Use concentrates to take control of your pig farm production costs

Maize and soybean, which are primarily the feed ingredients for pig production, are hampered by increasing prices.
Pig farm net margins continue to slump as crippling feed costs, diseases and Covid-19 hit farmers. Experts in piggery estimate that farmers get small profit margins which leaves them with little options.
While pork consumption has been quite stable in the months following the first lockdown, it is feared that the next phase of the lockdown will not be kind to pig farmers. Feed costs, according to James Mugerwa, a mixed farmer, account for about 60 per cent of well-managed operations, which cut so much into the farmer’s profits.

With costs of transporting inputs expected to rise in the coming months, feed costs will follow the curve upwards. The main drivers for this anticipated demand for maize and soya beans is mainly fuelled by lockdown fears.
So, when a pig farmer invests in growing main pig feed components, maize and soybean, a kilogramme of these feedstuffs, the implications are harsh.

“Maize and soybean need first of all to be processed which increases their cost significantly,” Mugerwa says. Currently, a kilogramme of maize is sold at Shs270 while soybean sells at roughly  Shs1,200.
Compound feed concentrates offer balanced diets to enable farmers to give a balanced and healthy feed for their animals.
Mugerwa explains that pig farmers ought to use premium concentrates such as the pig 25%, an exceptional concentrate that relieves farmers from stress of sourcing for multiple feed ingredients. He explains that “in fact when using the pig 25% concentrate, there is no need for adding soybean soy cake or sunflower.”

Mixing maize
He explains that farmers can only use maize bran when its price is lower than that of maize. “Where maize bran is more expensive than maize like it happens during harvest and time when schools are not operational, farmers can always forego maize bran. All you need is to replace the quantity of maize bran with maize in concentrate formulations,” he says.
However, he cautions that the quantity of maize should be slightly reduced especially in reproductive herd rations to manage energy levels of the final feed.
He adds that this situation applies to pigs being grown for slaughter but not gilts intended for breeding, especially those nearing insemination and gestating sows.

Sows, he says, need fibre and controlled intake of both energy and protein most especially during gestation to reduce chances of foetal death and excessive growth of fat.
“Also due to the fact that pig 25 per cent concentrate contains high levels of proteins, uncontrolled consumption by gilts may lead to excessive fattening which can result in reproductive failure,” he cautions.
Controlled feeding
Mugerwa explains that feeding must be regulated, especially in gestating sows.
He says that the ration should be slightly reduced where only maize is used in the diet and divided into at least two portions. One portion can be given in the morning and the other in the evening.
Another useful technique, he says, is to crush and add a certain quantity of maize combs into diets for sows to cater for fibre and guard against nutrient dilution of the final feed.

The maths
For pigs being reared for slaughter, he says that the pig 25 per cent concentrate has three formulations.
For animals between 8-12 weeks, the total feed cost can be brought to Shs125,000 per 100 kilogrammes. 75 kilogrammes of maize can be mixed with 25 kilogrammes of pig 25 per cent concentrate. 25 kilogrammes of the concentrate cost Shs97,500.
For animals between 12-17 weeks, the ratio of maize is increased to 77.5 kilogrammes and the concentrate at 22.5 kilogrammes. The cost of 100 kilogrammes of feed is roughly Shs116,000.

In the final phase of pigs between 12-24 weeks, the maize ratio is increased to 80 kilogrammes while concentrate is 20 kilogrammes. The total feed cost is about Shs107,000. Taking into consideration average consumption to be 1.5kg per pig per day at 8-12 weeks, feeding one pig requires about Shs65,000 throughout that period. Pigs between 12 and17 weeks consume about 2.5 kilogrammes per pig a day, which implies an estimated Shs107,000 spent on feeding a single pig during those four weeks.

Between 17 and 24 weeks, each pig consumes three kilogrammes on average per day which requires about Shs164,000. The total feeding cost per pig, therefore, is about Shs320,000 until 24 weeks. Pigs can reach a market value of up to Shs700,000 in six to eight months. “This gives the farmer a picture of the total cost of production per kilogramme of both live and dead weight. You can also easily calculate the profitability,” he says. However,  pig 25% concentrate does not come cheap despite being superior over pig 5% concentrate. He advises using the pig 25% concentrate though as the best strategy for profitability.
“It easily replaces poor quality feeds especially where quality soybean/cake or sunflower cannot be accessed,” he says.

He says that small to medium farm operations, whose feed needs are negligible, can entirely depend on the premium concentrate to eliminate the negative effects of using poor quality feed as the cost of using Pig 25% concentrate on reproductive pigs is relatively low.