Taking My Piggies to the Bank

So how much did it actually cost me to raise my pigs last summer? To me, it was worth every penny to know exactly how my pigs were raised and what they ate (actually, I think I saw Hickory chewing on a golf ball once - but I was not about to reach around those teeth to try to get it out! I just let that one pass. Literally . . .) As much as I try to find good food, unless you're buying from someone you know or raising it yourself, you just don't know. And I want to know.

But I still have to try to be practical about it. We need to be good stewards of the resources God's given us, and money is one of those resources, just like the land and animals we're here to care for. So here's how our numbers from 2018 broke down:

Purchase price: $50 each; $100 total
Feed: $.4975 per pound; 2,123 pounds; $1056.28 total
Processing equipment: $296.20
Total cost: $1452.48
Weight of meat (added up after butchering; does not include lard and bones): 300 pounds
Price per pound: $4.84

Oof! That feels like a lot. But then I compare it to how much I'd pay for the cuts of meat we actually eat:
(Prices are all per pound)
Organic Pork Chops: $6.21
Conventional Pork Tenderloin (I couldn't even find organic): $10.94
Organic Nitrate Free Bacon: $15.00
Organic Ham: $11.50
Brats (from Louie's - our favorite local meat shop; not organic): $4.79

And of course that cost included purchasing the processing equipment (which turned out to be less than what we'd payed for processing in the past, but still an expense we needed to account for). Without that extra cost, our price would have been $3.85 per pound. I still have to do my own smoking for the bacon and hams, but I actually prefer that, since I have control over what goes into them.

I do wish we'd been able to butcher them on schedule (click here to read all about why we didn't); that would have saved us almost 300 pounds of feed per pig - and judging by previous years' totals, it wouldn't have reduced their weight by very much, so we could have saved another $300 right there.

So, if all goes well next year, based on my last three year's numbers, I can expect to buy around 750 pounds of feed per hog. If the price of feed holds steady and I can still get piglets for around $50 a piece, that should put my average price around $850 for two pigs. I expect to get about 300 pounds of meat out of them in that amount of time, so that would put my price at under $3 a pound - for organic pastured pork. You're not going to find that anywhere!

All in all, I'm very happy with how those numbers work out. As I said, I think raising our own meat is worth it no matter what the price, but seeing the actual amount I'm saving makes it that much more satisfying.