Archive Article: 2000/03/03
Dennis Bridgeford
Dennis Bridgeford farms
50ha (125 acres) at Petley
Farm in Easter Ross, north
of Inverness. The farm
comprises of a 480-sow
indoor unit producing 95kg
pigs for one outlet and 85kg
pigs for a local abattoir. A
further 320 sows are run
outdoors. Land not used for
pigs grows spring barley
HAS the pig industry been plucked from the jaws of an abyss?
At long last we are seeing an improvement in prices, which is long overdue. There is no doubt that prices were pushed lower than necessary by the buying policy of big processors.
With lower slaughterings, marketing groups must start flexing their muscles. Any processor falling behind the market price must be kept short of pigs, as we are not out of the mire yet.
Processors will try to haul prices back and supermarkets will want to keep them low to suit their own ends, but lower pig numbers coming through the system means their ability to drag prices down should be limited.
Another piece of good news has been a rise in cull sow prices. This not only almost meets the cost of replacing a sow with a homebred gilt, but with our financial year end looming, it will help stock valuations.
Me and my big mouth. I mentioned that January had been a dry, mild month; of course February has been exceedingly wet and windy, but fortunately with little snow. Our only consolation is that days are drawing out and when you live as far north as we do, this has a great bearing on your working day.
My efforts to increase slaughter weight of bacon pigs has met with some success. We moved to terminal type boars a number of years ago and have no regrets. But I was concerned about gradings at heavier weights.
I must admit, I have been pleasantly surprised and there have been no problems with our pig gradings over the past few weeks, averaging over 76kg deadweight and a P2 backfat probe of 11.5mm.
If only we could improve farrowing house performance as well – we are still having problems with uneven pigs at weaning. In an attempt to rectify this we trying a diet supplement for newly born pigs, to give smaller ones a boost.
Over the years I have tried many of these mysterious products. I am trying this one because its recommended by a fellow pig producer who swears by it. Time will tell. *
Dennis Bridgeford is delighted that at last theres some good news in the pig industry.