Feed Budgeting in Commercial Swine Operations
Accurate feed cost tracking is the single most important financial discipline in swine production. Feed represents 60–70% of total variable costs, making even small errors in ration cost estimation significant at scale.
Key cost drivers:
- Feed price per ton: Corn and soybean meal — the two largest ingredients — are commodity-priced and volatile. Locking in feed costs through forward contracts or on-farm storage smooths cash flow.
- Feed per pig per day: Increases with pig weight (body weight^0.75 metabolic scaling), stage of production, and environmental temperature.
- Group size: Cost savings from bulk purchasing scale linearly — a 500-head barn has very different per-unit economics than a 50-head operation.
Phase-specific daily feed rates (corn-soy, ad lib):
- Nursery (12–50 lbs): 0.8–1.5 lbs/day
- Grower (50–130 lbs): 3–5 lbs/day
- Finisher (130–280 lbs): 5–8 lbs/day
- Gestating sow: 4–5.5 lbs/day
- Lactating sow: 12–16 lbs/day