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Pig Farming Pros & Con

Pig farming business is one of the most lucrative agribusinesses around the world and pigs are kept in one form or another almost everywhere in the world. In rural areas of many parts of the world, it is still common to find pigs rooting and roaming freely around communities, such pigs are sold or slaughtered as the need arises.

Pig-keeping enterprises are also found in and around towns and cities, and they play an important role in feeding the urban population.

What are the pros and cons of owning and raising pigs? There are several pros to raising pigs, and also several cons. Some of the pros include their low-maintenance care, the amount of meat you get per animal, their quick growth rate, and their knack for eating anything – all the while giving you a quality product. Some of the cons of raising pigs include the fact that pigs are destructive, they are difficult to keep contained, they have particularly offensive manure, and they eat a lot. They are also incredibly smart – you can be the judge of whether this is a pro or a con.

Advantages of Pig Farming In Kenya

Consumption of pork products is already growing across Kenya!

Urbanisation and economic growth is leading to the increasing presence of international and local fast food restaurants across our country.

Pigs are easy to find/buy in most areas

In most of the country, pigs are easy to find and buy. If you have a custom slaughterhouse (a butcher that processes meat animals for individuals, not companies) then there are pigs for sale somewhere around there.

Pigs multiply really fast!

One of the reasons why pig farming is very lucrative is that pigs multiply really fast. One sow (mature female pig) can farrow (give birth to) between 8 and 18 piglets at a time.

The gestation (pregnancy) period for pigs is just four months and sows can farrow up to two times a year.

Pigs grow to market size very fast because of their amazingly high feed-to-meat conversion ratios. This simply means that for every kilogram of food they eat, pigs produce more flesh (meat) than cattle, goats and sheep.

Pigs are highly adaptable and easy to farm

According to one of our recommended manuals, pigs have over 15,000 taste buds (humans have just about 9,000). This enables them to eat everything humans eat and other stuff like grass, forage and feed eaten by other animals.

In fact, pigs are the best and most efficient animals for converting kitchen wastes, garbage, leftover food and other non-conventional feedstuffs into meat.

Considering the high and rising cost of grains and concentrates used to produce animal and livestock feeds, the ability of pigs to consume a wide variety of foods increases its profit potential as a business. Since they are able to recycle most materials (which they eat and convert to meat), pigs help farmers to largely reduce feeding costs and waste.

Pigs also have a high resistance to diseases (these guys hardly get sick) and adapt easily to most environments (hot or cold). This makes it possible for pigs to be raised on both a small and large scale.

Due to this adaptability, pigs make great candidates for intensified or diversified agriculture that fits a wide range of budgets.

It’s also important you know that pigs do not have sweat glands and have no way of cooling themselves when they get hot.

So they don’t die of heat exhaustion, pigs raised in the open often wallow in the mud as a way to cool down.

A pig’s love of mud is not for the sake of filth or dirtiness; it’s just a basic act of survival. Pigs by nature are actually very clean animals. Yeah, I was surprised too but that’s what the experts say!

Pigs yield more meat…

Despite their ability to convert more feed into body weight (flesh/meat), pigs also produce more meat when they are slaughtered.

Unlike cattle, sheep and goats which produce between 50 and 55 percent meat from their bodies, pigs can yield up to 70 percent edible meat because they have a much smaller proportion of bones than meat.

In addition to its high meat yields, meat processors and marketers love pig carcasses because they’re easier to handle and package compared to other types of meat.

Disadvantages of pig farming

This topic might seem strange to an average man or woman, but the purpose of this post is to highlight the pros and disadvantages of pig farming, so that precautions could be taken when venturing into the business or breeding for personal consumption.

CANNIBALISM

Cannibalism is the process or act of consuming flesh. Pig is a well know cannibal, but it’s own is a different thing all together because they are fond of cannibalising on their babies. Are you surprised?. Pigs do eat their new born babies (piglets), more especially when they are hungry, they start taking a toll on their new born babies.

This is what many farmers that are not into pig farming or that have no concrete idea about pigs don’t know.

Unsurprisingly, this might be one of the reasons some religious beliefs dislike both pig and it’s meat which is known as pork.
The act of pigs cannibalising on their new born babies is one of the disadvantages of pig farming.

The only remedy or solution to this problem is, always watch your pig or pigs when they have babies and try as much as possible to make sure they don’t lack food in any way.

Another way is to quickly separate the mother pig with her babies from the rest of the pigs and feed the mother pig very well, so that she won’t eat her babies and also other pigs won’t eat them too.

LAWSY SOWS

Some people don’t know that pigs are very lazy in nature, more especially the female ones.

This act of laziness could go a long way to becoming a great disadvantage in pig farming, whether for personal consumption or for commercial purpose.

Here are some of the disadvantages of pigs being lazy.

The Sows can not be able to feed their piglets appropriately, they are so lazy that they can hardly go and give their piglets breast to suck, in some cases, so this could hinder their feeding method and their growth. Even to drink water is normally hard for them to do because of laziness which is also a problem. The mother is not so different from their kid’s laziness also.

The only solution it to keep them in a tight housing, so that they won’t have much struggle meeting their piglets for breastfeeding.

FOUL/OFFENSIVE SMELL

This is one of the biggest mistakes many farmers make, they don’t isolate pig farm house on a place far from where people are living, this is a very great disadvantage in pig farming. Pigs can smell very bad and when a pig farm is placed closer to a living place can be a very high air pollutant agent.

This is because of the smell from it’s dungs and urine. May be you might be think of cleaning it regularly so that there will be no smell, ( lol) that is ridiculous. There is no how you clean your pig farm house that the smell won’t be still coming out, this is one of the reasons justified by people for calling pig a dirty animal. With this, it is not advisable to locate a pig farm closer to where people are living.

PRONE TO DISEASES

Another serious Disadvantage or problem with pig farming is ,they are very prone to diseases of many kinds, this is very common in their little ones and could degenerate into high mortality rate if not controlled properly with the necessary medications.

Apart from the diseases that could kill them, they also have diseases that could attack human beings that consume that particular sick pork like the ring worm. this worm is very common in pork meat and can put anyone that consume it into a serious life threatening condition. The only remedy for this is to avoid undone pork at any cost and make sure you over cook your pork meat before you consume so that any work or any other diseases in that meat will die of heat from cooking.

NOISE MAKING

Pigs are known for being noisy, this can be a great disadvantage of pig farming in many cases, We all know very well that noise pollution is one of the greatest pollution ever! Noise can be a disturbing factor in the sense that it can cause high B.P or even kill people that are already suffering from B.P, heart attack and can even cause depression for so many people and insomnia.

so sighting a pig farm close to people is a very bad move, mainly because of the noises from the pigs.

It is highly advisable to locate your farm in either a busy or an isolated area because of noise and even smell and I explained above.

AGAINST SOME RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

When I say that pig rearing and pork consumption is against some people’s religious doctrines, it’s is not a fable.

Pigs can be destructive

Pigs can be destructive to property, both land and equipment. Most of a pig’s “destructive” behavior is them looking for something to do, so it’s really not destructive, it’s normal pigness.

They will rub and root their way around the pen daily. You can harness this ability by giving them something to do, like plenty of bedding to root through or throw in interesting snacks for them to search around and find.

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