Baby Pigs and sale barn prices...
 

Was just reading one of jackie Clay's daily notes on line and she mentioned that due to the high feed prices baby pigs are being gased,I suppose at birth, to death because the feed prices are too expensive and the sales at the barn sales are too low to afford to feed them and take a lose at the sales. It is ashame for the pigs and the farmers. Had heard that bacon and pork prices will be sky high this winter..might be true ??

Are you serious?? I don't understand the logic behind this. I'd rather see them be given away or something along those lines rather than gassed!!

I hadn't heard that. I do know that feed is high and we did just buy some sale barn weaner pigs VERY cheap. We bought 5 head and they ranged from $22-30 each. They were all in the 20-30 lb range. We got a super deal on 12 tons of FREE grain mix so feed cost is basically nothing. So we are raising these to provide ourselves and extended family with pork for upcoming yr.

Weaning pigs at the local sale barn are bringing close to the 50 cents per pound range. the pigs run between 20 and 60 pounds each. Quality causes a little variation in the price

If the farmer gasses the pigs, what will he do with the sow? He knew about feed prices when he breed the sow. He certainly can't afford to feed the pigless sow until she has some more pigs. A sow gets poorer feed conversion than the pigs do.
He should have sold the sow for slaughter long before she farrowed.

I find that hard to believe - gasing the piglets - all the farmers I know are willing to send the animals to the auction cause any price is better than getting nothing.

eat the sow. raise up the piglets, eating them along the way but keep a replacement to take the sow's place.

I doubt this is wide spread. If true it is isolated. Its not a trend.

-Walter
Who farms pigs
Got about 400 of them out on pasture
Don't buy into the myth you must buy or feed grain...

The bulk of the hogs going to slaughter are raised in confinement houses. Many have several thousand
at one location. Most buy the pigs from other parts of the country. Many of the confinement owners are not owners of the pigs, or pay for the grain they are feed. They care for them and are paid per head raised to market weight. My neighbor recieved 4800 20 pound pigs to put in his buildings. He's in Indiana, and the pigs were farrowed in NC.

I'm not beliven it. Piglets are high here.

Well, piglets are bringing miserable prices here. They ARE expensive to raise, too. Someone just offered me $30 for a 60# well grown, pasture raised piglet. I just laughed and (silently) hoped that they had spent a LOT in gas driving that big, expensive truck down here. It left empty. I will keep the piglets till near Christmas and some close friends will have meat baskets as gifts.

Mary

I can tell you that it's not happening in our neck of the woods. Or, if it is, then that farmer has got it all wrong! Private sales are still around $50 for good weaners. Avg 25-40 lbs.
Sale barn is bringing 30/35 for the same.

They will not take pigs at the sale barn here. Wish they did as Ive got a 300 lbs bluebutt boar I cant get sold.

Id like to fine some pigs here! Ive always had a weekness for those that were a bit to big for the regular feeder market I like them 80 to 120 pounds.

I was at the sale barn last Saturday, and I think they ran a million pigs through! They had 2 week old litters go through, up to and including sows, boars, and barrows ready to slaughter.

One lot was a SEA of baby pigs, about 8 lbs. each. After they fished out the runts, there were 94 pigs in that lot. They sold for $3.00 ea.

I saw some really nice feeders go through for $20-$25. If I had bought the cow I was thinking about, I would go back this weekend and get some to grow out on milk.

Baby pigs here are expensive, $40 to $50 each. 100 pounders are goingfor$100 or more if you can find them.
Bob

Off topic, but a neighbor raises show pigs. He was offered $10,000.00 for one of his sows. He turned it down. She had 11 babies, all dead. Somehow I really don't feel too sorry for him.

I'd like to get a couple of pigs again next spring to butcher in the fall. I can usually get them for free.

Good heavens! $3 each??? Around here weaned piglets are at least $80 and up to over $130 if they're a specific breed, and this is going into winter! They're much more in the spring when the fair folk are looking to buy.
Kit, in mid-Oregon

There was recently at least one case in Saskatchewan or Manitoba where a lots of pigs were euthanized due to feed costs.

10 or so years ago when the market went down it was costing more to haul the pigs to market than the farmer got. A lot of the farmers just turned the hogs out in the wild.

Baby pigs make good eating... I knew a man that butchered his piglets starting at 6-8 weeks, he cooked them whole.. He had a big family and it made a meal. Each pig was bigger as time went on but he had no feed to speak of in his pigs. They were on pasture/woods and made their own way.

Piglets are being euthanized. Corn is too expensive.

Doesn't seem to have logic if it is true.

I found a reference to the piglets that were euthanized in Manitoba here:

1,300 piglets euthanized – - SwineWeb.com - Latest Swine, Pork News and Information

In the same article, this was stated:

Doug Chorney, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, said he fears similar stories could emerge in the coming weeks because troubles in the pork industry mean weanlings are now essentially worthless.


Chorney said farmers face a crisis of low prices for pork, combined with high prices for feed that are being driven by severe drought in the U.S.
“I phoned my neighbour who’s been a lifetime hog producer and is a very astute business person,” said Chorney, who noted the neighbour’s farm has raised hogs for 75 years.
“He said, ‘We’re depopulating our barn and by November there will be no hogs left.”‘


The Manitoba government says it immediately launched an investigation when it found the piglets. The province isn’t naming the farm or the community it was in, adding no other information will be released due to its investigation.
Gary Stordy, a spokesman for the Canadian Pork Council, said that while he doesn’t know anything about the specifics of the Manitoba case, the conditions in the hog industry now are ripe for it.


Stordy explained that because the cost of feed has spiked so quickly, hog producers have been forced to sell animals because their credit is being pushed beyond their limits. That, in turn, drives down the prices for pork, and producers end up pressured from both directions.

I did search for other cases of euthanasia but haven't been able to find any, although I did find references to the collapse of the hog market in Canada due to high feed prices, etc. in this article:
Ontario Farmer

I would rather give a piggie away than to kill it because I couldn't feed it, but if I had several hundred, perhaps it is too hard to give that many away?

A farmer should know before he breeds his sows what the markets likely to be like. There should be no need in haveing hundreds of pigs to get rid of, one way or the other.