Thinking about raising pigs? This post is all about determining the cost of raising pigs from start to finish to help you decide if raising pigs is worth it for your family.
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We’re always looking to be more self-sufficient when it comes to our food here on our little homestead. After raising meat chickens for a couple of years, we decided we were ready to take the leap into raising other animals for meat, and pigs were the next on our list. Plus, it really made our homestead feel more like a farm. Finally we had laying hens, a family milk cow, and now pigs. The homestead really felt complete!
Now that we’ve gotten our meat back from the processor, we’ve began to wonder what the overall cost of raising pigs really was so that we can determine if it’s worthwhile to raise them again. We raised 5 pigs this fall on pasture, purchasing them in mid-July and then harvesting the week after Christmas. The overall cost of raising these pigs from start to finish was about $461 per pig, including piglet cost, feed costs, and processing costs.
Table of Contents
- Cost of Piglets
- Cost of Feed
- Cost of Processing
- Other Costs to Consider
- Overall Breakdown of Cost of Raising Pigs
- Is It Worth It?
- Save this Post
- More on Raising Animals
Cost of Piglets
We purchased our piglets at $50 per piglet. The farmer we bought them from was selling them for $2.00 per pound, and when we bought our piglets they were only about 26 pounds. Purchasing them young and small helped us to save on the piglet cost.
Cost of Feed
In the beginning, the five pigs were only eating about a hundred pound bag of feed every two-three weeks. As they got older, they started to eat a lot more, and in the end, they were eating a fifty pound bag of feed each day. We bought our feed in bulk, which also helped cut down on the cost of the total feed. In the end, the total amount that we spent on feed was $208.14 per pig.
Cost of Processing
The cost of processing is going to be different depending on what kinds of cuts of meat you end up ordering. We had our pigs made into bacon, ham steaks, pork sausage, pork chops, shaved pork loin lunch meat, roasts, hams, pepperoni, brats, and Canadian bacon. The total cost for all of the processing was $1,015.90, which comes to an average of $203.18 per pig.
Other Costs to Consider
If you’re just adding pigs for the first time to your property, you’ll also have the initial cost of setting up a place for them to live.
We were able to purchase an old cut-off mink shed to use as our shelter for our pigs for about $200.
The fencing (we used eight hog panels with treated 4x4x8 foot fence posts and an electric wire around the bottom) was purchased from Tractor Supply. In total, the entire fence set-up came to about $638, which included a swinging gate. For water, we were able to get water lines for free, and then purchased 2 nipple waterers and a feeder, which was an additional $267.
This means that overall, it cost us around $900 to set up the infrastructure for our pigs. This is a one-time cost, though, and should be broken down across each year that pigs are raised within this area.
Overall Breakdown of Cost of Raising Pigs
We can breakdown our cost of raising pigs below (per pig):
- Piglet Cost: $50
- Feed Cost: $208
- Processing Fees: $203
Total Cost Per Pig for Year One (NOT including total cost of shelter/fencing): $461
Of course, we also need to include our infrastructure costs for the first year. We had five pigs, so the total $900 for fencing/shelter can be split five ways, leaving the fencing/shelter cost to be $180 per pig. Including that number would bring our final first year cost to $641.
How does this compare to purchasing a whole pig from a processing plant?
Looking at some of the other Wisconsin processing plant prices, we can say that we came out ahead or close in terms of overall cost of raising our pigs:
| Producer | Total Cost Per Whole Pig |
| Our Pigs | $461 |
| Pinter’s Packing Plant (Dorchester, WI) | $518 |
| Folkers Farms (Fall Creek, WI) | $630 |
| Wisconsin River Meats (Mauston, WI) | $465 |
| Wells Farm (Rio, WI) | $1,100 |
Is It Worth It?
So now after looking at the cost of raising pigs, the big question is: “Is it worth it?”
For us, the answer is yes. The cost of raising pigs for our own homestead is very comparable or cheaper than what we would have been paying to purchase a whole hog from a local butcher around our area. Plus, we really enjoyed the process of raising them. We knew exactly what was going into the pigs we were going to be consuming, we enjoyed watching them and having them be a part of our homestead, they’re relatively low maintenance once everything is set up, and we really are proud of the quality meat that we’ve produced.
While we’re not going to get rich selling whole hogs to people, we still consider it to be worthwhile. Selling cuts of meat is a much better way to make money, if that’s your end goal. Another way to save money is to do the processing at home.
Save this Post
Be sure to save and share this post so you have it handy when it comes time to decide if the cost of raising pigs is worth it for your family’s homestead.
More on Raising Animals
Check out these posts on raising animals on the homestead!
GOAT VS. COW: WHICH ANIMAL IS BEST FOR YOUR HOMESTEAD DAIRY?
RAISING CORNISH CROSS CHICKENS FOR MEAT: THE ULTIMATE MEAT BIRD
CAN I MAKE A PROFIT OWNING CHICKENS?
NUMBER OF CHICKENS YOU’LL NEED FOR YOUR FAMILY HOMESTEAD
WHAT IS THE BEST MILK COW FOR A FAMILY HOMESTEAD?
This is great information! Thank you for sharing! May I ask what breed of pig you raise and what the approximate weight of the pigs once they are ready for processing? Thanks again!
Hi Michelle! They’re a Yorkshire cross and weigh around 220 pounds in about 6 months time.
What breeds of pigs did you raise?
They’re a Yorkshire cross.
Thank you for the well-organized post! Great info.
Glad you enjoyed it, Kendra!