Lessons in entrepreneurship

Yesterday the last of Madeline's 4-H pigs went to the locker. A bit of a sad day for her, but all a part of being a hog farmer. And a hog farmer she is. Even though her own hogs are gone now, she still goes out every morning and chores our sows, boar and butcher pigs for us. I laughed the other day when she told a newspaper reporter, "Hogs are kind of my thing."

You might recall she started out with 8 pigs, lost 2 early on, ending up with 6 to choose from for the county fair. 4-H'ers are allowed to take up to 5 to the fair - a derby barrow, a derby gilt, a market barrow, a market gilt, and a 5th one to round out a pen of 3 entry. Hogs brought to the fair are not allowed to be taken home again. They must be sold right from the fair to the packer, at grade & yield market price.

In the interest of actually making a profit on her hogs, she decided she'd only take 4 to fair and sell the remaining two head directly. One of our customers even came to the farm to select and load their pig themselves (most of the time we select the pig and haul it to the locker for our customers.) Madeline helped them pick the one they took, telling them why she thought he was the better pig, and helped load him up.

We haven't sat down and figured her actual profit (or loss) yet, but I do know that she'll gross almost as much on the 2 head she sold directly as she did on the 4 head she sold at market price!

Maddog's Hogs: Chapter 1

Cute, little sleeping piglet butts!

This is a guest post from Madeline, age 12


Hi. I'm Madeline and my mom said that I should write about my babies (my pigs). So here it goes.

Well first of all they already are really tame! Thanx to me! So that's good. I'm sorry to say, though, that we have lost one! She was the biggest gilt. She died by drowning.

See, we have this nipple water and a baby feeder. The feeder has 3 sections to it and an open top where you pour the feed. Then our nipple water is a 5 gallon bucket with a plastic nipple in the side and you fill it with water. I figured that they were smart enough not to go on top of it and get the water that way!

Well I guess I was wrong, because when I came up from playing in the basement to check on them I saw her butt up. I went over there and gasped! Of course the rest you could probably figure out if you know me personally! I went over there with my mouth opened big and eyes bugging out. I poked her butt and when she didn't move that is the part where I shed, well, let's say more than one tear.

At that time Olivia was over by me and when I started pulling her out (the pig) she said, "Okay, okay wait," and she ran to the other side of the room. My mom was really the only one that made an attempt to comfort me. Once she heard the tractor over by the garage (because I was loading my baby up) she came downstairs and asked what happened. Once I told her what happened she said "Oh that sucks!"

So yeah, that was an upsetting day.

My dad of course only said, "So...I heard you lost a pig!" And my dog Ava wasn't much comfort either, because the next morning I saw the pig up by our front porch...what do you think that means? Now thanx to my dad's great thinking we have a lid on the bucket. So for all of you first or second or even third time pig lovers/owners MAKE SURE YOU PUT A LID OVER YOUR BUCKET!! Or else they might drown!.!

Anyway, I have to open the garage door once a day at the least to air out the stink in there! I also have to scoop out their pen once a week and I give them straw whenever they need it. We have heat lamps for them, too, just in case they get too cold.

They truely are the babies of the family!

Thanks for reading our blog...and for those of you who purchase our meat, I will be having some meat for sale (pork) but I just wanted to let you know that they had antibiotics put in them before we got them and they haven't had vegetarian food. But I do have meat for sale if anyone feels like making a little girl very happy!

Love,
Madeline*


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