# Bought more than I wanted :)



## SheepGirl (Aug 24, 2016)

Yesterday my fiance and I went to the auction looking for a hog to butcher for a party this weekend. Well...we didn't get one, but we came home with six piglets

We ended up buying a lot of 5 white pigs (they look mostly yorkshire), 4 gilts and 1 barrow for $20 each. They averaged 21 lbs a piece. I felt dumb because I thought those were the only pigs coming through since I saw a horse in line next and I didn't let the auctioneer go lower before I started bidding hehe. Then after the horse there were more white and blue butt pigs...these guys were being sold for $12.50 and $15/hd. I should've waited! Oh well. We know better for next time haha. And then a little duroc boar came out, he has registration papers but I need to call the seller for those. I wonder if they will charge me extra? He weighs 30 lbs and we got him for $40.

The plan is to eat the barrow, keep at least 1 or 2 gilts for breeding, and the other 2 to 3 gilts will be bred, eaten, or sold. Just need to weigh them and make some records so I know which one(s) to keep for breeding!


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## frustratedearthmother (Aug 24, 2016)

Ah, you can never have too many piglets, lol!  I like that looks of the red pig!


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## SheepGirl (Aug 24, 2016)

Yep, he's got a nice booty on him. I know the barrow won't fill out as much as him because I think the white pigs are more commercial and he is more of a show pig, but I can't wait to eat some ham!!


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## NH homesteader (Aug 24, 2016)

Wow that duroc is seriously muscular.  Totally a show pig stature!


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## OneFineAcre (Aug 24, 2016)

That's a really good price for feeders.


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## babsbag (Aug 24, 2016)

That red one is a muscle butt for sure. Wonder why he was at auction?  We paid $40 for pigs about 1/2 the size of your so I think you did ok.


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## NH homesteader (Aug 24, 2016)

I don't want to talk about how much I paid for my pigs! But...  Heritage pigs raised on grass by a farmer who gives his pigs belly rubs every day...  I'd pay it again! Plus one is our foundation breeder so she'll be around for a while! 

In general though,  I've never seen such low prices on pigs.  I apparently live in the expensive part of the country!


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## Hens and Roos (Aug 24, 2016)

Guess you can have several parties


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## chiques chicks (Aug 24, 2016)

Let's see, yesterday was Tuesday, did you get them locally?  Just curious because there is an auction house about ten miles from me that only operates Tuesday, and I'm not horribly far away in PA.


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## SheepGirl (Aug 24, 2016)

Yep, the one in Westminster, MD. Auction went on past 10:30 last night because someone brought 12 rodeo Bulls that took 1.5 to 2 hrs to get through because they kept breaking gates, jumping over fences, etc. The auction isn't set up to handle crazy animals like that haha.

But I found the duroc on a local Farm group on Facebook for sale...apparently his buyer backed out of his purchase and two gilts (who were also at auction). Except they were priced at $100 for non registered and $175 for registered. Same lady the auction told me to call about his papers.

I'm betting in the spring is when pig prices will go up though.


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## Baymule (Aug 24, 2016)

Fall is a great time to raise pigs. No flies, no smell! Great looking bunch of piggies you got there! You did fantastic on the prices too!


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## chiques chicks (Aug 24, 2016)

I agree with the fantastic prices.  Process fluctuate a lot around here based on futures. Some years they are hard to find, some years the farmers can't get rid of them.

I remember many many years ago (40+) butchering about 10 or 15 at 40 pounds because the prices were so low the feed costs exceeded probable sales price.

Had them smoked whole and just cut off a chunk of Han whenever we were hungry. Ahhh, the good old days, lol


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## babsbag (Aug 24, 2016)

When I raised my two pigs I worked at a school and brought home two 5 gallon buckets a day of lunch scraps; amazing what kids waste. I put buckets out with pictures of the pigs on them and the kids filled them up for me...milk, granola bars, sandwiches, burritos, cheese, apples, etc. It made a huge dent in the price of feeding them. I don't work there anymore so if I do another pig I will do it in spring until Dec. so it gets fruit drop, garden waste and whey from cheese making, then butcher no matter the size. Feed is way to much money.


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## Latestarter (Aug 24, 2016)

Nice looking piggies! Looking forward to raising some bacon of my own!


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## NH homesteader (Aug 24, 2016)

Pigs are so much fun! We are going to get our winter pig tomorrow.  We'll be butchering one of our sows in October or November and this little guy will be butchered in the spring. They're all duroc crosses.  Love durocs!


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## cjc (Aug 25, 2016)

Cheapest Piglets I've seen around here are $80 a head. I will see them get around $50-$60 around this time of year because not many people want to raise them through the winter, myself included. That was a great price


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## NH homesteader (Aug 25, 2016)

Same here.  Usually piglets are $100+ in the spring. Fall is less.  We are getting a piglet tonight for I think $40 or 50 (husband is bad at remembering haha).  But we will have a sow over winter so we don't care about having a piglet too.


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## chiques chicks (Aug 25, 2016)

The auction houses are cheap around here. It's where people dump their excessand culls.

Some bed and breakfasts on "farms" but at auction in the spring so they have cute animals for tourist season, then resell at auction in the fall since they don't want to feed and care for them over the winter. Deals can be had in the 'off seasons"


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## SheepGirl (Aug 26, 2016)

I'm currently making a spreadsheet to balance rations for these guys. I did it with my chickens and used the Solver plug in on Excel to solve for the least cost ration that met the nutrient requirements of chickens, and I got feed down to about $14.40/cwt avg for each stage of growth. So I'm trying to do the same with the pigs but I just hate the spreadsheet building part lol...I just wish it was all done and I could figure out how much it's gonna cost me to feed them hahaha.


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## NH homesteader (Aug 26, 2016)

You are so much better than me. I always forget to keep track with the pigs.  I do try to keep track of costs with our meat birds but it's hard because the birds all share food.


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## Latestarter (Aug 26, 2016)

You're BOTH better than me... I do none of it... when the food runs low, I go buy more. When they need food, I feed them.


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## NH homesteader (Aug 26, 2016)

That's how I am with my goats.  Perhaps I don't want to know how much they're costing me! I keep track of hay just so I know how much to buy in the  summer though.


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## frustratedearthmother (Aug 26, 2016)

Worse than that - I DONT wanna know!  It scares me when I think how much I spend on critter food...

About to go buy my normal 18 - 20 bags every other week.  UGH!


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## NH homesteader (Aug 26, 2016)

Holy cow what are you feeding with that amount?


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## SheepGirl (Aug 26, 2016)

Calculated it out... it will cost me $129.03 per pig to grow out to 283 lbs. So I will have about $150 invested into each pig at 283 lbs so if I go to sell any of them, I need to get at least $53/cwt liveweight to break even on feed costs and purchase price. Plus my labor--but who really counts that?  And then gas to buy feed, vehicle wear, bedding, new housing (for when they move from my parent's house to my new house my fiance and I are purchasing).... lol the costs keep adding up but you can only charge so much for a pig to add onto the income! haha Unless of course I direct market the hog or sell the gilts for breeding or as bred gilts.


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## Bossroo (Aug 26, 2016)

You will be shocked to finally know how much it COSTS you to sell your livestock to others without knowing how MUCH money you have REALY spent in all of the TRUE and PROPORTIANAL  HOLDING COSTS to raise them.


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## SheepGirl (Dec 3, 2016)

This is a picture from a month ago. I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving, but they're a lot bigger than what they are in this photo. They were supposed to be at my new house already, we just don't have the pen set up yet. But my dad is taking care of them for me. He is one level below a store manager at a grocery store so he gets all of the produce that they throw away--apples, pumpkins, squash, lettuce, you name it. He throws most of it for the pigs but he also treats the sheep. He also gives them corn and some pig feed. When I was still at my house I was feeding them my mix...but it's too complicated for my dad to mix he says so he just throws whatever at them haha. When they come home I'm gonna get them back on my feed mix. And because my dad has taken care of them, we are going to give him half a hog when he's butchered (or maybe the whole hog, but it would just be him and my brother and grandparents eating it lol, my mom wouldn't even touch it haha).


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## Baymule (Dec 4, 2016)

Nice pigs!


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## SheepGirl (Jun 9, 2017)

Wow, I need some updated photos...they're so little here!

We moved them to our new house back in March or April. We didn't have a livestock trailer, so we put them in the back of an open U-HAUL. In loading them, the Duroc boar got his foot caught in the gate of the trailer and his hoof came off! We hauled them to my house and we called my mom's cousin who came over and butchered him for us. We had to rush to Lowe's before they closed to buy a chest freezer to put him in since there was no space in our freezer. We ate him the following weekend Bolivian style, it's called chicharron -- basically my fiance's family (we had like 25 people over) started a fire and put a big metal pot over it, filled it with water and spices and pork and cooked it for a few hours. It was pretty tasty, my first time having it.

Then, last month, the pigs went missing! Turns out they had dug their mud hole so close to the fence they were able to crawl underneath. They were missing for a day and a half, and apparently the neighbor's pigs across the street were out also. We asked our neighbors if they damaged their property, they said no. But one morning, the neighbor three doors down (quite a ways) said his pool filter was knocked over and drained all of the water out of his above-ground pool. Now, I'm not sure how he can blame us when 1) he wasn't home to witness anything--in fact, he was away in Myrtle Beach for a week; 2) our pigs would've needed to pass by another above-ground pool to get to his, and they didn't do any damage to that pool; and 3) this guy lives across the street from the other neighbor whose pigs were out and according to our next door neighbor, those pigs are a lot larger than ours. My fiance was sleeping at the time he knocked on our door, so we went to stop by later and he wasn't home and he hasn't tried contacting us again about the damage, so I'm not sure where we stand at this point.

Otherwise, the pigs are happy, healthy, and BIG! And now that they are eating pig feed instead of cracked corn and fruits and veggies, they are starting to get some muscle tone and size to them. I haven't been feeding my mix because between work and the baby, there is no time and it's just a lot easier to take a bag of feed out and dump it. I buy it at the co-op, it's $9.48 for a 50 lb bag of 16% pig and hog pellets. A really good deal, actually.

The barrow we will be eating for my baby's 1st birthday party. I'm not sure if we're doing a whole hog roast or how we will be cooking him, but he will be expecting to feed around 55-65 people, of those, about 25 are neices/nephews/cousin's children/etc. I hope he's big enough


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## Baymule (Jun 10, 2017)

We need more and new pictures!!


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