Question from Email: Marketing pigs

Hi Bruce, My name is Scott [lastname] and I live in [town], FL.  I recently bought 10 small  pigs and have weaned them.   There are really no places around here to buy pigs and the market  may be slim for them once they get  grown?  Im sticking my toe in the water to see what happens.  I grew up in the cattle business and have weaned and sold  thousands of calves, but never a pig! Im wondering if you could give me tips on marketing the little suckers? Any advice would be great! Thanks, Scott Hi Scott! Marketing the hogs is the hardest part, and it's best to have them sold before you buy them, but that can be difficult.  One of the  best resources that I know of for small pig farmers is craigslist.   Here's the link to the craigslist that covers the area you're in, and I've taken the liberty to make that link a search for "pigs" in the farm and garden section.   If I had no market base, and didn't want to spend much time selling them, an ad on craigslist is a pretty safe bet.  it's free,  you can run it as long as you want, and you can get an idea of what the local market for pigs are by looking at what is being offered, and at what price.   The issue with craigslist is that  you will not get the best price;  there's always someone  on craigslist selling animals for the lowest possible price, but where you can set  yourself apart from the others is by talking about your husbandry and standards, and about your particular pig  breed.   For a little better view on what the higher-end prices are, search a site like eatwild.com and see what the producers there are asking for their pigs, or at your local farmers market. My guess is that you'll  find some pigs selling for $2/lb,  and some selling for $14/lb.  Never, ever compete on price. Compete on quality.   I have found a ready market for pigs from cubans in my area  who want to BBQ whole pigs for family gatherings. Eastern Europeans also are big markets for whole pigs.  See  if there's a russian orthodox church in your area as a start.  often donating a pig for a church bbq or some other  charity fundraiser is  a way to get your name out  there, too, and it builds goodwill.   Pacific islanders are GREAT pig customers.  Tongans and Samoans being two groups that have purchased lots of pigs from me. With a total production of 10 pigs I think you should be able to sell all of them handily.   Some specific suggestions:   Sell to family and friends.  A half a pig is small enough to fit in an  average upper freezer of a refrigerator, and everyone  enjoys pork.  Your price should pay for all of your feed costs plus something for labor and equipment; what that is  depends on you.   It takes about 800lbs of feed to bring a pig  to market weight; around here that feed is about $0.27/lb, which gives me a feed cost of $216.  figure $100 for labor and equipment per pig, and I'm at $316, which works out to a cost basis for the pig of $1.58/lb.  I sell my own pigs  at $2.25/lb, which gives me a net profit of about $134 per pig, but since I could hve sold  that weaner pig for $100, my actual net is $34/pig with much less risk.  hmmm.. might have to raise my prices.   Over at thoughtfulfoodfarm.com, he started at a price of $3.50/lb for his pork, and here's a blog entry about his experience selling his production.   The reason that I can continue at $34 profit per animal is that I  sell thousands  of pigs, mostly as weaners, mostly during the spring and summer.  I finish pigs mostly because  the prices for weaners in the winter sucks, and I can make more money by doing so.  if I were able to, I would be  strictly a farrowing operation and selling everything at weaning.  Much simpler business, margins are good, risk is smaller.