Should You farm with Pigs or Chickens?

Both pig and chicken farming is a profitable business, so which one should you choose? We take a look at the pro’s and cons of Chicken vs Pig farming and try to answer the question: Should I farm with Pigs or Chickens?

Return of investment Chickens vs Pigs

Broiler (meat chickens) has the fastest turn around in most likely any form of livestock farming. In only 5 weeks you can start seeing a positive profit but need to re-invest most of your first take to grow your business as demand for your products will certainly grow. Layers, depending if you buy them at point of lay or start off with day old chicks can also see fast profits. Starting with day old layers, you will have to feed them for 6 to 8 months before you start seeing income.

Pigs on the other hand is big animals with big a profit potential. Buying pregnant sows or even weaners will give you an massive advantage when you decide to farm with pigs. Let’s assume you start of with a pregnant sows, you will start seeing healthy profits in around 6 months.

Pig farming vs Chicken farming Labour Intensiveness

The amount of labour that you have to invest in farming with either chickens or pigs depends on your strategy. Free range pigs has hardly any labour involvement but you still have to give them extra feed daily and make sure that there is fresh water available. When they need their medical dozes, you will find that it is hard to do just that in the fields and they need to be caged. Intensive pig farming, the labour status changes dramatically. Pigs need clean pens, fresh water and feed throughout the day.

Free range chickens also need minimum care, but labour do get intensive when farming with layers. You need to collect the eggs on a daily basis and the eggs needs to be stored properly for future sales.

So what is the best pig farming or chicken farming?

Before you answer this question yourself you need to look at your marketing and business plan.

What animal will do better in your area. Do you have a slaughter house for poultry or other livestock in your area? Can you transport chickens or pigs? How much help will you need to load and transport your animals. Learn the laws around transporting the livestock you are interested in farming with.

• Broilers has the fastest return of investment but finding abattoirs that will slaughter other farmers broilers is hard and costly.
• Buying point of lay chickens will speed up your business but is very costly in both purchasing and feed.
• Pig farming has the biggest small scale farming profits, but is extremely labour intensive from weaning to slaughter.

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Should You farm with Pigs or Chickens?

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