What does it take to breed pigs? Is it a bit more work than raising feeder pigs?
Yes, a lot of new things to learn.
What's the best way to start with raising breeder pigs?
I would suggest raising summer pigs for a few years, then once you have experience and infrastructure setup do a batch through the winter to learn winter raising as it will have its own special complications. You need to be able to keep a pig year round to consider breeders. Then when you have that down, get a bred sow or bred gilt and have her farrow a litter. You'll learn a slew of new things. Go slowly.
Pasturing em? Confining em?
Depends on your resources and goals. We pasture using managed rotational grazing. See:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/pigs and follow the grazing links to see how we do it. Pasturing saves a lot of money on feed but requires good pasture and good genetics for them to do well on it. Confinement pigs have been bred away from pasture-ability. Pigs that come from someone who's already doing pasture will be more likely to succeed on pasture. Part is genetics, part is enculturation, part is management skills, part is the pasture itself. About 80% to 90% of our pig's diet is pasture. About 7% is whey. We also grow pumpkins, sunflowers, etc. See the feed links at the above page.
I've raised feeder pigs for two years now I'm thinking about raising pigs and sell em locally. We have about 2-3 acres of wooded/rock fields that I was thinking about putting to use and raising pigs on it. I'd like to use electric fence and do rotation grazing type method to keep cost down on feed.
You've take the right first steps and are developing the skills. Try a winter batch so you find out what it is like doing pigs over the winter. It can be very different than the warm season. Different climate, infrastructure and other issues.
Would 1 boar and 2 sows be a good start? I'm not looking to having too many pigs running around as I have cattle to take care of also.
An expensive way to start. It takes a lot to feed a boar. I figure that to justify a boar it takes three sows if by land (pasturing) and six if by seed (grain fed). That's based on two or more litters a year. Run out a cost analysis for yourself based on your land costs, feed costs, sales prices, etc. A business plan.
A good way to start is to get bred sows or gilts. That way the first round you don't have to deal with the boar and breeding issues. The advantages of a sow is she has experience and is proven. Sows are often more expensive, for this reason.
I'm able to get free bread from a bakery, milk from my cow, and eggs from my chickens & ducks and hopefully will be able to get produce from local groceries to feed to the pigs. Would this work on keeping feed cost down? Any tips/advice I should know before doing anything.
All good foods. Cook the eggs. I figure that the cost of getting a pig to market is about 30% piglet, 30% feed and 30% processing. The other 10% is infrastructure. If you want to make a profit you need to reduce each of those costs so some of the money sticks to your palm. Reducing your feed costs through pasturing and found feeds can make a big difference. Once you have the volume, reducing the cost of pigs by having breeders will help with that 30%. Next is cutting the cost of processing - we're almost finished building our butcher shop to help us with that issue. Step by step.
I don't plan on getting em til next year and learning a bit more. Anything helps. Ivan.
If you want pigs next year be sure to get deposits down now with breeders to reserve them. Spring is the high demand season as you've probably already found from raising feeders. The better the quality you're getting the higher the demand. Over winter is a great time to do reading and start infrastructure projects.
-Walter
