Can you make money on small scale pig operation?

"You're better off just not figuring your labor... you figure in your labor you'll just get depressed and quit doing it." Subscribed. That's honesty right there.

I wanted to come on here and sing this man’s praises! We had a little pig go down hard yesterday. We had no idea what was wrong! My husband has been watching Chris for a while as we have just really gotten into hog raising. Chris not only emailed Michael back, but he spoke with my husband on the phone last night for well over an hour. He pointed us in a direction we hadn’t thought about to really help our piglet. She is not out of the woods yet, but she made it through the night. This KZheadr deserves millions of followers. He’s an amazingly nice guy that genuinely loves hogs. Thank you Chris! Love, the Vinson family- Woodruff, SC

"Better not figure the labor or you'll get so depressed you'll wanna quit" couldn't stop laughing.

Most of them KZhead channels are pushing their Amazon affiliate links and selling crap you Don need to farm. Thank you for your honest channel and I’ll never stop watching. Lol you know you are sick when you farm all day and wind down by watching farmers on KZhead after supper.

Best PIG VID i saw on youtube. KZhead is the Homesteaders' business not the Homestead. thanks Chris.

Started last year with three and learned a lot from you , a lot of other KZheadrs have good advice but they tend to leave out the bad and dark side of it, I knew it wasn't going to be easy by watching your videos and that actually help me out during the process

I’ve spent the past several days watching 4yrs of Chris-Homesteading the Hardway , explaining his way of raising hogs. I haven’t raised any since we were kids and my Daddy raised a few, so I’ve forgotten everything I knew except what I’ve picked up from friends. That being said, My wife and I decided to get a couple of Old Spot/Hampshire crosses and these videos have been a great crash refresher and good new ideas since I’ve done it. We live mostly on wild game except the pork and chicken we buy and we decided we’d rather grow our own. Appreciate the honesty. I relate way better to a good ole country boy than I do a new age homesteader. Not that I don’t root them on, I just don’t relate. Subbed and following along.

Jeegus, thats first 8 second stare at the beginning is priceless. Im bettin that man dont let no strangers wander onto his land.

I hope you keep spreading the good information man really help having it as a young guy with no experience with pigs just cattle

Thank you for your honesty.

Thank you, I love how you get myself and others to really look at the issues and think about them. It is so good to see you and your wife again❣️

Chris, we’ve been away for a while, personal reasons. Coming back to KZhead and you and are the first channel we want to catch up with. Loved your truths as always! Your friend, James from Georgia

Thanks for the honesty and knowledge you shared on this video. We started raising AGH pigs two years ago. We are about to process two on our own in the next month. We have considered getting into it as a business but there are for sure many variables. So many videos sugar coating the business end. I really like how you broke it down! New subscriber now!

Glad to see you guys back I've been following you for a little while now I love the information I raise quite a few feeder pigs up here in the state of Maryland keep up the great work thanks

Man you have the best Pig info on youtube. keep it up

Topping pigs look great Chris. As long as I'm physically able we will always do Farrow to finish. It's real work but worth it. Glad to see you doing well.

Thanks for all the hard work and all you do! You help a lot of people!

Keep up the honest great work you put into the videos. Great content and advice

I really enjoy your content. I have been running my homestead full time for 9 yrs now. You really hit the nail on the head about cash flow. Cash flow keeps the lights on, and the herd fed.

Thank you an honest youtuber...been farming for 40 years and I've seen all the stories...and been wondering where I have been going wrong !!! Maybe it's because I have indoor plumbing ?? Again thank you

So good to see you & miss Darlene back doing videos. Them sure are some good looking durocs.

I just found your channel. I really enjoy it so far. I appreciate you just telling it like it is with no bs.

Good to see you coming back my friends! I hope all is well. We need all the truth and honesty we can get.

Glad to see you up again, don’t over do it. As always thanks for keeping it real talk.

Great video…what you said about paying yourself back is something I was taught by my father and as some of the most sound financial advice that anyone could give. Probably the best thing I’ve ever seen in video on financial advice.

Grew up on a dairy/hog farm..went to school smelling that way many times. Now I'm retiring very soon from trucking and plan to go back to my roots and restart hog and beef raising. Lots changed in 50 years. Including the amount odd land i have to raise my animal feed etc. Im starting with 5 good brood sows and a few black Angus cross. They're are actually been gifted to me from relation when they found out on getting back into the business. Keep doing what your doing. Love the straight forward. Like My dad was when i was a kid. 👍🐷

Appreciate the honesty. Due to your videos I’m getting 4 feeder pigs to raise ourselves to feed the immediate family. They will be on the farm in mid March.

Brother that was the realist pig farmin video I ever saw. Spot on. Thanks for sharing

That was good advice from your Father for any home business. Take care Chris and Darlene.

Best advice on KZhead concerning raising hogs! From building pens, to feed, etc. thank you for your open honest advice and experience!

Chris, looks like you expanded your hog operation, where a garden bed once was. I'm glad to see you was able to do it and things seem to be going well for you, hogwise... Blessings to both You and Darlene!🙏

New subscriber here. Almost two years in with large whites. No experience prior but I am fully into learning. This animal is truly amazing. I want lessons from a true farming family. Glad to have found you. Thanks for teaching and keeping it real.

This is the first video of yours that I have watched. I just wanted to say Thank You for your honesty.

Chris thanks for being so brutally honest. Good advise and you are so right to forward and not with your head in the sand

Your Dad was a great man!! Thanks for the old school teaching about the pigs. My God bless y’all

Your honesty and “farm economics” is what made me subscribe. Thank you.

I wish I had a neighbor like him!

I enjoyed it as always. Glad to see a new video. I for one appreciate the honesty and the fact that you are not in it for the views but just to share some knowledge and help others. God bless you.

Thank you Bro. You went hard in the paint on this video and kept it 💯‼️

Another great video with plenty of information. Thanks for the video. Also didn't know that these homestead videos are mostly fake but not surprised thanks again

Hey Chris thanks for all the tips. They really helped. I Did 5 this last year and they turned out great. We’re not going to get quite those prices here in central Kansas that you were mentioning about but they are still doing decent here. Thanks again

I appreciate your honesty. There's a lot to the business, actually any business. There's a lot of factors involved.

Wow 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽 this is a great wealth of knowledge to learn from… 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

I was lucky I have a lot of friends that were farmers. It didn't take me long to realize you have to have realistic goals and expectations. I had people who were experienced at raising beef and pork or "Truckbed Farmers" all the way up to college educated commercial farmers, they helped me to understand from the beginning that you're not gonna become financially independent raising livestock, you do it for the joy of it and for a side hustle to put some extra money in your pocket during the good times. Unfortunately for every good day there are two bad ones, but if you are smart, humble and play within your capabilities you can do enough in most years to make it worth it to continue. If you want to start up, listen to every word this gentlemen is telling you because he is telling you like it is. It looks like this guy has a beautiful set up and yet he is telling you that your not gonna get rich....that is nothing but truth and some of the best advice you will ever get.

Good morning, Chris like everyone else the honesty in this particular video was extremely informative. I am new to farming and like you suggested I did a tremendous amount of research on the market in my area, and also went with a heritage-style breed of pig which has been received well by the locals in my area.with that being said like you had mentioned by the time you pay for feed ,processing and break down all the hours that you have worked to achieve the product you're basically really not making much money on that pig. But it's something that I absolutely enjoy doing with my grandson thank you for the information,the brutal honesty keep doing what you're doing and keeping those of us that still have a lot to learn informed

Good video. Your analysis is right on. Around me the price of feed went up 60-75% in 2022. That hurts when you are feeding out hogs. Fortunately the price of pork in the store has help to justify small scale local operations. One challenge I have faced with the customer base is that lots of folks are interested until they figure out they are into if for $800+ for a whole hog. Building a consistent customer base is a big deal.

Glad to see you back. Your spot on. Anything you plan to do to make money is a business.

Your pigs are so clean and cute! Thanks for addressing the good and the bad!

I believe the hardest part is finding enough customers to buy from ya.

I love the honesty. It lets us know what to expect, the good, bad and ugly.

Enjoyed your video. I'm a retired farmer in mid-Missouri. I helped my dad on the farm until he passed, then I built a central farrowing house and operated with 55 sows - farrow to finish. Lots of work but also lots of fun. I made a decent living including raising 125 acres of crops and a 45 cow herd. I enjoy being retired.

Thank you for the videos. picked up my first two piglets today. Were in north MS. 15.35 per 50lb bag local feed mill. I hope yall have a good 2023.

Thats a good and honest assessment. Really appreciate it!

Good evening and lots of love from Ohio! I ain't even about to jump into pig farming, but I've got me some heritage feeder pigs coming close to weaning age that I'll be raising. A neighbor asked me to raise one for them and in exchange they will by half the feed I need for all 4. I had only planned on 3 so, sound d like a good deal to me, saves me half the cost of feeding mine. I've learned what to feed and how the pens need to be from you. Valuable information that you're giving for free. I know that steer feed out you told me about worked great and would have been great had someone not cut my fence and stole my steer. So that's a start over. Thank you so much, you are appreciated. Have a great evening and God bless.

Sir, thank you for keeping it honest and real. I had not seriously considered the KZhead channel being the primary ‘business’… Best wishes to you and the Missus.

You shoot straight from the hip. But reality is some of these people definitely dont understand profit etc. You are so right

Excellent lecture Chris. Economics and Accounting. Can't do much analysis without it. Looks like you nailed it to me. Cash flow is key. I happened to be lucky enough to know Ralph Ketner well for many years. Worked for his business school while he was still living. Wise man indeed. First, he locked himself in a hotel room in Charlotte to run numbers on Food Town (which turned into Food Lion) and discovered they were actually broke. Cash flow issue. His solution is what saved and made Food Lion. Volume and small margins. Second, he had a saying. If you watch your pennies your dollars add up. ;) Wise words for anyone in farming. Be blessed.

Glad to see you posting videos again. Just found your channel a couple months ago. Nice to see someone telling it how it is. We have a few sows ourselves as well as cattle in NB Canada. Have a great day

Hi Chris, really enjoy your channel watching your videos on hogs ! Brings back a lot of good memories in the 70s and early 80s when we raised hogs we had Hampshire sows and Duroc Boars And in the late 80s and 90s had Landrace sows with a Yorkshire boars.🐖 Raise hogs for a long time , Had cattle too. really enjoyed it ! now I have Nigerian dwarf goats 🐐me and my grandson we enjoy Raising them ! You right on the 🚜 farm all you need is a 30-30 ,12-gauge shotgun and a .22 rifle ! Your videos are GREAT 👍 God-bless you and your family and hope 🙏 all's well !

Straight up. Honest information is hard to come by nowadays

Hi Chris. I just found y'all's videos a couple days ago. Have started to go back and watch them. I enjoyed the ones I have seen. Y'all stay safe and God bless. Look forward to seeing more videos.

Honest and to the point good advise to us subscribers . can count on it from homesteading the hard way see yall on the next video

We raise 10-15 feeders a year and we barley cover the cost of the 2 that we put in our freezer. I’m half tempted to make a trip down south and get a some breeding stock from you Chris. Your pigs are healthy as can be and I know you know your stuff! Glad to see a video hopefully you can keep them coming. Stay well my friend

love it been raising pigs for over twenty years and finally found someone that spits the truth

Ty. Great coverage

Looking good great video cut to the chase straight talk love it

Great information. You are 100% correct, with the cost of everything going sky high it’s really hard to make a profit. Thank you

WOW, thanks for the brutal honesty. That's why so many farmers diversify in produce besides livestock to help offset feed for humans and livestock consumption. Be safe and be true.

Just starting to build my pen for a few feeders. I've learned so many valuable lessons from this channel it's crazy. My figuring is, if I can grow my own pork and break even on cost in the long run by selling one or 2 here and there is a winning game. If profit were to come, even better.

This is exactly what i wanted, an opinion of someone who has been doing it a long time. Thanks.

Awesome info. Appreciate the reality aspect. My 15 year old son starting his farm. Realistic expectations are critical.

I have been talking to my brothers about going in together raising a few hogs on my land. Not to sell. Just to eat. We could put in the work to build a proper pen and shelter. Then we could buy what we want to put into the freezer that year. Then we can split the cost of feeding and upkeep. I’m the only one who has the land, space, time, and the zoning to raise them. Then at the end of the year we can have them all processed. Or we can keep a breeding pair to get piglets once a year. I have 7 siblings.

Chris, I rarely post comments on KZhead but I thought you might benefit from hearing what I have to say. I really appreciate you taking the time to share the information and experience you have gained over the years. I recently found myself as the owner of what was supposed to be a "slaughter' ready pig. I had agreed to buy the pig to help out a family member. Well the pig was far from ready for slaughter. In fact it weighed less than 100 pounds. By watching your videos and using the information you provided I was able to put over 200 pounds on the pig in about 3 months and now have a freezer full of high quality pork. I realize it takes a lot of time and effort to make these videos and you may sometimes wonder if it's makes any difference. In my case it certainly did. Thank you for the help and keep up the good work.

I just figure the profit is what I get for my labor. Then the numbers look better. We're just starting out though and appreciate your videos. I hope this year goes well for you!

Don’t buy your hogs from the stockyard unless you know about them. I got some and was buying antibiotics of the start. Couldn’t find a butcher during Covid. You have some great knowledge thank you..and those KZheadrs are making money on views from people wanting to get rich quick

Good, straight talk! Refreshing to hear the other side of the story.

Truer words were never spoken. Thank you.

Agreed with everything you say. And beware of following tips and tricks from some of these channels. They put up some click bait titles and try to tell you how to be 'successful like them', but when you put pencil to paper those folks are profiting maybe just a few thousand dollars a year at most and have only been raising livestock for a year or two.

Thanks for the videos! Best most informative Info I’ve found on pig farming . Could you do a video on what you look for in “type” when choosing pigs for breeding stock?

We make 400 on average pig pig selling them how you described. We’ve lost our ass in the start but we learned a lot from your videos. We make spreadsheets, keep receipts and buy frugal, never cheap. Cheers y’all.

Thank you for keeping it real

Straight talk from those who came before us...im all ears...thank you sir.

Great video, Chris. You've really worked for what yall have built there. Have you warmed up to hog wire a little more now? I'm just about going to have to go with hog wire for my tops because I can't afford $40 per hog panel.

I've never met him, but I know a lot of people just like him and I'm a good judge of character. I believe every word he said is the truth.

Awesome video. Love you being a straight shooter. At what age do you sell your feeder piglets?

Outstanding video Chris. That's just what I needed after having surgery today. Those are some great looking hogs! Duroc and spot?

Haven’t seen you guys lately. Praying everything is well with you all.🙏🏻

Good Stuff. Thnx for the video. I need to find a farmer to buy from in florida. Those pigs looked good and healthy they way they should.

Those are some great lookin’ pigs ! - KJ

Thank you. I am really glad I found this video and subscribed, will watch all you other videos.. Just starting out and your advice really makes sense....Have 3 Large Blacks. I could'nt make out what breed you have there. Are those Tamworths, thanks!

Thank you for speaking the hard truth! Subbed for whatever is worth. I think there is another subset of these small hobby farms if you will who are fine with break even or small loss in order to be raising their own food. Selling into the market is just about mitigation TCO.

I keep 20 Berkshire sows in central va. Thank you for putting your truth out there. I struggle with modern marketing.We have hit a wall over the last year with feeder pig sales . Dead stop. You said I’ve seen it when you couldn’t get rid of them. So true. This to shall pass

Thank you for your video and time sir. Very much appreciate your hard work and wisdom

Thx for the info. We have 4 wooded acres down south and are considering getting 2 feeder pigs to raise- they can get rid of the underbrush.

We have a small chicken/egg operation. Between 100-200 birds. We are lucky if we break even. If I factor in labor we never break even. The best way for me to look at it is we get free eggs that are fresh and higher quality, and we get the meat when we cull a flock. But it is certainly not feasible to do as a business. I’d have to charge a lot more per dozen and I just don’t think I could get it. I’ve found ways to cut feed costs as much as possible while still using good quality feed and that has helped but it’s also more work. I need to install fencing and if I count that towards cost I won’t be even breaking even for a long time. But, we do it anyway. Life is work and I’d rather raise chickens and do all that we do than sit around watching tv or something like that.

Am I the only one that wishes Chris would upload a lot more videos !!

Excellent video! Pigs are not easy money maker. Raised hogs and cattle all my life. Smells like money!

Great advice and honest explanation of how even a small farm must have a little cash flow

All I hear when this man speaks is wisdom.

Thanks, glad to see someone telling the truth. I'm about to start farming soon and all I notice is youtubers who make youtube money and buy expensive unrealistic things. I doubt they make any money farming. It's all from youtube and selling us false dreams, ad revenue, and whatever sponsor.