As you can see, it has once again been a while since my last post. We hit a bit of a snag once we got started. We had plenty of nice pigs on the ground, but no one to buy them. So, we kept marketing and feeding and before we knew it they were grown. We finally got some interest once they were finished pigs. I took one group to the butcher to have them custom processed for each buyer. Another group went to a farm north of here to finish out an order that they had. This left us with one nice gilt that we put back into the breeding herd. That gilt is now about to give birth at the first of March.
The one lesson that was once again reinforced, is that, you can produce the nicest breeding stock around, but if there are no buyers, you are dead in the water. That's really the first time that has happened to me. The takeaway message was not to panic, but be deliberate and have a contingency plan when things head in the wrong direction. I knew that we had to get our breeding dates adjusted to the needs of the local folks. That's one reason you haven't seen a lot of pigs available for the last few months. Everyone seems to want winter born pigs. So, that's what we are going to give them. If this works out, I can ramp up production and expand my market. If not, I will have to keep it a small herd. That's just one of the adjustments needed after moving the farm.
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AuthorA full time county extension agent and a part time purveyor of pigs Archives
February 2017
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Farmer Brown's Pigs
Athens, OH
farmerbrownspigs@gmail.com
(740) 591-7133
Athens, OH
farmerbrownspigs@gmail.com
(740) 591-7133
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