Pasture-Raised pork for local customers

Local families, food-minded shoppers, farmers market customers, and sometimes restaurants or butcher shops.

Sell whole or half hog shares, or packaged cuts like chops, bacon and sausage. Packaged cuts earn more per pig but require a more tightly regulated processing route.

• Comfortable handling livestock
• Basic fencing and building skills
• Marketing and selling directly to customers
• Record keeping for feed and costs

• Zoning, agricultural use rules and any HOA or lease limits on keeping livestock, check with your county
• Rules on selling meat: cuts sold by the pound usually need USDA or state-inspected processing, while live-animal shares may use custom processing. Check your state department of agriculture
• Manure, runoff and odor rules, plus neighbor relations
• Disease risk and biosecurity, and any state rules on moving or registering swine, check with your state veterinarian
• General liability insurance and farm or product coverage, ask an agent
• Feed price swings and weather, which can squeeze margins

Startup costs are typically around $3,000 to $15,000, depending on the number of pigs, fencing, shelter and feed. Feed price swings and weather can squeeze margins, so build in some room.

Monthly revenue is typically around $600 to $3,000, depending on how many batches you raise, how many pigs you sell and how you sell them. These are estimates and vary through the year.

Check zoning, agricultural use rules and any HOA or lease limits on livestock with your county. Cuts sold by the pound usually need USDA or state-inspected processing, so check with your state department of agriculture and state veterinarian.