Abattoir
Supplier tools
Pig Sale Planner
Set your farm's limits and today's prices. The planner works out which weight to send pigs at, and what sending more, smaller pigs does to your throughput over a year.
Throughput a year
Throughput a kg
Carcass sent a year
Pigs sent a year
Age at sale
Throughput a finisher place a day
Money tied up in pigs
Net profit a year
What each sale weight earns a year
Lighter than the balance point: you run out of weaners, finisher places stand empty
Heavier: the finisher is full, weaners wait
More, smaller pigs
When to send
How the planner works
- Throughput is what we pay you less the costs that move with every pig: finisher feed, the cost of the weaner, and transport and levies. Wages, power and other overheads do not change with the sale weight, so they are left out; they come off throughput to give profit.
- Pigs a year is the smaller of two limits: your weaners, or your finisher places × 365 ÷ days in the finisher. At the balance point both are used in full. Lighter than that, pigs leave faster than weaners arrive and places stand empty. Heavier, the finisher is full and the number of pigs falls.
- Days in the finisher = (live weight at sale − weight into the finisher) ÷ daily gain, with live weight = carcass ÷ killing-out.
- Feed rises with weight: the feed needed for each kg of gain climbs in a straight line from the start of the finisher to the figure you set for the last kilograms, matched so that your last batch's weight uses exactly your last batch's feed.
- Spread: carcasses in a batch are spread around the mean with the CV you set. The share over 106.7 kg is paid the heavy price on the whole carcass; the share under 80 kg the light price.
- Operating expense does not change with the sale weight, so it never moves the best weight. It decides whether the farm makes a profit: net profit = throughput − operating expense − the interest on money tied up.
- Money tied up is the pigs standing in the finisher, valued at what they have cost so far: the weaner plus the feed eaten to date. Heavier pigs stay longer and carry more feed, so they tie up more money. The chart and the best weight include the interest on it.
- Deaths in the finisher, and differences in growth between boars and gilts, are not modelled.
- The example farm uses figures from a supplier's recent batch at Vryheid: 92.1 kg carcass at 150 days, 244 kg of finisher feed a pig, a CV of 8.4%, feed at R5.73 a kg and a price of R30.00 a kg. Replace them with your own.
Build 30 Sep 2026 · v2 · Your settings stay in this browser only. Figures are estimates for planning; the price you are paid is set by the settlement on each load.
Meatmasters Abattoir · Vryheid, KwaZulu-NatalThe care we take becomes the trust you earn.