Squeezed between rising input costs and producer prices, reducing feed costs is always top-of-mind for farmers. Running a piggery is no exception, and Stephani Barker, monogastric technical advisor for Meadow Feeds, joined this Farmer’s Inside Track podcast to provide some tips on reducing on-farm feed costs.
“There’s been a lot of market changes in the pork industry recently, such as fluctuating pork prices and raw material volatility. It requires farmers to have a lot more control over their input costs,” Barker told host Dawn Noemdoe.
Feed costs make up 70% of the input costs on a farm, making strategies to decrease on-farm feed costs vitally important.
Nutritional strategies
“People often think that by decreasing the total nutrients in the feed or restricting the feed intake [they will] save money on-farm, but in the long term, this is not a worthwhile solution. This does not bring in the highest margin from your pigs.”
Barker says she would not suggest this strategy if farmers are trying to maintain growth, performance, and income from the piggery. Instead, she suggests several nutritional strategies to enable farmers to reduce their input costs while still maintaining good growth and protecting their profit margins.
The most important of these nutritional solutions is taking care of the digestibility of the diet, as well as keeping a keen eye on the cost and quality of raw materials and the nutrients in these.
“For example, maize is the most widely used energy source in pigs in South Africa, but there are other grains available such as barley and wheat. They can be considered good alternatives to reduce the maze inclusion when they are available and when they are more affordable,” says Barker.
In this episode, Barker also discusses:
- Reducing on-farm feed wastage; and
- The digestibility of the diet.
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