07/08/2007 
Feed costs are bursting! – Is it easier now for pigs mature for slaughter to be delivered? - A comment by Andreas Beckhove, ISN market expert
Presently, feed costs do know no bounds. At the beginning of the barley harvesting season, prices of EUR 14 to 15 per deci-ton (dt) were discussed about. But now prices are rampant, going up to EUR 20 per dt. As for wheat, no charges can be purchased at less than EUR 20 per dt, and the limit has not yet been reached. Sure, both hysteria and euphoria are at the play, too, but times are definitely over where no more than EUR 10 had to be paid per dt. Needless to say that, against the background of this, the pig farmers wonder in what way they might respond to this kind of development.
Understandably enough, increasing productivity and bettering profitability are being much more focussed on in times as difficult as they are now. This should, however, go without saying even in good times and should always be granted top priority. But what might be interesting to do with feed costs going beyond EUR 60 per fattening pig is to reduce slaughter weights.
There are various reasons going for it:
- With animals being lighter in weight, less feed is needed for maintaining reproduction capacities. On top of that, fattening pigs beyond 115 kg live weight in particular tend to run to much fat. But for producing one kilogram of fat, much more effort is needed than for producing a kilogram of muscle mass. So, feed conversion is so much the better as the pigs are lighter in weight.
- During the final stage in fattening, daily growth noticeably peaks off, because feed consumption cannot be increased at will.
- Deductions as a result of billing masks amount to such high totals in many companies, because there pigs are always fattened up to the maximum allowed weight. Deductions like these might decrease at lower slaughter weights and thus have a positive effect on the revenue.
- If compared with the slaughter revenue, piglets don’t cause costs to increase too much presently. So the statement no longer applies that
we need to distribute the number of piglets to as much kilograms of pork as possible
. Quite the contrary: Just with favourable piglet charges, the price per kg already falls below the current pigs-mature-for-slaughter-revenue.
Apart from the reasons mentioned above, reducing the sales weight would – if it was undertaken by a major number of pig farmers – be an even more charming option as the overall quantity of pork would thus be reduced. The pig prices might get new impetus through this. Moreover, the rotational system would increase in number at lower slaughter weights and more piglets would be needed. Such would be a relief of strain urgently needed on the piglet market at present, unless it is desired that the farmers consecutively throw in the towel over the next few months.
For that reason, every farmer is asked to check out his own marketing ways to find out whether or not lowering slaughter weights would be a sensible thing to do for business reasons.
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