Good pickings with pigs

In this article, a farmer had doubts about pig farming, until he reaped the dividends.

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Paying lip service to quality is unacceptable at Nutigh Farm, Weenen, KwaZulu-Natal, where Nico Dorfling and his wife, Trudie, practise what they preach in a piggery guaranteed to reassure any doubtful smallholder that the pig business is big business.

The piggery comprises several large, well-designed units, plus fields of kikuyu, ryegrass and maize for feed.

FROM OTHER PLANS TO PROFITS

Dorfling says he never intended farming pigs when buying “the piece of bush” in 1973. “I had other plans,” he says. “However, my wife, who is fond of weaners, finally persuaded me to buy six at Colenso. We raised them, kept records and sold them at the Pietermaritzburg abattoir a year later. Our profits convinced us that pigs were worthwhile.

“Although we were still inexperienced and lacked capital, we invested in a boar and 10 commercial sows, which we kept for another year in five makeshift pens. Here they farrowed and weaned before being moved to a soil camp.

“Our porkers were marketed at 12 months and we again showed a profit.”

The Dorflings reinvested this money in the piggery and expansion followed.