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After having our sow remove her pig ark from its floor for the 3rd or 4th time we were wondering what the rest of you feel about arks with floors and your preferences? Is a floor best only for use when sow is farrowing or should it be used all times?
Your views would be appreciated.
Cornish Gems
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Floor or No Floor that is the question
Started By
Cornish Gems
, 04 Feb 2011 13:43
#1
Posted 04 February 2011 - 13:43
Cornish Gems
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Lord and Lady of the Manor
- LocationCornwall (formerly Devon)
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#2
Posted 04 February 2011 - 20:59
KChally
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Farmer Giles
After having our sow remove her pig ark from its floor for the 3rd or 4th time we were wondering what the rest of you feel about arks with floors and your preferences? Is a floor best only for use when sow is farrowing or should it be used all times?
Your views would be appreciated.
Cornish Gems
Hi CG,
We have LOTS of pigs reared outside and none of our arks have floors. They did have floors in the past but were constantly destroyed. It turned out very expensive to keep replacing them, so we do without. Also if you are on very muddy ground the pigs will tread the mud in which sets very hard and becomes almost impossible to remove.
We now just put straw on the ground inside the arks which works very well. For farrowing we bring the sows in so we can keep an eye on them, then after weaning they go out again.
Hope this is of help
Regards
KChally
#3
Posted 06 February 2011 - 12:26
Cornish Gems
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When you put it like that, it seems the obvious answer, but we just thought we had better check. We removed floors this am and pigs don't seem the least bit bothered by their absence. Mind you, fresh straw always seems to take their minds off anything else. Of course, we cannot 'bring our sows in' as there is no 'in' for them so we shall just use a farrowing ark with a floor when the time comes
We do so hope that the increase in the price of pig food is not going to adversely affect your all so important income for this year. BTW, you also mentioned re-seeding the pig paddocks - what do you use and how long do you rest them? Thank you for your help so far.
We do so hope that the increase in the price of pig food is not going to adversely affect your all so important income for this year. BTW, you also mentioned re-seeding the pig paddocks - what do you use and how long do you rest them? Thank you for your help so far.
#4
Posted 06 February 2011 - 22:00
shepie
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Lord of the Manor
Going by the Farmers Weekly the profit of specialist pork producers is set to decline by 64% in 2011 and 50% for grazing animals due to feed / deisel / electric etc.. .
We will all have to watch the pennies and buy in bulk bags , you can get 1 tonne bags direct from your local feed mill like Harpers in Holsworthy for us Devonians.
As for pigs no need for the floor even when farrowing i used to work on a farm with 250 sows all outdoors and no floors
We will all have to watch the pennies and buy in bulk bags , you can get 1 tonne bags direct from your local feed mill like Harpers in Holsworthy for us Devonians.
As for pigs no need for the floor even when farrowing i used to work on a farm with 250 sows all outdoors and no floors
#5
Posted 06 February 2011 - 23:21
KChally
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Farmer Giles
I can well believe that shepie. Our feed cost from April 2011 to now has increased by 25%. We have just put the price of our produce up by only 20% and this does not cover the feed increase, never mind the increase in the cost of fuel, bedding etc. We felt we could only increase by that amount due to the fact that we have a premium product and think the public will only pay so much. In fact we havent put our prices up for 2 years - we absorbed all the costs, but cant anymore or we would probably be out of business. At our recent markets we were happier than we thought we would be as we still sold our produce with no problems.
We are managing our feed costs better as we have now fixed our price for the next 6 months as we feel the price is set to increase further. Of course to do this we have to purchase at least 1 month worth of feed at a time. This increase in costs will obviously affect our profits as we worked out our business plan on a much lower % rate of inflation. When we come to do our final application I am hoping the planners will have to take this into consideration ie the state of the economy etc.
With regard to pig paddocks, we use electric fencing so can move the animals around at will, but ideally each paddock should be rested for approx 12 months. If these paddocks are just left they will of course produce just weeds, reseeding will be expensive so using them for growing potatoes would be more productive.
There is no doubt that pigs make a mess and reseeding would only be recommended if you wanted the paddock for something different, as the pigs would just dig it up again.
It is a worrying time for us as we are in our final year and are now making the big push. Our calendar is filling up with markets, events etc and it has become all consuming. Any thoughts or advice from anyone is welcome.
KChally
We are managing our feed costs better as we have now fixed our price for the next 6 months as we feel the price is set to increase further. Of course to do this we have to purchase at least 1 month worth of feed at a time. This increase in costs will obviously affect our profits as we worked out our business plan on a much lower % rate of inflation. When we come to do our final application I am hoping the planners will have to take this into consideration ie the state of the economy etc.
With regard to pig paddocks, we use electric fencing so can move the animals around at will, but ideally each paddock should be rested for approx 12 months. If these paddocks are just left they will of course produce just weeds, reseeding will be expensive so using them for growing potatoes would be more productive.
There is no doubt that pigs make a mess and reseeding would only be recommended if you wanted the paddock for something different, as the pigs would just dig it up again.
It is a worrying time for us as we are in our final year and are now making the big push. Our calendar is filling up with markets, events etc and it has become all consuming. Any thoughts or advice from anyone is welcome.
KChally
#6
Posted 07 February 2011 - 00:05
Canning Farm
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Duckling
There will always be a demand for good food produced at a slower pace with real flavour so just keep going it sounds as though you are nearly there.
Unfortunaltely we are in a mega inflationary trend with official inflation set to hit 5% this year, pushing the cost or raw materials up even further. My own opinion is that the pound will strengthen against the dollar later this year so your food costs may come down a bit late summer. Bulk buying on a monthly basis is a sound way to spread your cost risk.
Unfortunaltely we are in a mega inflationary trend with official inflation set to hit 5% this year, pushing the cost or raw materials up even further. My own opinion is that the pound will strengthen against the dollar later this year so your food costs may come down a bit late summer. Bulk buying on a monthly basis is a sound way to spread your cost risk.
#7
Posted 07 February 2011 - 14:00
Romany
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Farmer Giles
It is a worrying time for us as we are in our final year and are now making the big push. Our calendar is filling up with markets, events etc and it has become all consuming. Any thoughts or advice from anyone is welcome.
KChally
Hi KChally
Do you have the room at all to grow any of your own feed? I'm wondering if this may work out cheaper in the long run.
Also, have you tried asking local supermarkets if you can collect their vegetable/fruit waste? This is what I did when I last had pigs (which, admittedly, was before the new regs came in, but I have recently read up on the regs and you can still do this - the DEFRA website has all the info).
I also bought the 'sweepings' from a local grain merchants in massive bags (half ton?) which worked out cheaper than buying bags of 'clean' grain.
Fed on this, my free range pigs produced the sweetest pork I had had before or since.
Romany
#8
Posted 08 February 2011 - 15:38
KChally
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Farmer Giles
Hi Romany,
Unfortunately we dont have enough available land to grow our own feed, if we did Im sure it would work out cheaper than buying in. I think it might be too expensive to collect any available veg due to the cost of fuel. We would have to go often otherwise the veg would start to rot down, particularly in the summer months, good idea tho. Another option to reduce cost is to use up the spuds that are no good for selling I suppose.
One of the reasons we have changed feed supplier, apart from fixing the price, is that there seemed to be a lot of dust at the bottom of the bag, which just got wasted on outdoor reared pigs. We have been offered something from a beer producer, his waste stuff, cant think what it is called, my hubby would know but we have to go and collect it. So need to get organised for that so we dont miss out.
We feel we have to be a little careful on what we feed, as that would affect the taste/fat of the meat we produce and we think we have got it just about right. Any changes we make could be disastrous.
Thanks for your efforts and ideas keep em coming
KChally
Unfortunately we dont have enough available land to grow our own feed, if we did Im sure it would work out cheaper than buying in. I think it might be too expensive to collect any available veg due to the cost of fuel. We would have to go often otherwise the veg would start to rot down, particularly in the summer months, good idea tho. Another option to reduce cost is to use up the spuds that are no good for selling I suppose.
One of the reasons we have changed feed supplier, apart from fixing the price, is that there seemed to be a lot of dust at the bottom of the bag, which just got wasted on outdoor reared pigs. We have been offered something from a beer producer, his waste stuff, cant think what it is called, my hubby would know but we have to go and collect it. So need to get organised for that so we dont miss out.
We feel we have to be a little careful on what we feed, as that would affect the taste/fat of the meat we produce and we think we have got it just about right. Any changes we make could be disastrous.
Thanks for your efforts and ideas keep em coming
KChally
