Encouraging people to get involved with real farming.

So am I right in thinking you get the two and a half pigs for free to pay for the ground and work you do ?

[PeskyWabbits 464]

I pay for the slaughter and butcher for these 2.5 but yes.

Members are shown the rules before they sign up.

 

The first year was 2 pigs, 2 halves for the two members and one pig for me.

 

It isn't a true sliding scale. It we go to 12 pigs, that would be 6 pigs for me. My conscience never mind my freezer won't allow it.

[Rabid 1,936]

Sounds to me like a bloody good way to get others to pay To fill your freezer. better have a go at that on my place.

 

To be fair to all members, you should also pay the same as them, but take a fair rent for the ground, and the workload should be split between everyone.

[PeskyWabbits 464]

Sounds to me like a bloody good way to get others to pay To fill your freezer. better have a go at that on my place.

 

To be fair to all members, you should also pay the same as them, but take a fair rent for the ground, and the workload should be split between everyone.

 

In reality people don't source food, nor do they regularly attend to look after the pigs. So they pay for the feed, which I usually collect and visit a few times a year. Peak times, April/May when the pigs arrive. Summer when it is nice to visit the countryside. And again just before slaughter, to wave goodbye. One last cuddle.

 

The agreement is also that they pig sit when I go on holiday. It didn't work out too well this year.

 

I have stalwart members who help with hut moving and windbreak assembly and food collection when I was poorly.

 

I would prefer it if they were more involved and it would be better/cheaper for them as well. People have their own lives and it it always surprising how little free time you actually have.

 

So Pig Club does actually work out. Everybody is really excited at meat collection. Just as they are when they see the little piglets.

[Squeamish5 309]

I did a quick Google this morning, which gave 65% usable pork to dead weight pig. So for a 15 st dead pig, Pesky's pig club works out as about £6.75 / kilo assorted cuts, p/p.

For free-range / provenance liking peeps, who aren't comfortable engaging with the sharp end of meat, that's fairly do-able, particularly if you make the most of the food you buy.

Arseholes and Dimbos will make/lose the most from this kind of arrangement but, at its best, this seems to me ok.

[Rabid 1,936]

 

Sounds to me like a bloody good way to get others to pay To fill your freezer. better have a go at that on my place.

To be fair to all members, you should also pay the same as them, but take a fair rent for the ground, and the workload should be split between everyone.

 

In reality people don't source food, nor do they regularly attend to look after the pigs. So they pay for the feed, which I usually collect and visit a few times a year. Peak times, April/May when the pigs arrive. Summer when it is nice to visit the countryside. And again just before slaughter, to wave goodbye. One last cuddle.

 

The agreement is also that they pig sit when I go on holiday. It didn't work out too well this year.

 

I have stalwart members who help with hut moving and windbreak assembly and food collection when I was poorly.

 

I would prefer it if they were more involved and it would be better/cheaper for them as well. People have their own lives and it it always surprising how little free time you actually have.

 

So Pig Club does actually work out. Everybody is really excited at meat collection. Just as they are when they see the little piglets.

Oh I am not disagreeing with you on the fact people rarely get involved or do as much as perhaps they should, and I have no doubt they are in reality getting a reasonable deal from a townie point of view, it was more a surprise to me that folk take offers up like that, to me it seems a lazy way for them, but then I have always reared my own food for the table and long may it continue I hope.

 

I wasn't been rude, I genuinely meant I may look to see if I can get people to pay for some of my animals in return for some free range organic farm fresh food.

 

Fair play to you, if there is a niche in what you do, and your capitalising on it, I don't blame you.

[PeskyWabbits 464]

It is a cooperative. I know it is slanted as I get the lions share.

If we take your advice and can get the feed costs significantly reduced, it will be even better.

 

It is about keeping pigs and the meat at the end is the bonus.

 

Money left at the end is always returned to members. We were unlucky this year because one pig got ill and we had to add the vets bill to the costs, though like the slaughter and butchering I pay half.

 

We do have fun and I recommend it to anyone with a smallholding. Or even rent an acre and divide the field to allow for rotation.

 

Maybe in later years we will have a Cow Club or Sheep Club

[Mark r 208]

When you say £8 or £9 for a bag of wheat do you mean actual wheat or is that slang for pig food I pays £7.50 p ish for some pig feed called turbo grow high protein stuff.

[PeskyWabbits 464]

When you say £8 or £9 for a bag of wheat do you mean actual wheat or is that slang for pig food I pays £7.50 p ish for some pig feed called turbo grow high protein stuff.

 

Yes, it is pig food. Wheat based pellets. The cheapest I can get it at an agricultural supply store is £8 and that is probably 'turbo'. Sow and Weaner is about £8.50 - £9.50.

I will be taking Mr Rabid's advice and getting an account with a mill, or other source for next year's interns.

 

The costs I stand are environmental.

So the hut was £200 for a second hand 8'x10' off ebay but it was local and saved a lot of time

The electric fence (I borrowed one the first year) came out at just over £200 but that was the Mole Valley transformer, 400m wire, 40 plastic poles, 60m armoured mains cable and 100m coaxial link wire. That was so I could run power to a shed, then off up the field to the fence. Then have enough wire to play with the size of the run.

Straw is £3 per bale. I start with 5 in the hut, then top up as they squash it down or throw it out.

I borrowed a livestock trailer for their ride to the abattoir but that may be on a future shopping list. I think you can get them for about £600 s/h needing some work.

 

I am expecting to run a club every year. I have had to get a couple of freezers. So it still could be cheaper to go to the supermarket.

But it is about keeping pigs and small scale agriculture and getting friends involved.

 

if i didn't already have some land. i would be seriously thinking of renting some for this purpose - it is still averaging £65 per acre round here. Must be a combination of greenbelt and tied to smallholdings.

It is just the food bill that makes it expensive. But we are working on that.

[Rabid 1,936]

Expensive, I pay around a fiver a bag for high protein grower pellets, sow and weaker about the same, if I buy loose bulk then it works out around £4-15 a bag, sounds to me like your paying through the nose, especially as I get free delivery on orders 4 ton and over.

[Mark r 208]

Rabid what sort of places do you buy it loose from or in bulk. Thanks I'm in west yorkshire

[Rabid 1,936]

Rabid what sort of places do you buy it loose from or in bulk. Thanks I'm in west yorkshire

Direct from the mill mate, I personally use Heygates feeds.