Food conversion ratio pigs

What is the feed conversion ratio for pigs?

Pigs usually consume about eight pounds of feed in a day. Farmers usually spend around $55 - $60 on feed for one pig. The total cost to raise a pig is about $100. That means that the cost to feed the pig is about 55% - 60% of the total cost to raise it!

Feed Conversion Ratio, or feed conversion efficiency (FCE), is the ability of livestock to turn feed mass into body mass. A chicken's feed conversion ratio is 2:1, so by consuming 2 pounds of feed, such as corn, the chicken's body weight increases 1 pound. Pig's ratio is 3-4:1 and cows are 7-10:1.

All of this effects the price you pay for the various meat items.

Zoetis

Pig Feed Conversion Ratio – The Smaller the Figure, The Bigger the Profit!

As an industry we are obsessed with figures: Pigs weaned per sow per year, Replacement Rates, Farrowing Rates, Mortality, Average Daily Gain (ADG) etc. But the most financially important of these figures, if you finish your pigs, is Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR).

FCR is calculated by dividing the kg of feed eaten daily, by the kg of live weight gained daily. For example, if a pig ate 1kg of feed a day and put on 0.5kg in weight his FCR = 2. In my head I directly translate the FCR number as the kg of feed the pig would need to eat to gain 1kg in weight, therefore the lower the FCR the better!

The thing with FCR is that a little change in the number can make a big difference. For example, if your finishing period (40kg – 110kg) FCR goes up from 2.8 to 2.9, it doesn’t seem very significant. But if you finish 15,000 pigs annually that is an extra 105 tonnes of feed a year, if we take a rough cost of finisher feed as £175 per tonne that’s £18,375 a year extra that you have to spend!

A simple equation or complex balance?

Growing takes energy, and that energy comes from feed.

• ADG = Energy Intake – Energy for bodily functions – Energy for movement

So, to improve growth we can either increase feed intake, which is expensive, or we can reduce the energy that pigs are wasting elsewhere hence improving FCR. Now obviously we can’t change their basic bodily functions and we don’t want to restrict their movement, but there are some areas we can target:

True FCR can only be changed by altering pig management and nutrition, but most people calculate FCR based on feed delivered to a farm, not feed actually eaten. This means some people have a higher FCR just through feed wastage. Ensure all feed delivered to your farm actually reaches the pigs by keeping feed bins, augurs, pipes and feeders in good condition to avoid any wastages. A little waste each day can add up to an awful lot!