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What does it cost to raise a pig for meat?

Short answer

About $245–365 a pig before the butcher — roughly $1.75–2.65 a pound of pork in the freezer, plus whatever your processor charges

A 50-lb feeder pig ran $65.50 in Missouri's 2025 planning budget. Growing it to 250 lb takes about 600 lb of feed at 3 lb per pound of gain (Wisconsin) — $180–300 at $15–25 a 50-lb bag — over roughly 100–118 days at 1.7–2.0 lb a day. A 250-lb hog dresses at about 72% to a 180-lb carcass, and bone-in cuts come to about 74–80% of that: roughly 133–144 lb of pork (K-State, UW–Madison). That's about $1.75–2.65 a pound before processing, and processing is the line nobody can quote you but your processor.

The arithmetic

  1. Feeder pig: $65.50 for a 50-lb pig in Missouri's 2025 budget (prices as of October 2024). Your local price is the one that counts.
  2. Feed = gain × 3. 250 − 50 = 200 lb of gain × 3 = 600 lb — 12 fifty-pound bags (Wisconsin). At $20 a bag, $240.
  3. Carcass = live weight × 72%: 250 lb → 180 lb hanging. Packaged pork = carcass × 74–80% bone-in or 65–70% boneless (K-State, UW–Madison): about 133–144 lb bone-in, 117–126 lb boneless.
  4. Cost per pound = (pig + feed + processing + anything else) ÷ packaged pounds. $65.50 + $240 = $305.50 ÷ about 139 lb = $2.20 a pound before the processor's bill.

Why do people say homegrown pork costs $2 a pound and others say $5?

Mostly because they are dividing by different pounds and leaving out different bills.

Hanging weight vs. packaged
A 250-lb hog is about 180 lb hanging but only about 117–144 lb in packages (K-State, UW–Madison). The same dollars divided by hanging weight look 25–35% cheaper
Bone-in vs. boneless
Bone-in cuts are about 74–80% of carcass, boneless and closely trimmed 65–70% — about ten points, or 18 lb on a 180-lb carcass
Feed efficiency
Wisconsin's 3:1 assumes a comfortable pig. A pig in a cold barn eats more for the same gain (Penn State); a winter hog costs more than a summer one
Processing
No extension price exists — kill fees, cut-and-wrap per pound, and curing or smoking vary by shop and region, and they can equal or exceed the feed bill

"$2 a pound" is usually pig plus feed divided by hanging weight. "$5 a pound" is usually everything — including cured hams and bacon — divided by what went into the freezer. Both can be true of the same pig.

Divide by packaged pounds, include the processor's whole bill, and you'll have a number you can compare to the store.

What changes your number

  • Feed price. The biggest line after processing. Every $5 a bag moves a 600-lb finish by $60 a pig.
  • Market weight. Wisconsin's table runs from 570 lb of feed for a 240-lb hog to 690 lb for a 280-lb one — every 10 lb more hog is 30 lb more feed, and a bigger carcass means a bigger per-pound processing bill too.
  • Season. A 200-lb finisher is comfortable at 50–60°F (Penn State). Raise pigs through the summer and fall and you skip paying feed to keep them warm.
  • Two pigs, not one. Pigs are social and the fixed costs — the feeder pig run, the pen, the trip to the processor — split two ways. Most small farms raise two.
  • Cured cuts. Curing and smoking ham and bacon is an extra per-pound charge and the product weighs less when it's done. Ask before you tick the boxes.
  • What it's really worth. Compare against what that mix of cuts costs at the store, not the price of pork chops — most of a hog is roasts, ground and sausage.

A number we won't give you

A processing price. Kill fees and cut-and-wrap charges vary by shop, by region and by what you order, and no extension service publishes a figure we'd stand behind. The calculator starts processing at $0 so it can't pretend; put in your processor's quote.

One pig, 50 → 250 lb, before processing

Feed priceFeedPig + feedPer lb, bone-in (~139 lb)Per lb, boneless (~122 lb)
$15 a 50-lb bag600 lb · $180$246$1.77$2.02
$20 a 50-lb bag600 lb · $240$306$2.20$2.51
$25 a 50-lb bag600 lb · $300$366$2.64$3.01

Feeder pig at Missouri's $65.50. Packaged weights at the midpoints of K-State/UW–Madison's 74–80% bone-in and 65–70% boneless of a 180-lb carcass. Bag prices are examples.

Time to market weight

Start → marketAt 2.0 lb a dayAt 1.7 lb a day
50 → 250 lb100 days118 days
50 → 280 lb115 days136 days
40 → 250 lb105 days124 days

Average daily gain of about 1.7–2.0 lb for growing-finishing pigs (Wisconsin).

Run your own numbers

Two pigs from 50 to 250 lb at Missouri's feeder price and $20 feed — put in your prices and your processor's quote.

Your pigs and your prices

Processing — ask your processor

Processing starts at $0 because we won’t guess your processor’s prices. Dressing is 72% of live weight (K-State).

Cost per pound in the freezer

$2.20 / lb

Per pig, all in
$306
All 2 pigs
$611
Feed per pig
600 lb · $240
Hanging weight
180 lb
Packaged meat per pig
139 lb
Time to market weight
100–118 days

Where the money goes

For a pig finished on purchased feed, the feed is roughly three-quarters of the cost before processing ($240 of $305 at $20 a bag). The feeder pig is the rest. Processing then adds its own line — get the quote before you buy the pig, because it decides whether the whole thing pencils out.

Then stop planning from averages

The calculator is the estimate. In Homestead Paradise you log the feed and the weigh-ins, and the pen shows its real feed conversion and feed cost per head per day; the processing record takes the hanging weight and the cut sheet, so you see your actual cost per pound when the boxes come home. 14-day free trial, no card.

Start your 14-day trial — no card

Keep planning

How much meat do you get from the hanging weight?How many laying hens do I need?How much coop space does a chicken need?How many meat chickens should I raise?How much hay do goats need for winter?How much hay do sheep need for winter?

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from a land-grant university extension service, a government agriculture or energy agency, or a breed registry — never from another blog.