Storey’s Guide to Raising Pigs—by Kelly Klober
Another report full of information, unlikely to be of much interest to those not into or considering raising pigs. For us, it was a timely read!
This book is intended to be an informative primer on how to
get started with swine raising for any purpose, and a guide for answering basic
questions one might encounter along the way.
If the reader pays good attention, it would seem to me that many
mistakes can be prevented, and it would be much more likely that the would-be
pig keeper will have a satisfying and productive experience rather than a
frustrating or disappointing one.
At this stage of life our family has no need for guidance on
how to breed or raise pigs for show purposes, how to maintain a herd of
breeding hogs, or how to organize a swine venture of commercial scale. As such, I either skipped or skimmed some of
the sections of the book related to these pursuits, and have included many
fewer quotations from these topics.
The information I did find relevant to our family’s and farm’s
stage of development I have organized into sections. It seemed to me that the first applicable
topic is around the question of alimentation, or feeding. Do we have at our disposal, from our land or
other available resources, what is needed for hog raising, and for how many? What nutritional program best fits our farm’s
swine production goals, and from what era of history does that program hail?
The second topic is that of facilities. What physical structures must we provide in
order to promote the healthy, comfort, safety, and productivity of hogs here at
Tangly Woods?
Thirdly comes the question of swine health. How can we best understand the factors that
contribute to the thriving of hogs, and what interventions might be needed from
us to support that thriving at critical times?
How can we avoid unnecessary health compromises or losses without incurring
unnecessary expenses or exposing the hogs or us to unnecessary chemical health
treatments?
Some aspects of these first three topics are highly subject
to variability based on variations in the fourth topic: genetics! A hog can perform at a worse level, but never
a better level, than it genetic potential.
But what good performance means varies tremendously by the system of
production chosen, and a hog that might perform admirably in one system might
fail to produce much at all in another.
In the last section we tie it all together in the topic of
the enterprise of hog production. I organized
this section loosely concentrically.
That is to say we start with the microenterprise of hog raising to
provision the family table, then work our way outward through small-scale
production until we end with some philosophy on what hog entrepreneurs face by
way of challenges and opportunities in today’s rapidly changing pork market.
Each section will consist primarily of quotations from the
book, with a sprinkling of commentary by me.
Feeding Strategies
We start with some standard, expected advice:
Page 73 “On range, or when adding to the ration food items
with a lesser-known nutrient content, it is best to keep the hogs on a complete
dietary ration appropriate for their age and role as sow, finisher, grower, and
the like. Consider your additions as a
little something extra and offer them in modest amounts that the animals will
clean up quickly. Hogs are like big kids
and can easily render their diets completely unbalanced by choosing items they
favor in taste over less-palatable, more healthful options.”
Page 181 “Few sights are prettier than a set of hogs, slick
and shiny, on a rich, green pasture. It
is the picture of health and wholesomeness.
Hogs can fare well even on total legume pastures—something few ruminants
can do. Hogs are not the most efficient users of pasturage,
however. They are omnivores and have a
single gut. They do not totally utilize
the browse—twigs, leaves, and shoots—and they need richer sources of
energy. One-quarter acre (0.1 ha) of
pasture will adequately carry up to four sows with their litters, but it has to
be considered little more than a dessert option for those sows.”
These quotes show good wisdom for most scenarios, especially
for commercial production where meeting market expectations and parameters is
every bit as critical to profitability as making use of available
resources. But what if your highest
priority is making use of resources and production timetables and
predictability are less critical? And
what if the genetics you are working with are more generalistic, less
tailored? These questions were not directly
answered, and I wonder if this is information that will be accessible anywhere in
written form. We may need to learn this
by experience, won in time or borrowed from friends. If the answer is available, though, perhaps
this quote shows where it might be found:
Page 73 “One of the best feeding investments anyone can make
is an older, unabridged copy of Morrison’s
Feeds and Feeding. This great old
book contains all of the basics of livestock feeding and feedstuffs’
composition. And it was put together
back in the day when the mixed-stock farmer was king and regionalized farming
practices were the norm.”
Clearly hog farmers and hog markets used to be more tuned to
a more integrated and hands-on approach:
Page 74 “Meat scraps and skimmed milk were once about the
only protein supplements to be fed to hogs, along with open-pollinated corn
that was much higher in crude protein than today’s heat-dried hybrids. Together these three items created simple,
nutrient-dense rations for all classes of hogs and pigs weaned at around 8
weeks of age.”
Page 75 “Swine rations concocted between 1900 and 1940 were
simpler than most seen now—many hogs were finished on pasture or while gleaning
grain fields. Still, as noted above,
rations were filled with nutrient-dense ingredients. Not only was the tankage supplement 8 to 10
percentage points richer in crude protein than today’s widely used soybean oil
meal-based protein supplements, but the corn in use then was also more
nutritionally dense. In the good old days, skimmed milk or good legume-pasture
and corn varieties like Reid’s Yellow Dent or Bloody Butcher were all that was
needed for late-stage finishing or sow maintenance. Those old, open-pollinated field-corn
varieties often tested in the 13 to 16 percent crude-protein range. This was far better than the 8 or 9 percent
levels assigned to modern hybrids, and many hog producers are assigning a value
of just 6 percent when formulating rations with heavily heat-dried corn.”
Page 78 “Early in the last century, growing hogs were given
X amount of corn each day. The corn was
counted out to provide so many ears of corn per head or so many scoopfuls of
corn per pen of hogs. For many months
of each year, the hogs were on legume-rich pastures with a bit of corn fed each
day. Skim milk or tankage might be
offered in a trough once or twice each day.”
Page 76 “Many producers still feed some ear corn, sometimes
even allowing the hogs to glean it in the field, and others feed a great deal
of shelled corn, especially if feeding on the ground or in open troughs to
better counter waste. A once-common practice was to keep barrels of shelled corn
soaking in water to improve palatability and digestibility when fed.”
These quotes tantalize a reader like me with hints of how
hog production might fit into our farm some year in the future, even if for the
moment it makes sense to keep things much more simple.
Of course, there are some modern health concerns about the
practice of feeding meat products to food animals, and Mr. Klober addresses
them in some detail. The upshot is this:
Page 74 “I support the use of fish, dairy, and eggs being
added to rations, although some consumer groups prefer those that are
vegan. It is widely known that in the
wild hogs eat a lot of red meat.”
Page 77 “There are alternatives to soybean oil meal and meat
scraps, including some dairy-based products, but they tend to be higher in
price. The alternatives contain more
complex and easily digestible proteins.
They do create very good, palatable rations, and they are a must in
formulating rations for very young pigs.”
Essentially, it would seem that the combination of grain
and some source of protein form the customary basis of dietary needs for
hogs. If a person wishes to go against
this “grain”, they will not find much help for it in this book.
In addition to diet, there is the question of feeding
pattern. Free choice and Limit feeding
are the two styles outlined. Here is the
comment on limit feeding (which is closest to our practice):
Page 80 “Limit
Feeding a hog to about 90 percent of appetite, the second approach to
feeding out an animal, will produce a slightly trimmer hog and will somewhat
reduce daily feed costs. It will also
extend an animal’s time on feed; as a result, you will probably realize no
overall savings on feed costs.”
Extending the question of pattern beyond the daily and into
the pattern of growth of the animal, we have the following quotes:
Page 80 “As a finishing hog ages and grows, its growth rate
and feed efficiency slow, and much of the weight gain in the late stages of the
growout period is often finish (fat cover) rather than lean or muscle
gain. A traditional feeding practice to
help the producer cope with this natural pattern has been to reduce the
crude-protein content of the ration as the hog grows.”
To that quote I ask: But what if you want the fat? Then how would
you want to feed?
But let’s assume you did actually have to buy all their feed
in a sack. How much feed are we talking
about?
Page 81 “By the 50-pound (22.7 kg) bagful, feed regularly
falls into the 8- to 12-cents-per-pound range; one growing hog will generally
consume 650 to 750 pounds (295 to 340 kg) of such feed as it grows from 40
pounds (18.1 kg) to slaughter weight.”
Facilities
There was way too much detail on this topic in the book to
relate here. I will include a few
nuggets, from which we may extrapolate that appropriate facilities are not necessarily
premium facilities, but that knowing the parameters of what makes for hog health
and comfort supports the small farmer’s needs and tendencies to make do and to
improvise.
Page 54 “…be sure to insulate the roof. This will prevent condensation from forming
on the inside of the roof and falling on the pigs and their bedding.”
Page 146 “Many hog facilities can be made to do double duty
by housing other species (a one-sow farrowing house with a solid floor is also
a dandy place to brood baby chicks or waterfowl)…)
Page 181 “One of our drylots was in continuous use for
nearly 10 years and still sheltered sows in a safe and healthful
environment. However, many producers
prefer to rotate drylots every few years, plowing them up and sowing them to
grass or legumes for a time. Leaving
them idle for 12 months will disrupt the life cycles of a great many harmful
parasites and disease organisms.
Page 204 “Seasonal farrowing on range is possible 6 to 8
months of the year in most parts of the country and is pursued even in Michigan
and Minnesota. On pasture the houses
need to be positioned 100 to 150 feet (30.5 to 45.7 m) apart, to keep sows from
doubling up in them and thus increasing pig losses through crushing.”
Page 210 “If outside air temperatures are above 60 degrees F
(15.6 degrees C) [when farrowing], you may not need supplemental heat.”
Health Management
A few themes I noticed from the extensive commentary on this
topic were: 1) If you start with clean and healthy animals and you are careful
not to contaminate them, you are not likely to have much trouble, 2) A well-designed
environment is the biggest factor in success, 3) The small-scale operation has
a huge health advantage over the large-scale one, 4) Breeding and genetics are
key, and 4) Supporting and challenging the animal’s immune system is a more
effective strategy than barricading the herd from inoculum. Still, some interventions in the case of
disease, or even just in case of it, are recommended in the book. A sample of quotes follows:
Page 87 “Unless you have been assured otherwise—and have
some sort of documentation—assume that all pigs have at least been exposed to
all of the major internal parasites or worms, as well as to external parasites
and any localized problem parasites.
They will need to be dewormed…”
Page 241 “Current thinking [on pre-farrowing cleaning] is
that a simple cleaning and scraping are generally more than enough. Placing a couple of forkfuls of spent bedding
from the farrowing house into the gestating pens a month ahead of sow due dates
and getting the sows into the farrowing quarters a week ahead of their
farrowing dates will help each animal develop her own natural immunity to any
harmful organisms. This is also an
immunity that she can pass on to her young through the milk for the first few
weeks of life. It is also far easier
than trying to sterilize all the porous surfaces and nooks and crannies in a
farrowing unit.”
Page 268 “Your best money as a producer will be spent on
quality feedstuffs and safeguarding animal comfort. In the worst of weather, I knew I had done
the best by my hogs if I left them well fed and watered and with clean, dry
bedding before the coming night.”
Page 268 “In nature, when the population of a given species
becomes too great for a certain locale, natural forces intercede to trim the
population to more sustainable numbers.
Generally, these take the form of some sort of contagious or infectious
agent. The same is true when domestic
animals are packed too tightly into an artificial environment.”
Page 269 “Drugs and steroids have kept a lot of hogs in the
gene pool producing when they should have been washed out of the herd long
before reaching the breeding pen.”
Page 270 “Practice lot and pasture rotation. This helps to control parasites and mud,
which will keep the animals more comfortable.”
Page 270 “…many swine illnesses can be prevented through
management—the type of management that the small producer can provide.”
Page 296 “To avoid [Transmissible Gastroenteritis] in your
herd, be careful not to buy or bring in infected animals. Don’t go to other places where there are
hogs, or hog producers, in the same clothing you wear around your hogs. And be sure to keep birds and dogs away from
your herd.”
Genetics
So much clearly depends on the genetic material you start
with. Knowing the history and uses of
the various breeds and strains, and ultimately of the pig families we buy from
or into, could go a long way towards getting animals to raise that catalyze the
kind of success we seek. I was
influenced by the book and other reading I have done towards an opinion that a
person should not approach these choices with prejudices for or against any
particular breed or category, but should maintain an open mind and understand
that with genetics you are working with a paradox of dependable traits nested
within and dependent on an ever-changing process.
Page 32 “The Chester
White is an American-developed white breed that originated in Chester
County, Pennsylvania, with the name Chester County White. It has a medium-sized frame and drooping
ears. It is probably an underutilized
white breed, considering its hardiness, which makes it appropriate for
producers working outdoors with simple facilities.”
Page 35 “Heirloom breeds are still to be valued for a number
of reasons, including the simple fact that they represent some of the hardiest
of all the swine genetics. As a group
they are quite naturally lean, adapt readily to a wide range of environments,
and are among the best choices for a pasture- or range-based production
system.”
Page 44 “Some preservationist groups, such as the American
Livestock Breeds Conservancy, have brought needed focus on these breeds, but
where is their long-term thinking about them?
There needs to be a real meeting of the minds as to where these breeds
should be genotypically and phenotypically.”
Page 45 “A couple of breeds that are growing in numbers but
that do not fit any practical niche are the Vietnamese Potbelly and the Kune
Kune pig. Their greatest appeal for the
moment is as “miniature” swine, but they were developed as meat animals for
very constrained environments. They were
raised by families who had limited feedstuff for the livestock, who had to eat
all meat when it was fresh, and for whom every bit of food counted. These and other environmental restrictions dictated
the breeds’ sizes.”
Page 46-47 “The exotic breed sector has a hard question to
answer and one that must be answered soon:
What is the ultimate use of these animals?...If preservation work
succeeds, the “rare” or “sellers” market it fosters will go away…What is the
long range vision for them? Where are
the guidelines for breeding them for better and more production? What market
niches will they fill 5, 10, or 20 years from now?...The modest-sized whole and
half carcasses of exotic breeds might make them a good choice for today’s
smaller families. They may produce some
exceptionally flavorsome pork or lend themselves to certain cuisines. What do they taste like?...I don’t like
myself when I become skeptical, but until I see a Choctaw or an Ossabaw hog win
a market hog show in the Midwest, I am going to continue my pessimistic
ways. Eventually, they will have to play
by the same rules as the Hampshires and Durocs and their producers. To do this they must be moved along in that
direction now. This means selective
breeding for litter size, economic traits, and a consistent standard for breed
character…Sadly, right now they are valued mostly as hobbies for the
wealthy. These hogs need some showdowns
in the show ring, true-type conferences, a pool of data proving their
worthiness and the specific roles they can play, and producers that see them as
livestock with a future and not just two hundred specimens with a past.”
Page 48 “Smaller-sized pigs such as the Potbelly and Kune
Kune are more easily transported, a trait that was especially crucial in
locales such as Polynesia, where the supplies and livestock needs for a new
settlement had to be carried by canoe and outrigger. These pigs can live in harsher landscapes,
where their food supply is limited and where their size is economically
justified. These miniature swine were
and still are hogs in every sense.
Unfortunately, they are being raised in this country primarily as gimmicks
to sell to others.”
Page 49 “Most hybrids are stronger than their purebred
parents; the result of two distinct bloodlines coming together is a stronger,
more durable animal. But the traits that
are expressed are also less predictable because they are two different breeds. These days hybrid vigor is accomplished
almost entirely by seedstock companies that sell crossbred and composite
breeding animals…Many of the modern so-called hybrids are quite complex in
their structure, and because the strains are so closely managed, they lock
producers into joining a contract program using a whole phalanx of company hogs
to maintain even a semblance of hybrid vigor.
It is an expensive and complex practice that require much genetic fine
tuning and extensive housing and produces some animals that are not as
productive as purebreds. It’s a system
that could shut individual producers out of swine seedstock production in the
same way that independent poultry producers were blocked from producing
now-favored broiler and laying-hen strains.”
Page 267 “Experience has taught me that before anything else
you must select for basic vigor and what we have come to call stoutness. You want them big, strong, full of vinegar
and prunes, and ready for whatever life may throw at them. And that begins in the first hours of life in
the farrowing pen.”
These thoughts could be useful for making intelligent
choices about feeder pigs, and those experiences could in turn affect a choice
down the road about acquiring breeding stock.
The Enterprise
This is a big topic to which I cannot hope to do justice
here. There are innumerable ways one might
organize the activity of hog raising, each a response to a different set of constraints
and pressures coming from all levels and directions, from personal flavor
preferences to health understandings, to
available market opportunities to
public health laws.
The basic pattern
Page 11 “Hogs are very efficient users of feedstuffs, often
averaging 1 pound (0.5 kg) of gain on just 3 to 3.5 pounds (1.4 to 1.6 kg) of
feedstuffs, even in the simplest of facilities.
While this may not be a trait that first-world weight-conscious humans
would find becoming in their own physical development, hog producers gratefully
accept the fact.”
Page 102-103 “When you’re up to your elbows in the task of
working up a carcass, you’ll soon see the truth in the words of the legendary
livestock nutritionist Frank B. Morrison in the ninth edition of his classic
text, Feeds and Feeding Abridged:
‘Pigs exceed all other farm animals in the efficiency with which they convert
feed into edible meat. They require much
less feed and much less total digestible nutrients for each pound of gain in
liveweight than do other farm animals.
They also yield a higher percentage of dressed carcass, a larger
percentage of the carcass is edible, and pork is higher in energy content than
other meat.”
Page 53 “The growout
period will normally be between 90 and 120 days, depending on the starting
weight of the pig, and in many places fits into the spring or fall season, to
avoid the weather extremes of a Missouri summer or a Maine winter.”
Page 30 “Remember, the goal is to achieve optimal performance from a given set of hogs and facilities. Maximum levels of performance in any type of
production agriculture are seldom, if ever, truly cost-effective, as they must
be supported by fancy housing and more-costly rations.”
Page 215 “The performance of young boars is enhanced by the
presence of male hormones that will be unavailable to barrow or gilt
offspring.”
Page 250 “Castration may be an even more controversial procedure
than tail docking. Still, in this
country the meat from even the youngest uncastrated boars is sharply discounted
in price. In Europe a lot of lightweight
hogs are used for fresh and processed pork products, many of them intact males
of 5 months of age or less.”
Acquiring
stock
Page 49-50 “Long ago I was cautioned that if you bring
something in from 1,000 miles (1,609 km) away, you may have to haul it back
every one of those 1,000 miles to get it sold again.”
Page 65 “The best place to buy feeder pigs is at their farm
of origin…Pigs at an auction are often stressed from the transport and
handling. There is also a very real risk
that they might have been exposed to disease organisms or sick pigs.”
Page 65 “Early spring may be the most expensive time of the
year to buy feeder shoats because fewer sows farrow in the cold months of
December, January, and February, when the early feeders are born. Still, these pigs are desirable because they
will reach a good slaughter weight before the weather grows excessively hot and
humid.”
Page 212 “I’ve found the best ways to find out about good
buys on hogs are (in order of preference) talking with fellow raisers,
attending hog events, reading local newspapers, and checking out hog
publications.”
Page 213 “It is perhaps best to go with first impressions
when selecting breeding animals.”
Home production
Page 65 “As mentioned, hogs are not all ham and chops, but
one or two hogs fed out each year will go a long way toward meeting the protein
needs of a typical family of four. If
fed out at least two at a time, the hogs will be more content, because they are
herd animals.”
Page 53 “…along with quality control, there is much that you
as a home finisher can do to contain costs.
Granted, a pig is not all chops, but when it is raised and processed to
order, you can expect to maximize the cuts and quality you and your family
prefer in meat and meat products.”
Page 171 “The classic sausage seasoning, sage, actually
doesn’t freeze very well and can impart a bitter flavor to the meat in frozen
storage.”
“Meating” the public: the commercial scale
Page 177 “In many countries known globally for the quality
of their pork, younger, smaller hogs go to market. Forty years ago, you could have yourself a
220-pound (99.8 kg) butcher when the animal was just a bit older than 5
months. They were efficient gainers
because they were young and growing muscle, and they moved through finishing
facilities and off the farm in short order…I believe the younger,
lighter-weight market hog may again have a role for those engaged in the direct
marketing of pork and butcher hogs. They
are the porcine equivalent of the Cornish game hen or the “baby chicken”
broiler now showing up in pricier restaurants.
And this approach would certainly produce the basic cuts of pork now in
keeping with today’s smaller families.”
Page 314 “There are some of us who share a fairly common
sentiment that family farmers should be freer to directly process and sell
their own production. They can’t,
however, because the needed inspection services are not in place.”
Page 315 “Two quality cured hams will now often bring as
much as or more than an entire butcher hog on the hoof—but family farmers are
now largely cut off from this market, which was once their traditional domain,
through a series of nitpicking rules that do not always prove effective in
guarding public health or food quality.”
Page 317 “It is far easier to fund and establish 10
different farm ventures netting $2,000 each yearly than to create just one
enterprise with a capacity for $20,000 in net earnings.”
Page 5 “The versatile hog will always be a creature of the
small farm and the smallholding; it is a far too valuable and utilitarian
creature to think it might serve otherwise.”
Page 10 “Many people believe they must have a large acreage
and hogs by the hundreds for pig production to be a viable enterprise. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Page 5 “Although hog production had been forced into a
corporate mold in recent years, those practices don’t consider the nature of
the hog, the laws of the marketplace, the wishes of the consumer, and the
calling of the farmer to be a wise and thoughtful steward.”
Page 318 “At this writing, the small-scale pork producer
must function as something of a maverick—a “repioneer.”
Page 318 “The only farming sectors still in total favor with
the consuming public and whose output garners a willingly given premium from
that public are the organic growers and the clearly identified family farmers.”
Page 319 “Animal-rights issues, environmental measures, and
consumer concerns can and may all grow to a point where the pressure they will
bring to bear on the large operations will be just too great. Some small farmers are already tapping into
this resistance by pursuing niche markets for additive-free pork, pork raised
outside, and pork with real pork taste.
The niches of today are the only alternatives for tomorrow.”
Page 321 “Optimum
production means seeking a fair and reasonable return on investment rather
than attempting to totally maximize production in the faint hope that returns
will eventually surpass costs. In other
words, by optimum I mean aiming for a
fair and livable return, rather than attempting to extract every cent of return
possible by any means available.”
Page 322 “The time and resources needed to wring every
dollar possible from a venture are simply not always justifiable on economic
grounds or sustainable environmentally.
And let’s be realistic here—life is just too short to spend the whole of
it down in the hog lots rooting out every last dollar to be had there.”
Page 340 “By becoming more focused on the care and breeding
of the hogs, small producers are finding a way out of the morass of
agribusiness and pork as a mere commodity.
After years of drifting away, there are young people and families coming
back to raising hogs. It is happening on
a modest scale but with the solid backing of a dedicated consuming population
that approves of what we are doing.
Consumers are seeking input now, and rewarding our production with
premium prices.
I feel better about this kind of production than I have for
some time and see a very bright future for this truly artisanal type and level
of production agriculture. Ultimately,
it will be what we, the individual producers, make of it. We have an opening unique and apart from any
seen in my lifetime.”
Page 347 “Dad used to say that if you couldn’t walk the
whole of your farm before breakfast, you were farming too big.”