Pig Farming 101

All about pig farming 101 and basic pig raising know-how.

By Patricia Imig
Updated on January 20, 2025
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by Adobestock/Tim Barnes

Everything you need to know to successfully raise pigs on your homestead. Feeding, breeding, selecting a pig breed, raising piglets, marketing and more pig farming 101.

Pat Imig, her husband (Richard), and their three children (a girl, 11, and two boys, 3 and 1) live on an eight-acre mini-farm approximately 30 miles west of Lincoln, Nebraska. “This is the heart of agribiz country,” says Pat, “and it’s almost impossible out here to find information about the operation of a small farmstead. We had to learn the hard way how to make just a few hogs pay all the day-to-day expenses of our shirttail farming enterprise.”

The pigs that the Imigs market each year bring in enough money–over and above their own costs–to support a cow, two ponies, two to three sheep, 14 geese, 30 ducks, 30 chickens, a big garden, a bed of rhubarb, some mulberry trees, and a cherry, peach, apple, and pear orchard.

“Except for a few staples–coffee, flour, sugar, etc–our little farm feeds us every bite we eat,” Pat says. “We butcher a hog and a calf each year, eat a lot of geese, ducks, and chickens, have all the milk and eggs we want, and make good use of the garden and orchard. We even have a few eggs and some holiday geese left over to sell, and that miscellaneous cash income goes a long way toward paying for the few staples we buy from town.”

To put it another way, the Imigs have all the same expenses–a mortgage, taxes, fuel, electricity–to cover with Richard’s wages as a welder that they’d have if they still lived in town. All the expenses, that is, except food. And thanks to the hog operation they run, their tiny farm keeps the Imig refrigerator, freezer, and pantry filled with good things to eat … at no out-of-pocket expense at all.

“And besides that,” says Pat, “we also get to enjoy the luxury of living in the country!”

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