Information

[cowman]

I don't know very much about pigs but am always interested in all things agricultural. Could someone tell me how much feed it takes to keep a sow per year? How much to raise a baby pig to market weight? How much does housing and utilities cost?

[nfunk]

Here is some basic information for pork. These are based on some industry average assumptions.

~290kg of lactation ration/sow/year
~730kg gestation ration/sow/year

~330 kg of feed to is required to get to market

The building costs obviously vary considerably depending on the type of operation that is being considered. The following are rough estimates of captial costs on a per sow basis.
(Capital costs in this case include building, equipment, breeding stock costs and land value and site prep costs)

For a 300 sow farrow to finish operation the capital cost per sow is ~$5000. Hydro and propane costs would be about $80/sow.

For a 3000 sow farrow to wean (5 kg pig sold) the capital cost per sow is ~$1600. Hydro and propane costs would be about ~$27/sow


You may be interested in going to the Manitoba Agriculture site and looking at some of the COP worksheets and summaries posted there.

www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/financial/farm

[nfunk]

The number 330kg to raise a pig to market I cited previously is probably somewhat high -- 290 - 300kg is probably a more reasonable estimate of total feed consumption to produce a 250 lb market pig.