The pig farming business commercially is one of the profitable and lucrative businesses in the modern farming system, providing income for millions of people and many people are making money all over the world by starting a piggery business.
But, to run a successful and sustainable pig farming business commercially, you require sufficient knowledge of how to raise the pigs efficiently and properly, good management skills on pig farming, and the last one is a perfect and well-defined piggery business plan. In this article, we will try to inform you how to start the piggery farming business and the pig farming business plan.
There are some indispensable things you need to do before you venture into the piggery business commercially. First, you have to decide on the size of your pig farming business project i.e. the number of sows you want to grow up.
The second one is the location of the pig farming business e.g. a piggery farm, and the last one is your target market. Though all these will be highly affected by the amount of capital you have, and the size of your target market.
If you do not have enough capital to start a big farm, you can try to start a small or medium one and grow your piggery business overtime, remember that “Rome was not built in a day”.
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Advantages of Pig Farming
Most of the farmers are often faced with the challenges of choosing the best animals to rear because there are just so many to choose from- livestock like goats, pigs, poultry, fishes or aquaculture etc. If you are faced with such a type of problem, some of the reasons why you should consider choosing pig farming.
Low Mortality Rate
Pigs have less mortality rate compared to other animals we farm. They are more furrowed and easier to raise on the farm. They can also hold up days with less food or water.
Low Cost
You need less capital to start a pig farming business because pigs are also cheaper to raise compared to fishes or poultry and other livestock. As they can eat most foods that humans eat so their feeds are available and even if you have to buy feed for them, their feeds are cheaper than those of other animals.
If you do not have money for blooming heck pig feed, you can always make do with stuff you can find around you or food wastes from your kitchen, which is impossible with fishes.
Safety Issue
You wouldn’t also have to worry about a safety issue; generally people do not like to steal your pigs because most people would not like to touch live pigs with a 6-feet pole.
Higher Immune System
The immune system of pigs is higher than other animals. But you need to provide the vaccine for better protection so that they would not fall sick.
More Profitable
Pigs also generate more profit than those of other animals to farm commercially even most profitable mixed farming and biofloc. If you ever get bored of pig farming, you could easily diverse real estate, using your pig farm’s land as your first construction site.
How to Start a Pig Farming Business
There are several steps for the pig farming business commercially. Here we are discussing the top 10 easy steps to become a successful pig farming business. The steps are as bellows:
1. Business Plan
The pig farming business is very easy and profitable, but not so much easy to start a business commercially. To start a business commercially you have to make a well-defined business plan and it would be effective and realistic.
A well-defined business plan is formed with three parts which are business model, operation model, and financial projections, if all these are formed accurately then we called it a perfect business plan.
(a) Business Model
A perfect business model for a pig farming business plan depends on many factors, which may define the scope of your business model. First, if your company is seeking financial help from banks or investors.
Second, the business model must be highlighted certain elements such as the expertness of your management team, the procured land, and equipment. The third one is how the pigs will be sold or the marketing system.
(b) Operation model
A perfect operation model of a pig farming business plan is designed mainly for structure and communication. The operation model indicates the available facility and how the facility will operate. The amount of manpower needed to directly carry off the farming operation.
(c) Financial Projections
A well-defined financial projection for a pig farming business plan means the full financial affirmations, as well as custom analytic thinking to further understand the risk and profit prospects.
Generally, the company collects its financial forecast premises based on its own historical industry experience of corresponding farms, third-party market search information, and the particular circumstances of your company.
2. Site Selection
In case of site selection to start your piggery business you require a large area to make the necessary pigsty and other farm buildings. The pig farming business project requires a gentle sloppy site with well-draining soils. This is very much essential as enables an easy flow of affluence.
You have to avoid waterlogging, marshy, and heavy rainfall areas. You have to locate your piggery farm at least 1 kilometer away from the rivers so that it would be able to avoid all possible contamination of water from effluence.
You need to first assess if the land is appropriate for operating a pig production business properly. You are advised to locate the pig farming project nearer to good roads so that it will minimize costs and enable the farmer to have access to and from the piggery business project perfectly.
Finally, you think about your pig farming business plan and must take into account the cost of purchasing or renting the land.
3. Housing for The Pigs
After selecting a perfect site you need to make a good and efficient house for your pigs. But before making a house or shed you have to design the pig house properly. A well-design pig house will make the management of the pigs easier and it reduces the mortality rate of the piglets.
If you have proper housing at your pig farm, you can successfully rear 90% or more of all the live-born piglets to market weight in the shortest possible time. Note that pigs at distinct stages of growth necessitate a distinct environment that means distinct temperatures and different housings. Piglets need security from very low temperatures to assure that they grow to their level best potential level.
Then again, the growing and reproducing pigs must be saved against high temperatures. That is why the roof should be at least 8-10 feet high and well ventilated.
So you need to assure that the houses are built to save the young and grown pigs against utmost temperature and bad weather.
On the other hand materials and instruments needed for the construction of pig shed structures or buildings can be bought from hardware and other shops. Finally, your piggery business plan must be taken into account the construction costs for the housing of pigs.
4. Breeding Stock
After completing a shed or house for pig you require the breeding stock to start your pig farming business commercially. In this case, you have to consider for the breeding stock you require are boars and sows.
As we know boars are the male pigs and it will service the sows that are the female pigs. You have to assure that you purchase a good breed of pigs for farming commercially. When you will collect or buy the breeding stock, always try to buy from farms that are well known to produce good and healthy breeds.
The maturation potentiality of your piglets will mainly depend on the nature and quality of the parent stock. So it is very important to collect the better pig breeding stock from authentic and dependable piggery farmers.
As a commercial farm, the boar and sows ratio must be considerable. The required ratio of boar and sows is 1:15. The numbers of sows you buy for your pig farming business commercially depend on the scale or size of your piggery business.
One sow gives birth to an average of 9-11 piglets from one pregnancy. A sow can fall pregnant twice a year. The pregnancy of a pig lasts for 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days which is almost 114 days.
5. Feed the Pigs
In the case of pig feeding, you have to first consider water pure supply. So you must be sure that you have enough and a constant supply of fresh water on your farm because pigs need a lot of fresh clean water every day.
It will be better to start that to get your pigs off to a start with 18-20% pig feed. It is best to put the young pigs on a discharge choice of diet, but not to feed them with more than 20% to 25% protein because it can cause purges which are not good at all for baby pigs.
Then you have to correctly feed your pigs. The pigs must be given the correct type and correct amount of feed timely. And this will assure you that the pigs reproduce expeditiously, grow expeditiously, utilize the feed properly, and produce good quality meat, which is the precondition of maximizing the profits of your pig farming business commercially.
But if you fail to provide the proper feed to pigs then you certainly miss the drubbing weight targets and the wanted quality of the pork. This leads to a loss in your pig farming business. Generally, pigs need different types and amounts of feed depending on age.
6. Vaccination
In the case of the pig farming business commercially vaccination is very much necessary. So to get the best security against diseases, pigs should be vaccinated at right time and which is right for the pig, as well as right for the disease you are protecting against.
First, see what you should be vaccinated for. In small pigs, we always recommend vaccinating for circovirus which is most dangerous for pigs, mycoplasma, around the time of weaning.
Give booster vaccinations to sows on the day of weaning, before rebreeding. A booster vaccination should be provided every 6 months to the boars. Young pigs, 4 to 8 weeks of age, need to get two vaccinations 3 to 4 weeks apart with an erysipelas bacterin.
7. Monitoring
Monitoring is very much important in case of any type of productive or farm. So to run a farm you have to monitor it properly.
Here monitoring means proper management of pigs which includes a schedule of watering and feeding, health management, vaccination, weight monitoring, creating a healthy environment on the farm, etc.
As the project is commercial, so the aim of the farm must create maximum profit. Developed and improved information and communication technologies are very much needed for monitoring farms and other aspects of the lives of young pigs to improve animal welfare and production. This is the use of advanced statistical and analytical methods of their monitoring system.
There are also many technological opportunities for monitoring. The room temperature information, the amount of water and feed intake of the pigs, and information of their growth rate and activities are all factors that can be mechanically supervised and recorded. This means the farmer can react at an early stage if problems arise in the pigpen.
8. Farm Management
Management of pig farms is another important thing in the case of pig farming business commercially. Farm management means all types of activities performed for maintaining the farm. So farm management is a big concept including collecting pigs, housing or shedding for the pigs, fencing and outdoor shelter making, providing feed properly, vaccination, etc.
Raising piglets commercially mainly depends on proper farm management. To run a farm efficiently you have to learn how to manage the pig farm. Though pig farm management is comparatively easier than fish farming or poultry farming you have to know it properly.
9. Marketing
Marketing is another important step for the pig farming business commercially. Pigs generally get mature at the age of 4 or 5 months. You can slaughter your pigs when they are between these ages. The accurate age at which you slaughter your pigs mainly depends on the situation you want to sell your pigs as porkers or as baconers.
The market demand for pork is very huge and is increasing day by day. The annual global demand for pork is around 11 million tonnes. That’s a lot! You can supply pork to butcheries, local butcher shops, retailers, hotels, supermarkets, restaurants, wholesalers, and individual consumers.
10. Keep a Note
Keeping a note is very much important in case of any type of farming or commercial activities. So the keeping of exact records is perfectly essential for the success of any pig farming business. The pig farm records must be simple, easy, accountable, transparent, reliable, and relevant to enable you to evaluate the overall farm performance.
It gives an authorized picture of the type of function of a farm so that the accurate phases of success can be measured properly. It also acts as aids to the direction and fiscal control. This is used to assess the strength and weakness analysis of a farm and to plan for future activities.
If you have a note you will easily find out the profit or loss in any project. This will also help you to find out the pitfall of the project and the possible solution to the problem.
Here we have tried to describe the ways of pig farming business commercially steps by steps. So, let’s start your farm…
